Chapter 9

The first pillar of civil society – its Politics

Australia is my home and I know it pretty well, not as an academic or other “authority”, but as a keen casual observer who has been taken on an incredible journey. You get a great view from the moon, from the outside, or looking on from the other side.

But it’s my view, so it’s flavoured by my experience which has built a knowing that prosperity is best not measured in money or things, that you are better oﬀ being concerned for those with less, instead of accumulating more for yourself and others who have more. I’ve learnt to know, or awakened to know that we will always survive and even be richer, even if we have nothing

This perspective can suggest a bias, there was a choice there, You are in one camp or the other, the typical mind/binary attitude. You can be looney left, centre left, centre, centre right, hard right, dangerously looney right, or shun the lot, but they are all factions within the binary bubble. But you can also be neutral outside that bubble.

What I’m saying is there is also a genuine perspective from the dimension of

Oneness. That doesn’t mean there isn’t pressure from mind to put your little self first. There is, and it’s always chatting away from the sideline, and often it’s impossible to resist. It can be very seductive, like a beautiful Kali, skimpy red dress, red lips, sipping red wine, but try to keep your true self aloof, taking control when you can, and be aware of the consequences, which will eventually catch up if you can’t.

***

As said above, modern Australia is governed by democracy, the political system which is considered a pillar of the DCCC success. Most democracies have one or 2 voting assemblies of parliament. Switzerland has a direct democracy which gives the people considerable influence, the USA has a Presidential democracy where elected delegates elect a President who runs an executive branch of government. Singapore is a representative democracy where a particularly successful political party has always been in the majority, while Australia copied the UK with its Westminster representative system.

The USA is a paradox as the Founding Fathers had no intention of forming a democracy:

Thomas Jefferson said “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule. Where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%”.

John Adams said: “Democracy wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that does not commit suicide”.

James Madison said: “Democracy is the most vile form of government. Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, incompatible with personal security or the rights of property”.

Great Britain’s Churchill said: “Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.

While Plato wrote in “The Republic”: “And so tyranny follows out of democracy”.

Here’s a couple of my suggestions;

Democracy can be likened to a helicopter. It needs constant power and guidance to keep it in the air. It doesn’t naturally glide like a fixed wing aircraft. Also like a helicopter it’s held together by hundreds of nuts and bolts all fighting each other.

A Democracy lacks an overarching vision, essential if your steering a nation towards a golden age. Instead it has 2 or more political parties or factions each pursuing power so they can dismantle the others vision and implement their own.

Are Democracy and Liberty incompatible?

The Founding Fathers had no intention of creating a democracy, in the sense of a government that would be guided by popular opinion. So they chose a hybrid presidential liberal democracy, but as we have seen their fears have come home to roost. Socrates had similar fears, for similar reasons, which ultimately cost him his life.

The founding fathers knew that democracy inherently empowers the electorate at the expense of individual freedom to choose. Here’s a few quotes from the book – “Liberty in Peril” by Randall Holcolme taken from a paper titled “Why America’s Founding Fathers Didn’t Want a Democracy” by Gary Galles, Professor of Economics at Pepperdine University and member of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). These quotes get right to the point.

“The role of government as the American Founders saw it, was to protect the rights of individuals, and the biggest threat to individual liberty was the government itself. So they designed a government with constitutionally limited powers, constrained to carry out only those activities specifically allowed by the Constitution. This book describes how the fundamental principle underlying American government has been transformed from protecting individual liberty to carrying out the will of the people, as revealed by a decision-making process”

“The powers emboldened in America’s twenty first century democratic government are those that eighteenth-century Americans revolted against to escape “

“The principle of liberty suggests that first and foremost, the government’s role is to protect the rights of individuals. The principle of democracy suggests that collective decisions are made according to the will of the majority. The greater the allowable scope of democracy in government, the greater the threat to liberty. In particular, the ascendancy of the concept of democracy threatens the survival of the free market economy, which by extension of the Founding Fathers’ views on liberty”

“At one time elections might have been viewed as a method of selecting competent people to undertake a job with constitutionally-specified limits. With the extension of democracy, elections become referendums on public policy “

“The Constitution devised democratic processes for collective decision-making, but the Founders had no intention of designing a government that would respond to the will of the majority”

There’s more but let’s leave it there. The above in italics is the understanding of the concept of liberty, it’s core, as espoused by US Republican and Libertarian ideology. The reaffirmation of the principle with a refined and focused strategy was, and still is the Neoliberal movement.

Neoliberalism is a reaffirmation, but it stops short of emulating the Founding Fathers and Socrates concern about giving elements of the mob a vote. Which is not surprising as the loudest voice in any debate is the conservative media, which created the 21st century mob, so is in the best position to coax them to vote for the conservative cause.

It also shows why the Democrats aren’t beholden to that Liberty ideal, and favour a bigger and more involved representative Democratic government.

Which gives us the fundamental polar opposite positions of the Democrats and Republicans.

The Founding Fathers were not Christians but more inclined towards Deism. With Socrates we have a deeper spiritual awareness as he was closer to a true master in Pythagoras, so we can expand on the Founding Fathers understanding and bring in a lofty Trinity like this:

Socrates was in a binary battle in the opposite corner to Pericles. Socrates we can place in the Libertarian corner, but not necessarily in the American Republican context. While Pericles was obviously a big government democrat. Together those guys were polar opposites, so one will be active (so positive), the other passive (so negative).

Socrates as a disciple of Pythagoras, who as an apolitical God-man was representing the Oneness, so is neutral. But our trinity of positive, negative, neutral can be pondered in a couple of ways.

In scenario 1 — Socrates is being conservative, resisting change so is passive therefore negative, while Pericles is causing change, building things, being active, so he’s positive. But we could switch that around.

In Scenario 2 — Socrates was a student of the God-man so was applying a lofty principle. God doesn’t administer a democracy, it’s more like a benevolent dictatorship, from which it is removed, like a king who is distant from his subjects, his agent, energy, spirit does that work. There are rules for those subjects who are residing in the binary bubble which aren’t open to debate, but the subjects have freewill to do as they choose. They have the freedom to screw up if they choose, so it’s more libertarian than democratic.

Pericles the democrat was playing a nurturing, motherly role, so he was feminine, passive, negative. Socrates was representing the higher principle so is positive, active and masculine.

So the name of the game here is keep an open mind, don’t be dogmatic, pose the question which scenario is best, under what circumstances. I’d leave that conversation open, reserve judgement, then it’s a question awaiting an answer which will come from out of the ether when you lest expect it.

The higher perspective is this: Both Socrates and Pericles are binary opposites, so when compared to Pythagoras they are both negative. So we can be Democrats or Republicans, but that choice should be kept in perspective, and don’t get so emotionally involved that we lose sight of who we really are and it’s positive objective.

We should remember as Soul we are outside that binary battle and might achieve more in the long run by staying neutral, as a servant of spirit. But of course, sometimes you have to go in hard and get dirty. Do you go to a war and get killed? Maybe you have to.

Here are reactions from a christian perspective: “The meek (humble, gentle, mild) shall inherit the earth”; implies those who forgo worldly power will be rewarded in the kingdom of heaven. “Turn the other cheek” refers to responding to insult without retort and allowing more insult.

But you don’t ordinarily “turn the other cheek” to a bully, you run or fight back, unless you submit to avoid a worse fate, though to offer the other cheek to be slapped is defiance. The image of a dog on its back, feet in the air, with a growling bulldog standing over it.

Which says accept your predicament, Christian pacifism, Gandhi’s non resistance, which works as the aggressor looks bad when responding with more aggression.

Another option is if you can’t escape then resist, and hope spirit comes to your rescue. If it doesn’t then the beating you receive is maybe what you deserve.

***

We will see later that Singapore, as a modern twentieth century city state has libertarian aspects which would please both Socrates and the Founding Fathers, but they wouldn’t approve of Singapore’s “democratic” government’s social welfare, involvement in massive capital projects like public housing, and service delivery. (Singapore leads the world with 85% of its citizens owning their homes.)

So Singapore is a hybrid model of government and its founder Lee Kuan Yew was an agnostic political genius who established Singapore as the neutral hub close to the centre of the future’s reorganised world order.

Being agnostic Mr Lee held a neutral position on religion. The economy is free market capitalism, very low taxes, all backed by strong rules. The motherly side of the state keeps the social welfare and housing needs of the population in focus. Singapore is therefore a well balanced model, but with 2 features which would shock the US Founding Fathers. The only guns in Singapore are controlled by the state, and though the media has its freedoms, no disruptive journalism is tolerated.

It can be argued that Mr Lee was a benevolent dictator, which suggests it’s the best form of government, but that’s while it can be sustained, as it’s rare to be multi generational. In Singapore’s case it’s an island city state of around 5 million people, so less unruly than most other nations.

But Singapore does have a very diverse population and is located in a complex and volatile region of the world. It’s majority Chinese, surrounded by very colourful Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian nations. But what makes it unique in the world is what I’ll call it’s mystical backstory. It’s what sets it up as a jewel, on a very solid symbolic foundation, well equipped to weather the turbulent future.

As said earlier, it’s position on Religion is Neutral, it’s Business model is active, so masculine and positive. While it motherly social support is feminine, passive and negative. Very simply that symmetry is a beautifully balanced political trinity, which crowns Mr Lee the political genius of our times.

***

The Founding Fathers despised democracy so they set the US up as a hybrid Republic instead. There voters elect representatives who choose a President who has veto power over decisions made by the people’s House of Representatives. The senate represents the 50 states, each with 2 popularly elected representatives. Interestingly, in the USA the 2 opposing parties are the Republicans on the right and the Democrats on the left

The American model has been manipulated by business and industry, particularly partisan media interference and blackmail by the NRA, which has worked its way to where personal gun ownership is central to the American concept of Liberty and Freedom. At the extreme end the heavily armed mob would rather be dead than be denied the right to bare arms. It’s an increasingly dangerous example of giving mind too much freedom, which finally elected a sociopath in Donald Trump to the White House, which is just what the Founding Fathers were trying to avoid.

It’s tempting to see this as a major milestone in the system’s decay, shown up by its inability to respond rationally to the Covid19 and racial unrest crises, which ideally required level-headed conciliation and national consensus of a disciplined and cooperative society, the opposite of the USA today. The Jan06 insurrection and the Republican Party’s inability to universally condemn it, with the still rising influence of the Christian right have the onlookers abroad shaking their heads in disbelief.

So the Founding Fathers were right, as was Churchill, who said in its defence that it was the least worst system of government. But as Plato suggested, tyranny can evolve out of democracy, as we saw in the Jan06 insurrection. The reasoning behind those sentiments is that some people should not have the right to vote as they are too easily influenced by manipulative lobby groups, including partisan media with narrow objectives, which is precisely the scenario we see playing out today.

But in the end there isn’t much difference between the republic model the Founding Fathers were after, or the democratic model they abhorred, because the elected representatives themselves are not necessarily worthy of being given the power to vote on behalf of the people. So the mob can inadvertently elect one of themselves to be President.

What is relevant to the thesis of this story is that both Presidential and Democratic systems are representative models giving voters a choice between 2 opposing sides, which is the underlying problem. Because of the nature of mind there always needs to be checks and balances as the stick, and a constant appeal to people’s magnanimous side as the carrot, or it will progressively trend down, seeking more selfish partisan short-term outcomes.

To use the analogy of computers, it’s an automatic response, as in an unchecked computer like mind-driven world the software in question, by default, chooses self before community. As you remove regulations and glorify individual freedom, the deeper into destructive inequality you slowly will go.

***

Democracies can be graded by measuring the level of social welfare they provide for their citizens. At the conservative neoliberal end we have the USA with the least social welfare of all the majors. At the other end are the Nordic countries practicing the Nordic model, with Sweden the bookend with the highest level of social welfare of all the nations. The EU democracies all practice lesser degrees of social welfare and have so far resisted the extremes pushed by America, even when its a condition of access to the US market.

Within the Nordic model are variations of Democratic socialism where, as welfare states, a primary concern is directing resources to those most in need. The measure here is how welfare payments are determined and who gets them, because at the Swedish end it’s universal social welfare, it’s available to all, while as you progress towards the USA end the social welfare diminishes as means-testing is progressively introduced to determine who’s in and who’s out.

Social stigma to welfare is lowest in the social democratic states, and highest in the mean-spirited neoliberal states. In the centre right is Australia, where a neoliberal treasurer talked about lifters and leaners, lifters inferring contributors to society, leaners were takers, users, parasites, dole bludgers.

Australia is a staunch follower of USA-style neoliberal economics. Some even say Australia is Uncle Sam’s little puppy dog, or the deputy sheriﬀ policing the South Pacific region, but that’s in part Australia’s paranoia and lack of self awareness, so wanting to stay close to the USA as its protector. Interestingly Australia is a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and the King or Queen of England is the Head of the Australian Government. So maybe that’s another example of paranoia, afraid to stand on your own feet? Though it’s principle cause is probably attachment to the mother country by the conservative side, backed by a compliant media.

So social polarisation and inequality grows the more you move from the welfare states to the more extreme neoliberal democracies. The focus shifts from concern for society over to the economy, the rationale being the better shape the economy is in the better for everyone. I generalise, but we saw it with the Covid 19 crisis where the left-leaning governments close down their economies to protect lives, while the right-wing governments want to open up to minimise economic damage.

Though Sweden did the opposite and followed the open economy path, but received little economic benefit while incurring among the highest death rates from the virus.

The social welfare states are practicing elements of Keynesian economics, which was originally adopted to deal with the social and economic problems which followed the 1930’s Great Depression, while the libertarian states have adopted interpretations of Friedman neoliberal economics, with the USA as cheerleader and driving force. In the 1970’s Keynesian economics ran into problems and faltered, which opened the door for the change.

So after 50-plus years of Friedman economics, with parts of the world perilously close to imploding, others exploding, some doing fine, it’s a good time to evaluate how we got into this mess and hopefully find a way out. One lot who are doing surprisingly well are those Nordic states, certainly in the well-being and happiness stakes. So it depends what you want to measure, well-being of the majority or the wealth of a few.

The gradual progression from welfare state to free-market neoliberalism has taken the USA to the very edge, and still maintain civil order. The inequality is now breathtaking, it even exceeds pre the Great Depression, which of course led to a massive implosion. Over 50 years the ratio of workers pay to the CEO pay went from 1:10 to 1:100 and is still rising, while the workers pay is now going backwards.

How can that extraordinary inequality between labour and management remuneration be justified? Well it can’t be justified, but it can be explained. That progression is caused by deliberate government policy, driven by neoliberal ideology. It’s progression doesn’t stop because the people who make the laws and administer them, or can influence compliant lawmakers take advantage of the loopholes and plunder the booty for themselves and their supporters who keep them in power. They pay themselves like kings, but are moral paupers. At least a junkie can blame their excesses on a chemical addiction.

It is justified they say, as it’s the market value. Well that’s the problem. If you want social equity you have to legislate for it, you can’t leave it to private enterprise, to the market to arrive at the right compromise. There needs to be a power balance between capital and labour. Workers and Executive’s rewards ratios need to be mediated by the government. Well, that’s the Nordic Model, but it’s anathema to the seemingly unstoppable neoliberal machine.

So what you see in the USA today is a decaying system nearing the end of its near monopoly on prosperity, pushed along first by partisan media brainwashing the public and threatening government, which gave the radical right and disenfranchised voters a voice. It’s then amplified by the radicalised keyboard warriors via their unregulated social media outbursts and conspiracy theories.

The loud anti establishment expanding radical base doesn’t care about truth as they just want blood. Now, with such force of numbers, cultivated by the conservative mainstream media to create and build their own following, for financial gain, when they try to backtrack, they are attacked and threatened by the mob they created for going soft. So the conservative media is now beholden to the monster it helped create.

***

China also has a representative system, very complex, as it has a huge footprint and population but, unlike a democracy, China’s supreme parliament does not have opposing political parties, its executive decision making body is the Chinese Communist Party. This poses an interesting question for those who believe that democracy is essential for this growing power to reach its full potential. That if China is going to achieve a dominant position on planet earth, then eventually they will have to become more democratic.

But that’s delusional as for all democracy’s theoretical positives, it does have some glaring faults, particularly when you weigh up the enormous waste of energy and resources caused by the 2 or more squabbling sides failing to arrive at the best answer for the future good of the nation.

As said elsewhere but worth repeating, in general a democracy is incapable of pursuing an overarching vision as its 2 or more warring sides are focused on winning power so they can dismantle their opponents vision and implement their own. One step forward one backwards.

Again, Singapore is one example of a democracy which will not only survive, but prosper, as it’s grooming itself as the “Switzerland” of the East, with an ethnic Chinese interpretation of the white man’s usual 2 party binary system. Maybe now, with the passing of its enlightened founder, it could be called an “Authoritarian Democracy” as it sets pretty high standards which it doesn’t encourage its populace to go below. So is it a Benevolent, Authoritarian Democracy? No, that acronym says BAD and it’s the opposite – it’s Good for the world. So maybe Bad would be the acronym deployed by its opponents, and yes there are those Singaporeans within, and have emigrated abroad who don’t like the direction Singapore has taken.

Speaking of BAD. Singapore’s 3 letter code for its membership of World Sailing, until 2022 was SIN, which in Christian terms says bad, so Singapore recently had its code changed to SNG.

So there is an obvious point of difference between Singapore and Neoliberal Democracies where the media are free to dredge the bottom of the barrel in quest of selling newspapers, which marshals the bottom feeders and gives them a collective voice.

Isn’t it good for a government to uphold standards, encourage more, rather than just give in to everyone’s frivolous wants. And there lies the problem, as mind defaults down to selfishness, so eventually a democracy can descend into anarchy, if you let it.

So to recap using other words: In Singapore there’s a strong political party which has evolved from the vision of an enlightened leader, agnostic with Confucian, humanist values, whose role in history will record the foundation of Singapore at the hub of the post DCCC-centric world. Central to Singapore’s well being is a media which encourages the wholesome instincts of a society, in contrast to the DCCC’s misguided role of the media as the fourth estate, which supposedly tempers government, and its own excess, and the provider to the people’s right to know. In real life it does neither.

***

Chapter 7 began with the macro picture of pastoralists migrating across Asia and Europe from the Caspian-Pontic Steppes. They travelled on foot, women and small children riding in covered wagons or on horse back, oblivious of what’s over the horizon. How things have changed. Today travel is at close to the speed of sound, everyone has a smart phone so communication and research is at the speed of light. The rapid spin of the news cycle is instantly reporting disasters from every corner and niche on the globe. Mostly disasters as that’s what sells and the ghouls love best.

Those stories then are usually reporting on people’s misfortunes, so in general they are karmic resolutions, many the unraveling of intertwined family and ethnic relationships. It’s accelerating in frequency and intensity, which suggests it’s also society which is unraveling. So as the macro story descends into the micro world of personalities, we will also do here.

Our focus is about individuals, community leaders and politicians making short sighted, misguided decisions which don’t contribute to a harmonious and sustainable future. It will expose the folly in allowing the trifecta of total press freedom, the trickle down theory of economics and the outrageous selfishness of unbridled neoliberalism. While the setting is Australia there will be similar examples from every society, regardless of their political persuasion.

Some will say that it’s human nature to be greedy and self serving. Well maybe, but it also depends on how you define being human. Is being human confined to the time spent attached to our primate body, or if you’ve moved on from this material world are you still classified as human? I would think not, as pure consciousness is a spark of divine energy, the antithesis of mind and the little self’s wants and pleasures.

***

Going back to the leaders of ancient Greece; the enlightened mathematician Godman, the philosophers, politicians, the architects and engineers who designed and built the hard and soft infrastructure which enabled its golden age. Two thousand five hundred years later Lee Kuan Yew is the standout leader who, through his drive, intellect and political savvy, was the driving force behind the vision of Singapore as the hub of a new age world wheel, centred in Asia.

Then there are those historical characters working in the negative to assist any decaying states on their downward slide, which is where characters like Donald Trump have to feature. But maybe an even more significant role was played by media moguls, for without their support, Trump and other destructive characters would never have been elected to high office in the first place.

Not of such global significance, but certainly a major player on the Australian stage, was the saga of Tony Abbott as Australia’s opposition leader. He ran a period of total opposition and negativity, when every progressive government initiative was opposed on principle, the rule being never give the government a win even if it would be advantageous to the nation.

You white ant any elected body long and hard enough and it will collapse, and that’s what Abbott achieved, assisted by relentless partisan attack from the conservative media. Abbott then won the next election, but during this period there were denunciations of Singapore, that it was behaving like a dictatorship, and the then Singapore prime minister was building a dynasty based on his father, Lee Kuan Yew.

I lived in Singapore for 10 years and have come and gone for 50. I obviously love the place. It reminded me how Singapore’s fourth PM, Lee Hsian Loong had grown up in his father’s footsteps. Lee senior was his mentor. The younger was sent to some of the most prestigious universities in the world, he joined the military and spent years as a senior officer then took a seat in parliament and was a minister in a range of portfolios.

Along the way he nearly died of cancer, which must have been a great learning experience. He served as a minister under two prime ministers after his father retired, before being elevated to the top job himself.

Compare that to the qualifications needed to become a PM under Australia’s version of democracy. Where Singapore’s PM had spent 50 years being mentored by his father, the political genius and important historical character with the vision to turn a mosquito-infested tropical island with no natural resources, other than its location on the crossroads for the world’s shipping heading from Europe to Asia, into the sea and air transport hub for the Asia-Pacific-Indian Ocean Region.

It could become the hub for both tourism and business, so it needed to be scrupulously clean and corruption free, with its other asset being its colourful ethnic mix of people from across the region. So Lee junior spent a life learning how to captain this ship at anchor at the centre of what will be the new age of the East.

Meanwhile Australia’s future leader was born in London to his Australian mum and British dad who moved to Australia when he was 2. He went to a Christian catholic school, studied law and economics at Sydney University, where he was a conservative student politics leader, then attended Queens college in Oxford as a Rhodes scholar studying politics, philosophy and economics.

When back in Australia he trained as a Jesuit priest, worked as a journalist, and a political advisor and on the fringes of politics for various causes, like leading the pro-monarchist movement opposed to Australia becoming a republic with its own head of state, instead of being shackled to Great Britain and its Queen (now her son as the King).

Eventually Abbott had acquired the right skills to conjure his way to lead a political party and automatically become PM if he managed to spin, with help from a more than compliant media, to swing a slim majority of the electorate and win an election. If that’s the qualifications required to run Australia then obviously Australia has no hope of keeping up with the rise of Asia.

Abbott was on the extreme right, and sure we can come up with leaders on the left to try to find some balance, but none will be as extreme as Abbott, but that’s not the point. I’m comparing the qualifications required to be leader of a neoliberal western democracy, compared to a more resilient, albeit small, more easily governed model.

So in the century ahead we may not see the demise of democracy par se, only those variants which allowed a totally combative unchecked system to prevail. While Singapore’s media are encouraged to help build a prosperous and compassionate society, in the West it’s free to sow discord and discontent and topple governments to suit its own agenda.

If you think I’m exaggerating the role of the media, because you don’t see it criticised by journalists, consider the obvious: Journalists work in the media profession and it takes great courage to take on the Murdoch machine, because your career will be destroyed by a character assassination campaign that’s designed to warn others to not follow in your footsteps. Dictators like Putin have journalists shot dead as they open the front door to their home, but the end result is the same, deathly silence.

That Abbott could be hailed as a party hero after his election win shows the ethical bankruptcy of Australian politics. On the eve of the election he promised on live TV there were 5 institutions that he would not defund, but within a week he had announced funding cuts to them all. It was surreal. He had won an election based on a campaign run by the conservative media that Julia Gillard, the then PM, was a liar. JuLiar she was called, but in a few days Abbott showed that he made pre election promises but had every intention of doing the opposite. It left everyone stunned, what sort of bubble did he reside in, was this a comedy sketch as it couldn’t be real. But not a word of condemnation from his media allies.

It always makes me chuckle when we see our political leaders attending church every Sunday, but then performing the most “un Christian” acts on a daily basis. How can they destroy the lives of hundreds of refugees? How can they participate in wars like Iraq? I call them phoney Christians.

And then there was Julia Gillard, who was hounded and laughed out of office by the self-serving macho conservative politicians and media for being a liar, because she was forced to change the semantics describing her government’s emissions trading scheme. That was it, the basis for branding her a liar.

But Julia had actually shown her true side, she told the world she was an atheist. What sort of politician would say such a silly thing? She told the truth, she threw away 5% of potential votes, and gave the phoney Christian lads another spear to throw. I think by saying she was an atheist, Julia showed she was less the liar the spin artists claimed her to be. But that’s the system enjoyed in Australia.

One of the memorable quotes from a prominent conservative radio shock jock was to proclaim, that “Julia’s father would have died of shame” for her lying and deceiving the public. And “That she should be tied into a chaff bag and dumped out at sea”. So it’s not only the print media who should be in the dock.

Abbott didn’t survive long as PM, as he was deposed in an internal coup. But, after vowing to take a back seat, he went on to do the opposite and was instrumental in destroying his successor, until voted out at the next election.

But after a career of perfecting the negative art of opposition, at the 2020 National Honours awards, Abbott received Australia’s highest honour, which shrieks how bankrupt the system has become when politicians, no matter how dismally they failed, should be able to get themselves the highest honours for simply doing their perk-laden job, when the real heroes pick up the crumbs. Actually that sounds like an extension of their trickle-down theory.

Interestingly, the chairman of the Council for the Order of Australia who approved Abbot’s award was an ex conservative politician appointed by a conservative PM. Sounds petty of me, yes, but the point is that decaying Conservative governments can’t resist any opportunity to nominate their allies, and stack lucrative statutory boards and positions with their political mates. Both sides are guilty of this, but it should be unsurprising that the parties which are more self centred, and preference money over people, will be more prone to this low level corruption.

But Abbott’s story dwarfs into insignificance when compared to the state of USA politics which delivered the world Donald Trump, the Make America Great Again man, the propagator if not the inventor of fake news. Then came his impeachment trial and vindication by the USA Senate’s Republican majority, twice. All semblance of ethics is out the window, but a common thread through both Australia and the USA was, and is the conservative media, without whose endorsement and support neither would have won their respective elections.

A clarification is needed here. Where Australian politics are mentioned, its referring to Federal Political Parties, the National Parliament, not the States of which there are 6. The States are far more moderate, grounded and fair, as they are the principal providers, administrators and funders of public education and health care. These are close to those bastions of unionised people power and welfare.

***

Abraham Lincoln used the words “government of the people, by the people, for the people” in his Gettysburg address to describe Democracy. But in many jurisdictions, including Australia, it is hardly that, as it is controlled by political parties who represent cohorts of the population who have the resources to buy sufficient advertising to brainwash a gullible population into voting them into power. That doesn’t sound very democratic.

Many of the politicians themselves have come up through the ranks as political staffers so they live in a political bubble, having never worked in the real world of people. Except many have been trained as lawyers, some are barristers, a strange but fitting profession to bring to politics as the barristers job is not to work with the truth, but to spin the half truth which benefits their client, no matter how guilty they are.

It’s why politicians and lawyers are the brunt of so many jokes. Salesman is another “vocation” which can easily degenerate into sell at any cost, instead of providing a service to assist the customer to make the right choice, to benefit them, not the salesman. Like politicians and lawyers, used car and real estate salesmen inspire their own jokes.

Which is really what politicians can’t help doing, as the system says their job is to benefit their electorate, which then votes them back in at the next election. At every turn, for electors and the elected it’s about self interest.

So democratic politicians aren’t always about taking a long-term position which is best for the nation, as it’s always with an eye on winning the next election. But is that the specific fault of politicians or an inevitable outcome when doing business in the binary bubble where balance is only fleetingly achieved as the pendulum swings past equilibrium on its way to the opposite over reach.

Apart from the opposing political parties there are the fringe groups who support and fund them and most are reasonably transparent. Generally they represent the various community groupings, like unions for workers, associations for social justice, not-for-profits, the different religions, and business chambers. And then there are think tanks which play a very dubious role as they are usually there with a specific purpose to advance the agenda of their wealthy benefactors.

But then there is what Jeffery Archer portrayed in his novel “The Fourth Estate”, which follows the lives of 2 media barons who jostle to build the world’s biggest media empire. The book is based on two real-life men, Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch, who fought to control the newspaper market in Britain. In real life Maxwell disappeared oﬀ his power yacht one night out in the Atlantic. Murdoch, an Australian, went on to control 60% of the print media in Australia, then changed his nationality to American so he could expand his empire and influence global politics on a truly grand scale.

The fourth estate is based on the notion that the press is a watchdog on the powerful institutions, or estates, the original 3 in the UK being the Church of England, and the Houses of Commons and Lords. The fourth estate is charged with keeping an eye on the activities of the estates, including itself, which would help society function properly, openly and honestly. That’s a definition taken from Wikipedia.

It’s always a fun exercise in symbology to consider how a structure shapes up against the loftiest interpretation of a Trinity. The 4th estate prioritises the 3 estates, the Church so religion, with the Commons and Lords the other 2 corners making up a trinity. I think the 4th estate is up itself by placing its position at the centre of the triangle, elevated above, making a 3 dimensional symbol with 4 points, 4 sides each an equilateral triangle. A god like figure, overseeing itself and all below. So let’s turn it upside down so the structure is now standing on a point, the triangles now all pointing down. As water flows down to level out on the lowest negative plain, it’s demonstrating where we should probably place the 4th estate.

If we superimpose another 3 dimensional equilateral triangle pointing up with both structures sharing a common centre, now we have a 3 dimensional 6 pointed star, like the Star of David, only 3D. This structure then can have a God at top point and a Satan at the bottom. Each deity can have 3 qualities with the central point being some all magnificent super God, or a void within.

The trouble with that is its so rigid, life isn’t like that, it’s fluid, while equilateral triangles are a nice symmetrical shape that screams it’s a scam, it’s a stunt of mind to suck you in, to trap you.

So if someone wants to create a new age religion they could start with this structure and concoct a narrative around it. Its got the 2 binary poles of say good and evil, light and dark. Or ones the father, so it’s active, the other is mother, so passive. You can put mum on top, or dad depending how this scam is to be pitched. It’s got provision for 3 motherly and 3 fatherly characteristics. Or make them 3 attributes of god and 3 for the devil.

It fits in with a mystical system revolving around 9, put the one at the centre point, “at the point of light within the mind of god” could be its mantra. Imagine the metric system without a zero, that’s what we are talking about here, cycles of 9. Without the one it’s uneven numbers of 3, 5, 7 and 9 have power, while 2, 4, 6 and 8 have logic. Without the points/poles/deities at top and bottom we have 3 plus 3 plus the divine centre equals 7. Put a 7 pedalled lotus in there, a throne for our Yogi to sit on cross legged.

Wow, what a symbol, what a mandala, all we need is some wealthy donors to fund our ashram, until it all goes up in flames in a shootout with the police who’ve come to save the enslaved disciples. But we are probably too late with this one as it’s such a compelling story, I bet it’s already in use somewhere on a far distant planet in outer space, in the upper echelons of their binary bubble religion.

***

It’s a lovely idea to think that media moguls would be concerned primarily with the welfare of the whole community above their own self interest, that would be the proverbial oxymoronic outcome. Anything is possible, but highly unlikely, as wealth and power are very corrupting forces. And you wouldn’t ordinarily expect men who have built business empires to have done so from the paradoxical principle that if you don’t want anything you can have it all.

It’s more like they are driven by a lust for power and possessions, which is bound to involve a significant level of greed. Unless they are like genuine god men, able to seperate themselves from their possessions and any corrupting business actions, and do everything in the name of god, or at least for the betterment of others, otherwise they are bound to be part of the lower world system and will have to live and die by its rules.

It’s a slippery slope, like a drug of addiction, not so much chemical but a psychological addiction, which is not a bad analogy if you can imagine habits as akin to the needle on an old vinyl record stuck in one track, digging a deeper groove every time it’s re-played. Or like your computer detects your previous choices and asks do you want to take this path again, until it’s the only path, and as it worked before why not, so the deeper in you go.

It’s exciting and rewarding to satisfy the passions of mind, from another perspective known as perversions, but as the doyen of conservative economic theory Milton Friedman famously said “there is no such thing as a free lunch”. Which the media barons know well, but it would have been helpful for their personal growth and self preservation to have known all the rules before selecting only those which accommodated their own ambition.

But it’s not a matter of justice as we usually think of it. Friedman is right, there is no free lunch and just because someone seems to escape justice by dying, that’s only their physical body that has died, and it’s not necessarily the responsible entity which created any imbalance which remains to be corrected. That statement is understandable once you accept the idea of mind as an “entity” and the brain as only the equivalent of mind’s hardware. Then the imbalance is still active, and the individual owner of the mind to which it is paired will have to return to a physical body so the situation can be resolved. Seems a logical enough process to me, that’s the purpose of reincarnation and it continues on till we have learned how to discriminate between what encourages true freedom and what entraps us, and learn to live by that basic rule.

In real life Robert Maxwell drowned at sea, while Rupert Murdoch kept going, abounded by a seemingly endless abundance of good fortune, much of it unfortunately artificial, as it was coerced under threat of retribution. Of course there were some ups and some downs, as to be expected by any adventurer.

But to have survived and flourished, to have been a decision maker in many of the world’s life and death confrontations, he must also have been a very important historical character. And to be given this role starring in this stage of the rise and fall of the white man movie should make any egotistical giant glow with pride.

He has been such an inspiration to so many and played such a major contribution in marshalling the disenfranchised, somewhat confused and disgruntled little people into the conservative corner, given them a voice, albeit tweaked and set to the conservative tune, which is then amplified as they loudly promote their new-found identity via social media.

But this breeds a more self-centred and selfish society, which only adds to its imbalance and the severity of the inevitable backlash and rebalancing acts to follow. Murdoch senior won’t be around in his current body to feel the pain, but there will be keen observers watching who he might be in the future. A bit like Tibetan Buddhism looking out for the reincarnated Dalai Lama, and China naming their man who will be more sympathetic to their cause. In the rise and fall of the white man movie maybe a grandchild will be named in his honour.

There’s little public interest in the life and legacy of commoners, while books are followed by movies about royals, like the curse of the Kennedy clan. And in Australia there could be a thriller about the rise and fall of the Fairfax media dynasty. Did Warwick return as his grandfather to destroy what he founded? Or is poor James Packer, the billionaire suffering from depression and other unspecified mental illness, who sold all the family media assets and invested it all in casinos, is he a reincarnation of his grand daddy who originally built the family business empire? Likewise in the mid 21st century we could see the next and maybe final chapter of Murdoch’s legacy. What goes up must come down. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

While on media mogul succession plans, there are 2 Murdoch sons: James, said to be a moderate, and Lachlan said to be harder right than his dad. And after selling oﬀ much of the entertainment arm of the News Corp business to Disney, James stepped aside and the reigns of the remaining assets, including all the political propaganda machine, went to Lachlan.

Oh what could have been, all those opportunities lost, what if James had been the successor, what if James Packer had been a secret leftie and used his empire to benefit those who had less, rather than the shareholders like himself who delighted in investing in casinos?

What would I have done if my daddy was a media baron? Well, probably not write this story for a start, or build our range of little accessible sailboats. But that wasn’t going to happen, as media barons can change the course of history as Murdoch has shown, and though they have a choice which direction they go, events suggest that their chosen direction is right for their time, leading their worlds to today’s global chaos.

The issue as I see it in politics is you can break it down to where there are Right or Left sides you will lean towards. You’re either on the side of those who have more, or those who have less. I think it’s probably a safer bet to be on the side of the latter if you want to clean up your act, balance up any garbage you created in your past, so you can leave a clean slate and move on.

That suggests the Left of politics might oﬀer more opportunity to be magnanimous and nice to those with less, to be less focused on your own little self. The counter argument is a bit like the trickle-down theory, it’s good to accumulate plenty because that’s more you can give away. Some might do that but in practice most don’t.

Having said all that, it pays to remember who we really are and don’t get emotionally drawn too deeply into that polarised tit-for-tat Left/Right game which sustains politics in the bubble. You can play that game, but good to secure your relationship between your true self and spirit and ask the oneness how else can you help out with this mess. Being heavily engaged supporting one side in the binary political battle ties you to the mind games it plays, and you are unable to step back into the neutral Oneness and connect with spirit, which in the end is a much more reliable guide.

***

But being more pragmatic, let’s thud back down to earth, where conservatives will invoke the trickle-down theory as the key to universal prosperity as it encompasses it all. With the freedom of the individual and free markets the wealth will trickle down from the top to the little people below. Which is beautifully encapsulated in Ken Galbraith’s less than elegant metaphor:

“if one feeds the horse enough oats, enough will pass through to the road for the sparrows”. Some may innocently, actually believe this to be the most productive path to equality.

While from economist Milton Friedman we get:

“a society that puts equality ahead of freedom will end up with neither. A society that puts freedom ahead of equality will end up with an abundance of both”.

Counter that with Galbraith again:

“the modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is the search for a superior moral justification for being selfish”.

Amen, the choice is yours, I’ve already made mine.

You’d have to think though that the media barons thought they had found the perfect cover for their business model in the role of the fourth estate, as the mediator, supported by the citizen’s right to know, coupled with Friedman’s individual’s right to freedom. But as we have seen that’s not how it pans out as the media can be players in the political process, not neutral commentators. They become the force that can decide elections, which corrupts the whole concept of a people’s representative democracy.

The trouble for media barons is they are about promoting the conservative cause, which is not what is suggested as the role of the fourth estate, to be a check on the excesses of all 4 estates, including themselves. Quite to the contrary in Murdoch’s case, as he is unashamedly conservative and uses this power to undermine the Left, and support the side who have more. The end result is the terrified Left have to shift Right, so the “centre” moves over to the Right and the world becomes more hard nosed and selfish. What this does is take it more out of balance, which will have to be corrected one day, and the further out we go the more inevitable the correction will hurt.

***

When I returned to Australia in 1992 after 20 years in Asia I started to take a great interest in politics and was amazed at this blatant corruption which seemed to be accepted as normal. I naively thought the system should work like a nicely balanced grandfather clock, the pendulum swinging from left to right, back to left, each swing according to the self centred electorate’s opinion. I was always inclined to the left which came from my mother, but didn’t think that heavy-handed pressure from militant unions was warranted. Nor the crazy wage loadings being forced on employers, as I was then in the early days of my new boat building business, and had turned into a self centred little business man.

But I covered myself by pretending that idealistic socialism couldn’t be right. You can’t go giving everyone the same, as people couldn’t be equal, as they had all sorts of natural ability, and some had disability, some people were lazy, some worked hard. So some deserved to have less and others had earned the right to more. Which does come with some truth.

I looked at America, the land of the free. If you worked hard you could reach to the moon. But that’s not the whole picture because a society needs to look after its more fragile citizens, at least everyone should be encouraged and given an opportunity. It can’t be a total equal opportunity for all as obviously some people were more lucky than others, some kids had wealthy parents, others were poor. So the idea of absolute equality is like undermining karmic law, people reap what they sow, some people earned the right to be poor, others to be rich, but what does matter is what do you do with your wealth if you have it.

Do you selfishly hoard it, or do you use some or most of it to help others less fortunate? If you don’t you will burn up your good fortune and, some way down the track, in another life the shoe will be on the other foot and you would have earned the right to be poor yourself.

In a way possessions aren’t yours at all. If you look at it from a higher perspective you are the temporary custodian of them and they are a test. How are you going to handle them? It could be that for your own well being you should use your good fortune to help others. But there we have the freedom to choose. And so we create our own future.

But I was still learning these lessons and found myself leaning to the right a little on these issues of lopsided wage loadings going to workers and heavy – handed union tactics, as I was now in business and saw it from the business person’s point of view.

I had though always been on the side of the employer throughout my life and had resisted joining a Union even as I spent years working on unionised building construction sites. But today in much of the world workers’ rights, and unions who fight for them have been decimated by the relentless progression of neoliberal ideology and strangely conservative Christianity, which you’d think was about equality, but it’s not as it’s changed to be more about your prosperity. Maybe if I did it all again I would have joined the union, but agitated for moderation. No, in those days I was an alcoholic so had other more pressing things on my mind to deal with first, before worrying about other people’s problems.

So the pendulum swings from side to side, but the rise and influence of conservative media has seen the centre shifted too far to the right. It’s driven the relentless discrediting of unions, ruthless newspaper headlines designed to undermine opponents, the mocking of left politicians in cartoons, the promotion of dangerous and damaging ideals glorifying greed. And then the brainwashed little guy shoots himself in the foot and votes in governments which disempower him. It plays on the little guy’s ego and his insecurity, it’s like reverse snobbery which makes him feel bigger, it uses him, it’s a con.

It’s sad because as I just said above, greed and selfishness ultimately squander a nation’s good fortune and set it up for a fall. It’s an inevitable fall for a nation, but also for the media, as today’s black magic is using images which deceive, that trick people into doing your will. It might seem innocuous enough, but that’s because most people don’t know how to interpret the real rules, you shouldn’t use magic, you shouldn’t use trickery to con others to enrich and empower yourself.

***

I’m using Australia as an example here as that’s where I’m personally involved, but there will be similar evidence in most western countries if the inside story of the workings of politics is told. Here’s a powerful article by an Australian professor of politics, a true story, published in The Monthly, an Australian journal. It’s by Robert Manne “Why Rupert Murdoch can’t be stopped”.

“In late July, Robert Thomson, the suave chief executive of News Corp – the recently separated and financially challenged publishing branch of the Murdoch media empire – announced that Col Allan, the Editor in chief of Rupert Murdoch’s favourite tabloid, the New York Post, was coming home to Australia on a two to three month assignment. Unless Allan’s visit had some political purpose, the return of the native was diﬃcult to explain.

Under his editorship, the New York Post has reportedly lost several hundred million dollars since 2001. In the letter to Australian colleagues Thomson defined the mission with studied vagueness, as “providing extra editorial leadership for our papers”. “It will be invaluable for our papers in Australia,” he continued, “to have the benefit of his insight, expertise and talent”. Col Allan’s most famous insight is the fear that an editor might instil in his underlings by conspicuous acts of apparent derangement, like pissing in the office sink. His most famous talent is for the brazen front page banner headline.

Allan arrived in Australia on 29th of July, a week before the announcement of the date of the 2013 federal election. Almost instantly, News Corp’s three most influential Australian tabloids – the Sydney Daily Telegraph, the Melbourne Herald Sun and the Brisbane Courier Mail – began what looked to the outsider like a front page headline competition for Allan’s approval in what was by now News Corp’s main game – to get Kevin Rudd. (Australia’s then Prime Minister).

On the 2nd August the Courier Mail put in an early bid :

“KEV’S $733m BANK HEIST”. The reference was to new taxes on beer, cigarettes and “your savings”, with Rudd pictured in a beanie and a mask grasping a sack of money.

The next day the Herald Sun responded with “ITS A RUDDY MESS”. As the paper explained “debt soars , unemployment to hit 11 year high, revenue crashes and boats bill blows out”. Two days later when the election was announced ,

the Daily Telegraph upped the ante with instantly notorious “finally, you now have the chance to …KICK THIS MOB OUT”. It was on a roll.

The next day, it followed with a Hogan’s Heroes catchphrase, “I KNOW NUTHINK!”, and caricatures of Kevin Rudd and Anthony Albanese as Nazis. The Courier Mail was not to be outdone.

After the Prime Minister announced the candidacy of former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, it answered the Tele with “SEND IN THE CLOWN”.

And so it went. “DEAD KEV BOUNCE” (Courier Mail 10 August).

“RUDD’S BULLY BOY” (Herald Sun 10 August).

“KEV’S DEADLY SINS”. (Sunday Mail 11 August).

“DOES THIS GUY EVER SHUT UP?”. (Courier Mail 22 August).

By the final week of the campaign, it was clear that Tony Abbott would win the election handsomely. The headlines followed. “THE LONG GOODBYE” (Courier Mail 2 September).

“RUDD FREE ZONE” (Courier Mail 5 September).

“TONY’S TIME” (Herald Sun 6 September).

“THE CIRCUS IS OVER” (Courier Mail 6 September).

Throughout the campaign there were scores of anti labor front page items in the three critical Murdoch tabloids and not one that could be considered pro Labor.

And on goes the Monthly essay. But that’s par for the course in Australia. Murdoch decides who is the next Government. In the UK it’s the Sun which is the Political assassination vehicle.

During Thatchers years she described the support she got from the Sun as “marvellous”. More crucially the Sun destroyed Neil Kinnock’s Labour Opposition.

Tony Blair conducted a long flirtation with Murdoch, the highlight of which was the intimate telephone collaboration between Blair and Murdoch leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In 2009 News Corp switched allegiance to David Cameron and the conservatives, at a time when News Corp was after full control of BSkyB. But the phone hacking scandal ended that foray.

That’s the way all this works. Political support for favours in return, more spectrum, media rights, damage opponents, if you don’t play ball you will be destroyed. I ask, isn’t that called “blackmail”?

For the USA Murdoch became an American citizen, but when his bid to buy and control CNN failed he set up Fox News and, if interested, you should take a peak and see what the poor suffering American’s have to put up with.

In Australia we have our own version of Sky News which morphs into SKY after dark, an incredible right wing conspiracy theory promotion vehicle. In AUS Sky only has a small audience, but the USA big daddy is serious and without its support Trump would not have been elected.

What’s an amazing story is how Murdoch came to control all this media in Australia in the first place, which shows that it’s not always Conservative governments who get Murdoch support. Once a government has run its course then it’s prudent business practice to switch sides as there is no point flogging a dead horse. So you might as well back the other guy, as he knows what you want in return, and will deliver, that’s if he wants to stay in government for long. To describe this power-play it’s back to Robert Manne’s The Monthly article, page 3.

“In 1979 Rupert Murdoch made his first takeover bid for the largest newspaper company in Australia, the Herald and Weekly Times, which he believed had mistreated one of its key architects, his father. The bid was resisted. Murdoch had a well-deserved reputation as a manipulator of the political process. He was known to have used his existing papers ruthlessly in 1972 to undermine the Liberal (conservative in Australia) prime minister Billy McMahon, and then in 1975 to help destroy Gough Whitlam, the Labor prime minister he had once enthusiastically supported. In fighting against the bid, the Melbourne Herald expressed the general understanding : “Mr Murdoch’s newspapers always respond in unison – as though to some divine wind – as they pursue their relentless campaigns in favour of current Murdoch objectives – particularly his political ones. Every journalist in Australia knows that”.

“In 1986 Murdoch announced a second Herald and Weekly Times takeover bid. By this time the case for residence was far stronger than in 1979. In order to pursue his television ambitions, Murdoch had become a citizen of the United States. The rules of the Foreign Investment Review Board made it clear that “foreign investment in mass circulation newspapers is restricted”. In 1981 Murdoch had taken control of the London Times and Sunday Times, we now know with the collusion of UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

His bid had been spared reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission on the condition that he respected the newspapers’ editorial independence. Almost immediately, the condition was flagrantly breached and Murdoch was threatened with a term in prison. Even more importantly, by this time it was clear that Murdoch was using his papers as standard bearers for the Thatcher Reagan radical conservative revolutions that were undermining social democratic parties and progressive politics throughout the English speaking world. The Hawke Government’s (in Australia) opposition to the News Corp takeover bid for the Herald and Weekly Times ought to have been certain.

“Bob Hawke, who had once advised Whitlam that he would rue the day he got into bed with Murdoch, was in fact a strong supporter. Hawke blamed the conservatives who ran the Herald and Weekly Times for keeping Labor out of power in Victoria between 1955 and 1982. Even more he resented the light that Murdoch’s rival newspapers at Fairfax – both Sydney Morning Herald and the National Times – had shone on real or supposed corruption in the NSW branch of the ALP. Hawke hoped to seize the opportunity occasioned by Murdoch’s takeover bid to kill or weaken two of Labor’s media enemies. He also believed that he could use his best mate, Sir Peter Abeles, a news Corp business partner in Ansett Airlines, as a political bridge to Murdoch. In his Media mates, Paul Chadwick records a telling exchange between the prime minister and Senator John Button. Button enquired: “why don’t you tell us precisely how you want to help your mates”? Hawke replied: “remember they are the only mates we’ve got”.

“As Colleen Ryan has documented recently in her “Fairfax: The rise and Fall”, Hawke’s treasurer, Paul Keating, was even more enthusiastic about the takeover, in part for the same reasons as Hawke; in part because Fairfax had raised awkward questions about Keating’s relationship with the property developer Warren Anderson; and in part because as a radical reformer, Keating wanted to inject into the economy the energy of “new money” represented by Murdoch (and Kerry Packer) and to destroy moribund “old money” interests, represented for him by both the hated Fairfax enemy and the moribund Melbourne gentleman’s club he thought was running the Herald and Weekly Times.

Keating was not merely a passive supporter of the Murdoch takeover. By secretly providing Murdoch with inside information about the government’s proposed new media laws – where the ownership of television and newspapers was to be separated – Keating actively sought to bury the Herald and Weekly Times, to thwart Fairfax’s ambitions and to facilitate News Corp’s domination of the Australian press”.

“There were several people who understood what the Murdoch takeover meant. Within the senior ranks of Labor, opposition came from Bill Hayden, the Foreign Aﬀairs Minister. He was reduced to silence. Inside the opposition, Ian Macphee advocated resistance. He was removed from John Howard’s shadow cabinet. A citizens’ group formed whose members included Malcolm Fraser, Patrick White, Hal Wooten, David Williamson, Veronica Brady, Dick Smith and David Penman. Their protest actions had no hope. The takeover was supported by both the Labor and the Liberal parties, and was opposed by none of the relevant gatekeepers – the Press Council, the Trade Practices Commission and the Foreign Investment Review Board”.

“Effective control of the media is the first step on the road to controlling the values and the future direction of our society,” the Age warned on 17 January 1987. ‘It is the saddest reflection imaginable on this society that virtually no- one in public life – a former Prime Minister (Malcolm Fraser); a promptly disciplined Foreign Minister (Hayden) and a gagged Opposition spokesman (McPhee) excepted – has dared to speak out against the growing concentration of ownership of the Australian press”.

“When the dust settled on the takeover, Rupert Murdoch controlled the sole metropolitan tabloid newspapers in every Australian state except WA and the only broadsheet, the Australian. His company controlled approximately two thirds of the circulation of state wide Australian newspapers. Murdoch’s only press rival, Fairfax, controlled about a quarter. As a consequence of the takeover, Australia now had a concentration of newspaper ownership unknown anywhere in the developed world beyond the party controlled papers of the communist bloc.

In the short term, Labor was rewarded with the support of the three most popular Australian newspapers, Sydneys Daily Telegraph, and Melbournes Herald and Sun, in the 1987 election. In the long term it had been midwife at the birth of what was potentially the most anti- democratic force in national life and also the most powerful future enemy of Labor.

So ends the text from the Monthly. But it’s a fantastic story and I recommend it to anyone interested in why the democratic world, led by the USA, has arrived at where it is today.

I’ve developed a pretty basic idea of how it all works and you have to admire a scallywag like Rupert Murdoch for having the audacity to envision the outcome and then pursue it with such passion. Maybe he really believed he had the vision which would deliver the best outcome for the greater good, or maybe he’s just a power-crazed industrialist who used whatever means available to achieve his goals. I’m leaning towards the latter, but who knows?

Was it a vision of soul pursued with passion and love, or a logical path followed by a calculating mind? These are interesting questions and for fun we can tick them both, but best to add lashings of greed, anger, lust, revenge, even hatred to spice up the story, which fits in nicely with what gets published in those Murdoch morning tabloids.

The Murdoch modus operandi is pretty basic and, I imagine, similar to what a mythical mafia outfit might do, similar stand over tactics but playing with mind games instead of crude physical violence. In Australia the newspapers are used for propaganda with localised news stories plus journalism shared between the 170 odd brands around the country. It’s light on news but plenty of opinion, masquerading as news. There are regular opinion polls which set the daily talk back radio agenda on the morning of publication.

If you’re a suspicious conspiracy theorist you could even imagine, but it could be true, that the opinion pieces in newspapers are crafted and timed to influence the opinion polls and their questions being asked in the days ahead.

That’s drawing a long bow, but it’s safe to say that the papers are serving their own interests and work against the interests of political parties who represent the little people. But the most influential and trashy tabloids are designed to appeal to those little people, while embedded in the pages are opinion pieces lauding conservative ideology and views. It’s really just conservative propaganda, which swings the little guy’s votes away from the political parties who would benefit him most, and over to the party who will ultimately pass legislation to benefit their wealthy landlords and shareholders.

Extraordinary as it is, it has been a tradition for the new Australian prime minister and opposition leaders to make a pilgrimage to Rupert’s door soon after an election for a private chat, an extraordinary acknowledgement of the distortion of the system. So what we have here is an unelected entity very much involved in political decision making process.

Is that because of an ideological commitment to the beliefs of the political party they support on the day, or is it more a business decision to increase their own power and influence? All this could be laughed oﬀ as just political shenanigans, except it helped install governments which have passed disastrous legislation with devastating outcomes yet to fully play out for Australia, the Pacific region and the world.

None of this is news to journalists and insiders, but few can afford to speak out for fear of the consequences. But this story is for a different audience who deserve to know why the world is like it is, and where it might be going.

***

It’s very interesting watching the various moves which empower the East and damage the West as its 3 pillars come under strain. Religion with scandals and rising fundamentalism, democracy strangled by polarisation, and capitalism causing terminal problems, but barreling on downhill regardless, unable to change course because that’s the system, with its addiction to greed.

The real question is: how much of this direction is perpetuated by media moguls, are they just what everyone deserves, are they just doing their job helping to keep the sinking ship on it’s course. It’s like the Titanic, then man’s leading edge crack at luxury international travel, on its epic first journey to the bottom of the Atlantic.

We will therefore have to look back at this from the future, but for those of us who will be using a new body with no past knowledge, maybe this story does represent an outsiders unbiased and true perspective, and if we can get it into a hard copy which is sitting on your bookshelf in a later life, maybe it shimmers or glows to catch your attention, as happened to me early on in this story.

If like me you take it down and read these lines, at which point you sense in a deja vu moment that maybe you’re been here before. Or more dramatically your real self jolts you into awareness, “Wake up you clown, you lived through all that last time. Don’t you remember?”

For all those deep in the bubble, some happy, some sad, some downright angry, some their hearts overwhelmed with hatred, all of us deceived by mind and its agents, I join you in our common passion and ask we share a moment to remember those who look like innocent victims, the millions of the world’s refugees labelled illegal immigrants, the millions of Pacific Islanders whose homes will be awash from rising seas, the citizens of the Middle East whose diﬃcult lives were only made worse by the West joining the vendetta against Saddam Hussein, which opened the door for ISIS.

And the millions who are victims of child sex abuse perpetrated in religious institutions, the millions who are without health care, the victims of gun violence, the billions of creatures who have had their habitat destroyed, polluted with plastic and who have died by wildfire, exacerbated by climate change, the concerned youth of the world whose voices are belittle’d, their plights made worse by partisan media.

All fed by the industrial breeding and slaughter of many millions of creatures without thought, or a prayer, and remember the victors, the Wall Street winners, let mind, greed and the market place decide, hail neo liberalism, neo capitalism, neo christianity. How good is that.

But could it be we aren’t innocent victims at all, maybe we have earned the right to all the above, and more sociopathic Donald Trumps as our leaders? What a totally bizarre concept, this story of life and death in the binary bubble.

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There is a good reason why from Scandinavia come the world’s best wheelchairs, patient lifters, accessible living components, accessible housing models, car conversion kits etc. Sweden has built a global industry supplying this equipment and that’s because the Nordic model of democracy is, or some say was as it too is changing, one of the most compassionate and empathetic, and so encourages a more inclusive society and higher expectation from their society. That’s the result of encouragement by government, a supportive media, free and fair negotiation between labour and business, where social welfare is given equal weight to money.

It’s interesting to consider that following the Second World War children in Scandinavian countries were encouraged to think for themselves, make their own choices, which is an aspect of the culture and principles of their welfare state. This has flowed through to a more inclusive community attitude, even to religion, where Nordic Christianity is not going the way seen in the neoliberal nations. In Scandinavia religion is generally becoming more tolerant and open, it’s shedding dogma and becoming more open to beliefs from other faiths.

Compare that to those nations where the welfare state is ideologically rejected, even hated by a xenophobic population who have adopted very earthy materialist doctrines fed to them by charismatic preachers. It’s not a coincidence that Trump got elected with overwhelming support from these Christian fundamentalists. It’s pathetic to see the American fear of social welfare couched as socialism, when the electorate is so insular they have no idea what they are talking about, when what America needs most is exactly what they have been indoctrinated to fear.

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Because of the unique makeup of the trinity which is the Australian brand of democracy, with a Labor left, a “Liberal” conservative right and a Murdoch acting like a king or president, the Australian system has been called a Murdocracy in honour of its brash kingmaker.

But back in 1993, after returning to Australia, after being knocked into shape in Asia, I was a little confused by this Murdocracy phenomenon and wrote a few words about what I then called “Mediocracy”. This piece conceptualised what the Anglo-sphere democracies had degenerated into, described in a post on Wikipedia circa 2100, but in hindsight that’s being a bit presumptuous as its not certain civil behaviour on planet earth can be sustained that long.

Democracy – Wikipedia 2100.

Democracy is a political system popular, even dominant in the predominantly white western world of the 18th to mid 21st century AD which degenerated into what’s became known as a “Mediocracy” when the media became the main player in the polarised two party political system.

The democratic system was said to be government by the people for the people, but degenerated into outcomes ultimately determined by the media. It was a gradual progression, but the journalists, media managers and proprietors shifted from reporting “news” to creating and embellishing it to further their own self interest, usually under the guise of catering to the citizens right to know.

Journalists careers and egos fed by proprietors greed for power, to manipulate the political process came first as a gullible population were fed whatever would sell them newspapers. Political character assassinations were a standard fare.

This led to the collapse of the system as the political parties were forced to make themselves minimalist targets, which prevented them making any meaningful decisions, other than for their own political survival. Politicians fed the frenzy and totally lost credibility when they appeared to believe their own spin and lies.

These democratic nations eventually foundered in the mid 21st century as they failed to keep pace with the more efficient benevolent dictatorships and authoritarian communist states of the yellow races of Asia.

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It’s hard to seperate the 3 pillars of society as they are so intertwined, like vines twisting around themselves on the trunk of a tree. Religion has already featured in what’s been said about democracy, as has capitalism and economics, but religion is a far more powerful influence than many will realise, and it’s my favourite, far more interesting than mundane government and business, as it projects into the supposed unknown.

It’s also at the centre of this story about little sailboats, not by my choosing, as it was thrown at me, it cornered me and left me with nowhere else to go. It showed me that the unknown can be known, it’s just not via a mainstream religion’s mainstream, though many a mainstream religion’s mystic would have lived a double life, tight lipped lest they be burnt at the stake.

We need to smile every time we hear a minister of religion say “we cannot know what is behind the veil”, or “no one can know the mysterious plans of God”, or statements like that, as they are simply stating the limitations of their own beliefs. We can all go a lot further than that with an open mind, or should we say it’s better if we can bypass our mind all together.

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