Admittedly, I’ve never met a Scientologist in person. I’ve never attended a Scientology meeting. I’ve never had any face-to-face encounters with Scientology whatsoever — well, at least not to my knowledge. However, there’s enough evidence all over the Internet that their so-called religion is actually a vicious and dangerous cult that takes control of people’s money and their lives. Tom Cruise and David Miscavige are the top dogs of the Scientology pecking order. Within the Church, Cruise is basically seen as single-handedly saving the world and is revered as some kind of deity. Miscavige is the leader of the Church with the official title of Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center. The Church of Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, an American science fiction writer, in 1953. From all accounts, he wasn’t a very nice man, but yet found a following with his new form of religion. The religion is based on something called Dianetics which Hubbard invented prior to forming the religion. Practitioners of Scientology go through a process called “auditing” where they are hooked up to an electro-psychometer (an E-meter) and audited by a counsellor to identify sources of traumatic events in the individual's past. Scientologists believe that each individual has a cluster of body thetans — effectively, souls — that are stuck in a human body. These thetans came about approximately 75 million years ago through a major catastrophe caused by a galactic dictator named Xenu. In order for a Scientologist to reach the first rank of “Clear”, a person must no longer have his own reactive mind, and therefore suffers none of the ill effects the reactive mind can cause. This requires a lot of auditing and therefore a lot of a money. After Clear comes the “Operating Thetan” levels. Each level has a series of training requirements and associated costs. OT I costs about $2750. OT II costs $5225. OT III $8910, and so on, all the way up to OT VIII. OT VIII is known as “The Truth Revealed” and can only be delivered to members in a single location — aboard the organisation's private cruise ship, the Freewinds. Many determined Scientologists join an internal group called the Sea Organisation, or Sea Org. It’s members are said to be the most dedicated practitioners of Scientology. David Miscavige is the highest ranking Sea Org officer, holding the rank of Captain. Former members of the Sea Org describe it as a totalitarian organisation where members lose almost all freedom and are constantly under surveillance. Any negative information that is published about Scientology is labelled as an “enemy line”. Practitioners are encouraged not to click on links that would potentially expose them to anything that would m ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pJB5ctiosE

Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon, is the world’s richest man with an estimated net worth of 139.9 billion USD. He can almost afford to buy the Amazon rainforest and the Amazon River. Then he would be the leader of three Amazons. Despite his massive wealth, his warehouse workers in Australia aren’t being treated very well. American Amazon workers are slowly being replaced by robots, despite assurances from the company that they’re not being replaced. I can guarantee, when the technology is ready — the human workers will be replaced. Anyway, back to the Australian workers. Interviews were carried out recently by the ABC with some of the current and former staff at the Amazon Australia fulfilment centre on the outskirts of Melbourne. Despite the name, workers at the fulfilment centre are extremely unfulfilled. To be fair to Jeff Bezos, despite the workers physically working at the Amazon fulfilment centre, they’re not actually Amazon employees. Almost all of them are casual workers engaged through the country’s biggest labour hire agency, Adecco. When workers enter the massive facility for their shift, they are met with a beach scene, along with some banal slogans written on the wall. Just to the right of this rousing scene are two big security turnstiles with metal detectors attached. At the start of their shift, workers are huddled together to shout out slogans and to perform the morning stretches. Amazonians are asked to share one of their Amazon success stories. These rituals are in place to better prepare workers for the long day ahead. The company’s motto is then recited, “Work hard. Have fun. Make history.” It is also woven into a huge rainbow-coloured mural at the front of the warehouse. Amazonian pickers, as they are called, have the duty of walking around the warehouse floor at Amazonian pace and collecting all the items that popup on their handheld scanning device. Collectively, they are responsible for storing, picking, and packing tens of thousands of items each day. Some say their work is robotic, and others have compared their work to some sort of dystopian video game. These so called Amazon “associates” are required to collect items as determined by an algorithm, which dictates how many items should be moved, stored, packed and picked within any given hour. The performance of each worker is calculated using “pick rates”. Organisational psychologist Heather Ikin calls Amazon’s practices a form of “abusive supervision” that create a constant sense of anxiety among staff. Tim Kennedy, National Secretary at the National Union of Workers, says the level of casualisation in Amazon’s Melbourne warehouse is “unheard of” in Australia. He said: “In a lot of the facilities where we represent workers, up ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozkF1eW1elE

In Australia, we’ve all experienced a Welcome to Country, or Acknowledgement of Country, possibly multiple times per week. They’re two different things, but essentially two sides of the same coin. They have their place in certain situations when welcoming foreigners to our land. But I think what Australians are starting to take issue with, especially after the long, drawn-out Voice referendum campaign, is being welcomed to their own country. When people welcome us to their land, it makes it sound like it’s not our land. It’s very divisive, is it not? Look, I’m not against individual dancers. For many of them, this is probably a job. Good on them! They’ve found their place in the world. But it’s the political messaging that starts to grate on people. Katrina Power, an Aboriginal Elder from the Adelaide region in South Australia. A couple of weeks ago, she gave a Welcome to Country at the Adelaide Convention Centre, which went somewhat off the rails. According to witnesses, she said things such as, “This event is being held on stolen land!”, “Seven in ten of you didn’t want me to have a Voice!”, referring to the Voice referendum defeat, and “King Charles should be dethroned!”. That was a nice Welcome to Country, wasn’t it? I feel rather welcome now, don’t you? In 2018, she called the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, “Malcolm Cows**t” at an International Women’s Day address. Perhaps Malcolm Turncoat would have been more fitting. In 2017, during her Welcome to Country at an Anzac Day Dawn Service, she made reference to “slavery” and “invasion”. Just as a quick note, the modern Welcome to Country is accredited to actor Ernie Dingo and musician Richard Walley. In 1976, they were members of an Aboriginal Theatre Troupe and were asked by a group of Polynesian performers to give them a Welcome to Country, as their spiritual beliefs dictated, so they did. Since then, Dingo has stated, “Before that occasion, we couldn’t do it to white people because they wouldn’t understand, and there was too much negativity.” Never fear! The ceremony has since become a very positive experience, hasn’t it? Another thing that perhaps some Australians are also getting a bit tired of are Acknowledgement of Country’s. Just so that we’re all on the same page, a Welcome to Country can only be performed by a Traditional Indigenous Owner of the land, while an Acknowledgement of Country can be delivered by anybody else, and is, very frequently. This is probably what is driving so many Australians crazy of late. For example, every Australian website now has an Acknowledgement of Country. This is Coles supermarket for example, “Coles Group acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia.” Blah, blah, blah. Universities are handing out Acknowledgement of Country palm cards. Sorry, I don’t mean to be so dismissive, but I’ve seen or heard these things at least a thousand times before. That’s the issue with these Acknowledgements, they’ve been overused, and now almost have no meaning with most people ignoring them. Whenever I attend a Zoom meeting for work, they inevitably start the meeting by saying, “Our meeting is being held on the lands of the [so and so people], and I wish to acknowledge them as Traditional Owners.” Because we’re online, we’re not even in the same state half the time. We’re using a satellite connection going to outer space. American comedian Bill Maher had something to say about all of this, from a North American perspective: “To all the people who start every public event now with one of those land acknowledgements where they say, ‘I’m standing on land that was stolen from the proud Indigenous people of the Chumash tribe’, I say, either give it back, or shut the f*** up!” I was at a tree-planting ceremony recently commemorating a person who had died in a local community group. It was on council land, and the council lady who was running the show of course began by saying, “I begin today by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we gather today… blah blah blah”, and then I thought, if you truly acknowledge that this is not your land, why the hell do you think you can just plant a tree in it? How do you justify council owning it? Did you seek permission from anybody? Did you ask the local elder if you could use this land? No, of course not. So why do you keep acknowledging that it’s not your land? It’s like you’re rubbing it in their faces. These people need to do one of two things (in the words of Bill Maher), either give the land back, or shut the f*** up! WELCOME TO COUNTRY OR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY https://www.indigenous.gov.au/contact-us/welcome_acknowledgement-country ERNIE DINGO AND RICHARD WALLEY ON THE 40TH YEAR OF THEIR WELCOME TO COUNTRY https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/23/ernie-dingo-and-richard-walley-on-the-40th-year-of-their-welcome-to-country MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-L_jrJzMNg

The game of capitalism that I am referring to, is not a computer game or a boardgame — It is the real-life game that humans play where some people win, but most people lose. It’s a game not dissimilar to the boardgame Monopoly, except that the real world typically has more rules and makes it harder to win. Proponents of capitalism will argue that if the government just step out of the way and let capitalism do its work, everything will be hunky-dory. Capitalists argue that government intervention hurts capitalism. And they’re right, it does hurt capitalism. But is that the goal? Is that what we want for a free society? Unfettered capitalism? I think it’s good to compare the real world with the boardgame Monopoly. In Monopoly, players race around the board trying to buy up as many properties as possible. If a player purchases a complete colour group, that is, three (or sometimes two) properties of the same colour, they can start building houses and hotels on those properties in order to increase their revenue. Players that land on other people’s property must pay the owner rent based on how many houses or hotels are there. There’s a lot of luck involved in the game, but also a little bit of strategy. The goal is to be the last one left standing by sending all of your opponents into bankruptcy. I think the game Monopoly is a good analogy for unfettered capitalism. If we got rid of all government intervention, we would end up with one or two giant companies owning everything, and one or two people owning those giant companies. Unrestricted capitalism would hurt most people. Some people might argue, that’s good. The best and brightest will bubble to the top and give us the best products and services. But I would argue that just as with the game Monopoly, a lot of luck comes into play. Those at the top aren’t necessarily there because they sell the best products, or offer the best services. They’re there because they were lucky enough to reach that critical mass of ownership that allowed them to buy out the competition. Look at Facebook, for example. They were lucky enough to come out on top of the social media craze. Once they started getting enough income, they were able to start buying up their competition — ConnectU, FriendFeed, Friendster, Friend.ly, Instagram, WhatsApp, the list goes on. You can see the full list in the link I’ve posted below. In the real world, we have an interventionist system. That is, governments intervene in the marketplace in order to correct the market failures and promote the general welfare of the people — well at least, that’s the purported goal. Proponents of capitalism and the free market will fight tooth and nail against tax increases. They will argue that tax only hurts business, and co ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH1cvZdKaNA