patrick.net

apparently everyone is going crazy in perth, western australia, right now, as the boom rolls around there, and peters out everywhere else. they have benefited from the commodities boom there, being a mining state, particularly iron ore to china, but that is all. it's a very remote city of about 1M people, and most young people try to leave, which leaves the rental market shaky. spruikers and developers are doing their best to cash in while they can on the phenomenon.

an article in the paper last week bemoaned how sydney is 'losing ground' against other states in 'price growth in property' -- not only is it already 40% more expensive than the next city, but has lead the boom for 2 decades. the article presents the situation as though it is mass unemployment or a recession, and the state is falling behind in the economy. naturally, it's completely unproductive growth, and it's more a signal to voracious investors to tear off and look for new turf... none of that ever gets a mention of course. it really is a sick society...

Different Sean said...
the interesting thing is, my views are pretty much mainstream in oz, uk and europe, it’s important to realise that. it’s not extreme at all

Nurries, mate :-)

Despite being an American, I've spent most of my life in London and have the political outlook to show for it. Over in the UK I seem to have fairly middle gound views, but over here I seem to be left of Stalin...

I find it harder to have political/religious "discussions" over here n the US too. I think Americans in general have less exposure to the idea of debates about stuff like that. Many over here think you're attacking them, rather than trying to show the other side of the story. When it gets like that, I just tend to say silent and let them get on with it.

Not enough pints and chewing the fat down the Pub is my guess.

chewing the fat daahhn the pub.... ;)

where in london did you live the most? i used to be at putney... you've relocated to US?

while i have a lot of left wing philosophy, which is based on grounded reasoning and a lot of study, i use my judgement also. if i see that something isn't going to work, then i don't suggest it -- i don't espouse 'impractical' social-ist measures that 'go against human nature' where it really is quite unfair, as in the way mao tse-tung collectivised all the farms, etc and disincentivised all the farmers in the process. and tried to make iron products in low grade furnaces, causing a famine and mass starvation and nearly bankrupting the country, etc. but in reality, no 'communist' country has ever really been communist, and they have instead retained a top down, dictatorial 'command capitalism' structure with human rights removed. i don't agree with any of that, hence i tend to point to a healthy balance of the state, the market and the family in functioning social democracies. i don't agree with many woolly thinking lefties i meet, really the lunatic left, who protest everything, oppose right wing govts on everything on principle and see a conspiracy, and have a utopian but unworkable solution for everything, and i sometimes debate them on it, which makes me centre left, i suppose. (not to say the govt doesn't often have a right wing conspiracy on a lot of things, because it often does.)

but the US types tend to be very fatalistic, have not had a strong union movement historically as a plank under wages and employment conditions, and have been raised to worship 'success' (narrowly defined as economic success) regardless of how it is achieved. plus somewhat unique excesses of religion, libertarianism, etc. different posters are coming from those angles, so you get shot at from different directions by free marketeers, fatalists, rugged individualists, survivalists, libertarians, religious fundamentalists, confused republicans, just plain brainwashed people, utilitarians and even australians by golly...

Try being anything but a muslamic type in thier land and you are dead.

don't go there then. i won't be going there. america comes a close second in terms of religious fundamentalism and religious intolerance -- the ol' clash of fundamentalisms...

Nobody with half a brain can miss the fact that the closed societies are taking atvantage of America, Canada, Oz, and Europe.

this is to miss the point that the last 2 centuries has been one of colonialism of those territories, in order to get hydrocarbon resources for the west to conduct wars of their own as often as not. first, direct colonialism by military invasion, then careful manipulation and placement of puppet leaders, and now back to direct military invasion again.

the history of american interference in innumerable countries is a most unpleasant one indeed, particularly post-WWII.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was returned to power in Iran after he had fled the country in 1953. This was achieved by overthrowing the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, done through the aid of a joint CIA and MI6 covert operation, codenamed Operation Ajax. Pahlavi maintained good relations with the United States, but his government came to be criticized for its political corruption and the brutal practices of SAVAK that, in response, witnessed protests in Iran and elicited condemnation from many parts of the international community.

Strong opposition arose in many sections of society during the Shah's reign. Of particular importance in this respect were the religious figures that had long grown to be an important voice of opposition in Iran. Since the 19th century Tobacco Protests, the clergy had been steadily growing in political as well as religious influence.

(In 1890 Nasir al-Din Shah granted a tobacco concession to a British company. This concession gave the company exclusive rights to produce, sell, and export all of Iran's large tobacco crop in exchange for a loan. The shah was badly in need of money and had granted many such concessions to Europeans before. Tobacco, however, was widely consumed in Iran and a thriving domestic industry was going to be destroyed by the shah's actions. At the time the Persian tobacco industry employed over 200,000 people. Mass protests against the concession were held, many of the organized by Shi'ite ulama, the most prominent was Grand Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi, who issued the famous fatwa against the usage of tobacco. The clerics had a strong independent power base to attack the shah's position. Theological arguments were made that the shah was violating the rules of Islam and was selling the nation to the western Christians. The merchants of tobacco, in a show of solidarity, responded by shutting down the main bazaars throughout the country.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_revolution

Maybe these terrible islamists who will murder bap as soon as he steps onto their shores have their reasons:

A weakened and bankrupted royal court under Fath Ali Shah was forced to sign the notorious Gulistan Treaty in 1813, followed by a second Turkmanchai treaty after efforts by Abbas Mirza failed to secure Persia's northern front against Imperial Russia. The treaties were prepared by the notorious Sir Gore Ouseley with the aid of the British Foreign Office in London. Sir Gore Ouseley was the younger brother of the British orientalist William Ouseley, who served as secretary to the British ambassador in Persia.

In fact, Iran's current southern and eastern boundaries were determined by no other than the British, after deafeating Nasereddin Shah in Herat in 1857. The British government assigned Frederic John Goldsmid of the Indo-European Telegraph Department to determine the borders between Persia and India during the 1860s.[2]

In 1872, the Shah signed an agreement with Baron Julius de Reuter, which George Nathaniel Curzon (who was one of the greatest statemen of his day) called:

"The most complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that have ever been dreamed of..."[3]

The Reuter Concession was immediately denounced by all ranks of businessmen, clergy, and nationalists of Persia. And the concession was quickly forced into cancellation.

Similarly, the "Tobbaco fatwa", decreed by Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi was an incident which raised popular resentment against the British presence in Pertsia in lieu of a diplomatically decapitated and apathetic Qajar throne. Concessions such as this and the 70 year contract of Persian railways to be operated by British businessmen such as Baron de Reuter became increasingly visible. The visibility became particularly pronounced after the discovery of oil in Masjed Soleiman in 1909 and the establishment of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the "D'Arcy Concession".

By the end of the 19th century, Britain's dominance became so pronounced that Khuzestan, Bushehr, and a host of other cities in southern Persia were occupied by Great Britain, and the central government in Tehran was left with no power to even select its own ministers without the approval of the Anglo-Russian consulates. Morgan Shuster, for example, had to resign under tremendous British and Russian pressure on the royal court. Shuster's book "The Strangling of Persia" is a recount of the details of these events, a harsh criticism of Britain and Imperial Russia.

One result of the public outcry against the inability of the Persian throne to maintain its political and economic independence against Great Britain and Imperial Russia in the face of events such as the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 and "the 1919 treaty" was the Persian Constitutional Revolution which eventually resulted in the fall of the Qajar dynasty.

The great tremor of the Persian political landscape occurred when the involvement of General Edmund Ironside eventually led to the rise of Reza Pahlavi in the 1920s. The popular view that the British were involved in the 1921 coup was noted as early as March 1921 by the American embassy and relayed to the Iran desk at the Foreign Office [4] A British Embassy report from 1932 concedes that the British put Reza Shah "on the throne". For sources on this matter see [5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Britain_relations

Ok, SOMEONE here needs to develop a sense of humor ;-) . I'd recommend reading The Onion on a regular basis.

You can't tell me this wasn't funny:

“I don’t know what’s more depressing,” said Ginger Bohland-Aliotta, “being a potential murder victim, or having to sit around all day staring at empty rooms while my youth and will to live slowly drains out of me. Frankly, I think I’d rather take the bullet.”

Dear BAH,

gofuckyourself.

Lovingly

Surfer-X

yes, that's right, they take advantage - continually and serially colonised for resources, run by western-appointed puppet governments... that wouldn't breed resentment, of course...

the west has only been interested in taking out their resources by whatever means necessary -- and we're all reaping the whirlwind. this discussion wouldn't even be happening if they weren't sitting on at least half of the world's known hydrocarbon resources, cos they would be staying put and minding their own business...

i can see you closely read what i wrote and quoted...