In this article I shall try to answer the question implicit in the title. In order to do this adequately I shall cast a fairly wide net attempting to explain how various features of Western society are a part of the answer. In the final section of the article I shall suggest a method by way of which, if adopted, we could build a more socially just and economically productive Australia.

from john passant ….

Let me apologise in advance. It was tacky, and it shouldn’t have been distributed. I said as much sotto voce at the time when I saw the disgusting references to Abbott’s big ears and his budgie smugglers.

from Independent Australia …..

Infiltration, sabotage, mayhem. For years four-star general Keith Alexander has been building a secret army capable of launching devastating attacks. Now it’s ready to unleash hell.

Newly single and with a spring in his step, media mogul Rupert Murdoch was back on the dating market this morning, with an updated profile on singles site eHarmony.

In the profile, Mr Murdoch describes himself as a ‘regular guy’ with simple interests. “On the weekends I generally just pop out to buy a paper,” he says.

The level of inequality around the world is truly staggering ….

Many now know the rhetoric of the 1% very well: the imagery of a small elite owning most of the wealth while the 99% take the table scraps. 

The Federal Government has been criticised for refusing to divert ships and aircraft to search for the bodies of dozens of asylum seekers believed to have drowned off Christmas Island.

Roughly 55 people seen on an asylum seeker boat that sank late last week are now presumed dead after a three-day air-and-sea search failed to find any survivors.

A refugee advocate has called for the Opposition Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison to end his “terrorism” witch-hunt, and for the government to instigate the leaking of information by Australian Federal Police.

More than 1,000 people marched past the main gates at Fort Meade in Maryland on June 1 in a demonstration against the impending start of a court-martial for WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning.

Martin Ferguson represents everything that is wrong with Labor today. Unlike Tony Abbott I will shed no tears for him. He is not, as Abbott claimed, an honourable opponent and great Australian.

Ferguson wasn’t Abbott’s opponent; he was Abbott’s ally.

The WTF? reaction of many Australians to the racist attacks on Adam Goodes – ape, King Kong – is but one further example of the systemic racism in our society that Harry O’Brien identified in a recent post, republished here.

The Australian government has washed its hands of Julian Assange as prosecutors at the trial of US soldier Bradley Manning have openly targeted the WikiLeaks publisher as a conspirator engaged in espionage.

For more than two years, Rod Cameron's pessimism about Labor's prospects has been a strictly private affair. Although he dubbed Tony Abbott unelectable, the former ALP pollster remained circumspect on the challenge facing the party he served in more than 50, mostly winning, state and federal campaigns.

Once a state gets used to abusing the rights of foreigners in distant lands, it's almost inevitable it will import the habit