Nobody understands “the state of affair” (a philosophical term) of History, Philosophy, Theology in Australia fromThe Times Higher Education (THE) Supplement’s world rankings of universities. THE has just released the disciplinary measures in their ranking series. It is as erroneous as all ranking systems are; because the statistics used for the rankings cannot account for qualitative factors which changed into the clearer ideas of achievements in any scholarly field. Human beings produce the outputs and no statistics can touch the comprehensive semantics in the human factors. No sets of numbers can touch humanised knowledge.
Thus, look at the featured image of ‘the 2023 Australian History-Philosophy-History Ranking’. We know that Charles Sturt University has better reputation in theology than those institutions ranked higher, yet it is towards the bottom of the list. Flinders University also does not deserve such a low ranking. Deakin University is ranked moderately higher and the reputation is still as good as the rest. Griffith University is higher than Flinders and Charles Sturt, but I see no reputational reasons for Griffith to be higher, especially in the loss of the Multi-Faith Centre.
How is it possible to measure ‘philosophy’ across the universities? Reputationally, I do not doubt that all academic philosophers in the schools do their best with complex subjects. Otherwise, if there are great degrees of weaknesses then one has to severely question the employment practices of the universities. In such a diverse sets of subjects the factors are human, not in the numbers, and if diverse sets of subjects are not taught why the higher ranking?
History is clearly in decline as demonstrated by Martin Crotty, Frank Bongiorno, and Paul Sendziuk. The history schools in Australia have struggled to be comprehensive, which I have demonstrated in my work. So, is ranking on numbers be possible?
The only office-holders who know the numbers and the human factors who give legitimacy to the numbers game of rankings are those who foolishly deny the inconvenient truth.
Educational theories from unusual places, an e-newspaper in Los Angeles, discussing housing and homeless policies. Text below.
The messaging follows the email I just sent to the Mayor, Deputy Premier, and the Brisbane City Council. Here we have community intellectuals in Los Angeles, bringing down heavily the sociological critique; ‘critique’ means a message that you cannot just easily dismiss; cancel the email before it is read and the public will discover, later, the close-minded behaviour.
My argument, at the forthcoming 2023 The Australian Sociological Association Association conference, will reference, the work of Patrick Mullins and University of Queensland in the 1970s Brisbane on the Northern Brisbane Freeway planning. The parallel mistakes in the willful stupidity, in ignoring the best expert insights, is uncanny between Brisbane and Los Angeles. Yet, the institutional memory of universities, states, and councils amounts to ignorance.
The next state and council administration (2024) will have to face the fact that the political PR nonsense is not working, as the global scene is changing and will arrive in Brisbane with political force.
We will keep emailing you until you understand the message and let the public know that you do.
In case the link is blocked, the text is as follows:
Do Angelenos Need Another Lecture?
TIM CAMPBELL NOVEMBER 06 2023
CityWatch
iAUDIT! – When I was a college undergraduate, most of my courses were lectures. The professors shared their subject expertise with the class, and students were expected to absorb it and assimilate it into their greater body of knowledge. When I moved on to graduate studies, the classes were primarily discussion groups. The assumption was that students already had the required subject knowledge, and discussion was the best format to gain deeper and more nuanced understandings. Likewise, when I entered the working world, most meetings were one-way, where I learned from managers. As I moved up in management, I was expected to share my experience and knowledge as a peer rather than a recipient. My job was to gather other managers’ perspectives and knowledge and apply them to a given project. At some point, whether it’s school, work, or in society at large, lectures become ineffective, even insulting to the intended audience if that audience is already familiar with the subject matter.
Many housing and homeless advocates seem to be stuck in lecture mode. Whether through arrogance, naivete, or lack of respect for their intended audience, advocates seem to think the best way to implement their policies is by lecturing residents on why their ideas are the one true solution to homelessness, and that opposing views are ignorant and prejudiced. Advocates love claiming the moral high ground so they can pontificate about doing what’s right for the downtrodden, while supporting policies that keep people on the streets, and at the same time antagonizing the taxpayers who pay the bills for their hubris.
Examples abound. Everyone from the editorial board of the LA Times to the Mayor to Katy herself praised Councilmember Yaroslavsky for taking “bold action” promoting a new homeless shelter in Pico/Midvale, despite impassioned opposition from home and business owners. Press releases from the city talked about a driving need for shelters, and how important it was to make the “difficult decision” to provide transitional housing in the face of her constituents’ objections. But the self-serving PR left out a few things:
An August 8 “listening session” was shut down because residents had the temerity to voice their concerns to Yaroslavsky and Mayor Bass in person, and ask questions that weren’t part of the preapproved script.
Yaroslavsky’s chief of housing and homelessness is a recent employee of L.A. Family Housing, the nonprofit that will manage the new shelter after being given a no-bid contract. LAFH already “manages” a shelter in North Hollywood that’s notorious for being poorly run and a center for open-air drug use and for allowing a tent city to spring up in the surrounding neighborhood. (Yaroslavsky opposed special enforcement zones).
The “underutilized” city-owned parking lot where the shelter will be built provides parking for many surrounding small businesses, whose owners expressed concern over the dearth of parking for their customers.
Then there’s the preposterous proposal to use $2 million of federal money to perform a feasibility study for demolishing the Marina Freeway and build a so-called Marina Great Park with 4,000 new apartments. The proposal ignited a firestorm of opposition from the communities that would be impacted by having 100,000 daily vehicles trips dumped onto their already-overcrowded streets. In response, Erika Smith, a columnist for the L.A. Times, wrote a one-sided article deriding opponents for being closed-minded NIMBY’s. Hypocritically, the column allowed no comments to counter the biased story. Again, important facts were omitted from the narrative:
The “grassroots” organization proposing the study, Streets for All-L.A., is financially backed by California YIMBY, a housing advocacy group that has been harshly criticized for being a front for developers and hi-tech executives looking for places for their employees to live close to work, (the development would be very close to Silicon Beach).
The feasibility study would be funded by a U.S. Department of Transportation grant meant to redress harm to disadvantaged communities caused by freeway construction–think the 10 slicing through West Adams. The 90 was a late addition to L.A.’s freeway network and didn’t have the devastating community impact other highways did. The Centinela drainage channel also parallels much of the freeway, so the idea that the 90 is divisive is a red herring. Tellingly, demolishing the freeway is opposed by many residents of Ladera Heights and other neighborhoods at the freeway’s east end; these are communities of color who would be cut off of ready access to the coast. Streets for All saw there was money to be had from a community reconnection grant and bent its proposal to meet a need that doesn’t exist.
In response to a request before a recent meeting of the land-use committee of the Del Rey Residents Association, Michael Schneider, head of Streets for All, said he would not release his organization’s application for the grant. So much for transparency and the “community outreach” Mr. Schneider promises will be part of the feasibility study.
Schneider seems to have a tenuous relationship with the truth. As detailed here, he claimed Supervisor Holly Mitchell supported the study, when in fact her office offered no such support.
As with most advocates who are convinced of their own superiority, in a 2019 interview, Mr. Schneider said “I’m tired of mostly older, wealthier homeowners holding the entire city hostage from real progress around transportation – because they’re scared of change. Or because they want a parking spot right in front of wherever they go.” In one sentence, he devalued the needs of people with mobility issues who can’t take a bus or ride a bike. He devalued working parents who depend on private vehicles to get their kids to school on the way to work. And his ageism is obvious.
Given these facts, it is little wonder Mayor Bass recently rescinded her endorsement of Streets For All’s Great Park proposal. Nevertheless, in true lecturer fashion, Mr. Schneider said he’d complete the study even if he must raise the funds himself, which shouldn’t be difficult given his financial backing. He’s trying to ram the project through despite widespread community opposition.
On October 27, I was a member of a panel discussion on housing and homeless at the Valley Industry and Commerce’s annual business forecast. The panel included State Senator Scott Weiner, the author of a slew of housing bills meant to usurp local land-use authority. His need to lecture the audience and belittle anyone who had opposite views was on full display. He mocked community advocates by saying they all think it would be just awful if a duplex, or even worse, a fourplex, was built next to their homes. It would be awful if a multifamily building was built in the middle of a residential neighborhood, since in their wisdom, the state and city have exempted many developments from any parking requirements to force people to use L.A.’s anemic public transportation system. When new residents inevitably buy cars, parking, which is already at a premium in many of the city’s neighborhoods, will be a nightmare.
Senator Weiner also shared his economic acumen with the audience. He said dividing single family lots into multiple units would not increase the cost of housing. As he explained, if a single family lot is worth $1 million, it may sell for $2 million to a multifamily developer, but that cost would be divided among four or six units. Therefore, the cost of any given unit would be lower than a single home. As a realtor acquaintance of mine explained, that is failed logic. Real estate is market-based, and the cost of the land is just one factor. If those six units are located in a high-demand area, they will indeed sell for $1 million or more each. It is little wonder Senator Weiner is the darling of corporate developer interests in Sacramento.
On the wider front of housing and massive city-wide upzoning, we are being told by our government that hundreds of thousands of new units are needed to meet the crushing demand for housing. As I just mentioned, the state has taken it upon itself to impose its wisdom on local governments regarding land use, despite projections from its own agencies that California’s population will decline for at least four decades. Although there is little empirical evidence the witches’ brew of developer-friendly laws will have a significant impact on housing costs, our leaders insist widespread proliferation of multifamily housing is the only solution to the state’s housing shortage. Anyone who expresses a concern, either for the character of their neighborhood or for the quality of life for the new residents, is branded a reactionary NIMBY. Even true grassroots organizations like United Neighbors, that propose more nuanced affordable housing development, are, at best, ignored in favor of panic-driven voices calling for nearly unbridled construction.
Yet, at the same conference I attended, Dr. Fernando Guerra, a professor with LMU’s Center for the Study of Los Angeles, said there is already sufficient housing for everyone in the City. The problem is state and local regulations that encourage making housing a commodity like stocks, driving up housing costs. Corporations have become a major purchaser of housing in LA, and they treat it like any other investment, generating income by constantly selling, buying, and reselling property. Each transaction adds to the property’s cost. If state and local governments encouraged individual home ownership, as they once did, instead of steering housing income to corporate real estate interests, affordable housing would be available to a much broader population.
Katy Yaroslavsky, Michael Schneider, and Scott Weiner are among the more obvious examples of the belief that being a leader imbues one with superior knowledge that must be imposed upon, rather than shared with, a less enlightened public. There is certainly no shortage of self-anointed experts who feel they have a duty to impose their beliefs on everyone else. They are modern-day versions of Gnostics, early Christians who believed only those with special secret knowledge of Jesus’ teachings were worthy of being saved. Like the Gnostics of old, their modern day counterparts conduct much of their work behind closed doors until its time to spring their ideas on an unprepared public. This explains the lack of public outreach in the Pico/Midvale shelter, The Marina Great Park, the proposed upzoning, and a host of other decisions. And like True Believers throughout history, they refuse to think they may be wrong.
Los Angeles is a living city of nearly four million people. It is not a petri dish for a tight-knit, self-validating cadre of theorists to test the latest economic and social hypotheses, especially if they can’t admit their mistakes. Housing First and Harm Reduction have had decades to prove themselves and are abject failures by any objective standard. Advocates’ refusal to admit the serious role untreated mental illness and substance abuse play in causing homelessness has steered billions of dollars to developers, ineffective nonprofits, and other special interests while starving service and support programs of funding. They have made Los Angeles a city at war with itself: homeowners versus corporate real estate firms; renters versus landlords; self-appointed advocates versus residents; the housed versus homeless, elected officials against their own constituents. Their absolutist, arrogant approach has made the homeless crisis a zero-sum game, where they will accept nothing less than abject compliance from an unquestioning public. Truly, its time for the vast majority of Angelenos of good will to come together, and politely but firmly invite the lecturers off the public dais, so the voices of reason, practicality, and compassion can be heard.
(Tim Campbell is a resident of Westchester who spent a career in the public service and managed a municipal performance audit program. He focuses on outcomes instead of process. He writes iAUDIT! for CityWatchLA.com.)
I am an independent researcher, affiliated with The University of Queensland as a former postdoctoral scholar, and a participatory member of the Australian and New Zealand Studies Association of North America (ANZSANA). I was also a former speechwriter for four Vice-Chancellors, so I understand these policy speeches.
In the following is the early transcript intersected with my thoughts from my work on Anglo-American major belief systems, and its practical expression in Australia and the United States. I cannot be expected to address all issues in the State of the Union speech, but I address a range of issues from a framework of philosophical compatibility and an Australian perspective.
The following are President Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union remarks, as prepared for delivery, provided by the White House:
Good evening.
Mr. Speaker. Madam Vice President. Members of Congress. My Fellow Americans.
In January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt came to this chamber to speak to the nation.
He said, “I address you at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union.”
Hitler was on the march. War was raging in Europe.
President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this was no ordinary moment.
Freedom and democracy were under assault in the world.
Tonight I come to the same chamber to address the nation.
Now it is we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union.
Historiography to which I and my colleagues apply is philosophical compatibility. It is achieved, I believe, in an Australian perspective of POLICE: Philosophically Ontology Logic Intersect Compatibility Education (POLICE). This is the background outlook to the history which Joe Biden has opened on in the State of the Union address. The practical expression in Australia are thinking and conversations on global culture-history war. This is the practical expression in the United States, which is then exported globally. The overwhelming numbers of Australians, politically, have a very low opinion of the American republican culture-history rhetorical warfare. In the United States it is estimated that support for the former President, Donald Trump, is one-fourth of the American population, estimated at the total in 341,814,420 persons.
And yes, my purpose tonight is to both wake up this Congress, and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either.
Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today.
What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time.
Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond.
If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not.
But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking. They are not asking for American soldiers.
In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine. And I am determined to keep it that way.
But now assistance for Ukraine is being blocked by those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world.
Warfare breaks down the philosophical compatibility, so, if you want to dumb-down a population, have a war. This is what Joe Biden is attempting avoid for the United States. There is already warfare, a killing-field type of warfare in the Ukraine-Russia, Gaza-Israel, and in the Horn of Africa. There is also a trade war with China. The majority of a personal Australian perspective is to also avoid war. The practical expression in Australia is the bi-partisan policy towards both China and the United States. Our country is the middleman of the global Asia-Pacific trade, and peace in the region is sacred. The practical expression in the United States is less forthcoming in peace, but the foreign policy of the United States is in a bind: between Israel and its Middle East allies, and between China, to whom there is both suspicion and hope, and the Asia-Pacific allies; and, of course, Australia and New Zealand play a significant role to which many Americans are unaware of.
It wasn’t that long ago when a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
Now, my predecessor, a former Republican President, tells Putin, “Do whatever the hell you want.”
A former American President actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader.
America is a founding member of NATO the military alliance of democratic nations created after World War II to prevent war and keep the peace.
Today, we’ve made NATO stronger than ever.
We welcomed Finland to the Alliance last year, and just this morning, Sweden officially joined NATO, and their Prime Minister is here tonight.
Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to NATO, the strongest military alliance the world has ever known.
I say this to Congress: we must stand up to Putin. Send me the Bipartisan National Security Bill.
History is watching.
If the United States walks away now, it will put Ukraine at risk.
Europe at risk. The free world at risk, emboldening others who wish to do us harm.
My message to President Putin is simple.
We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down.
Much of the philosophical compatibility arises from the consensus of historians on the Cold War. There has been a technical debate on the extent that the Cold War was a conflict between ideological blocs, and the extend it was rhetoric to mask national interest. The rise of Putin tends to give the interpretation of the latter. Nevertheless, ideology plays an important role. The practical expression in the United States is the way too-many Americans speak of social democracies, such as Australia, as “socialists” meaning “hidden communists”. The average Australian perspective, for this reason, sees Americans as dumb. The archetype description of an American is someone with very poor geographic knowledge. The criticism is not fair but it does refer to the anti-education trends in the United States, as well the literature expression of the “Ugly American”.
History is watching, just like history watched three years ago on January 6th.
Insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy.
Many of you were here on that darkest of days.
We all saw with our own eyes these insurrectionists were not patriots.
They had come to stop the peaceful transfer of power and to overturn the will of the people.
January 6th and the lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to steal the election, posed the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War.
But they failed. America stood strong and democracy prevailed.
But we must be honest the threat remains and democracy must be defended.
My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth of January 6th.
I will not do that.
This is a moment to speak the truth and bury the lies.
And here’s the simplest truth. You can’t love your country only when you win.
As I’ve done ever since being elected to office, I ask you all, without regard to party, to join together and defend our democracy!
Remember your oath of office to defend against all threats foreign and domestic.
Respect free and fair elections! Restore trust in our institutions! And make clear—political violence has absolutely no place in America!
History is watching.
However, from Joe Biden’s speech we can see a return to philosophical compatibility. Americans themselves have had enough of the truth and facts of the “Ugly American”: Insurrectionists. This is the tragedy and practical expression in the United States: the control of the Republican Party has been handed over to Donald Trump’s Insurrectionists. The average Australian perspective hates this type of American politics.
And history is watching another assault on freedom.
Joining us tonight is Latorya Beasley, a social worker from Birmingham, Alabama. 14 months ago tonight, she and her husband welcomed a baby girl thanks to the miracle of IVF.
She scheduled treatments to have a second child, but the Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments across the state, unleashed by the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
She was told her dream would have to wait.
What her family has gone through should never have happened. And unless Congress acts, it could happen again.
So tonight, let’s stand up for families like hers!
To my friends across the aisle, don’t keep families waiting any longer. Guarantee the right to IVF nationwide!
Like most Americans, I believe Roe v. Wade got it right. And I thank Vice President Harris for being an incredible leader, defending reproductive freedom and so much more.
But my predecessor came to office determined to see Roe v. Wade overturned.
He’s the reason it was overturned. In fact, he brags about it.
Look at the chaos that has resulted.
Joining us tonight is Kate Cox, a wife and mother from Dallas.
When she became pregnant again, the fetus had a fatal condition.
Her doctors told Kate that her own life and her ability to have children in the future were at risk if she didn’t act.
Because Texas law banned abortion, Kate and her husband had to leave the state to get the care she needed.
What her family has gone through should never have happened as well. But it is happening to so many others.
There are state laws banning the right to choose, criminalizing doctors, and forcing survivors of rape and incest to leave their states as well to get the care they need.
Many of you in this Chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom.
My God, what freedoms will you take away next?
In its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade the Supreme Court majority wrote, “Women are not without electoral or political power.”
No kidding.
Clearly, those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women in America.
They found out though when reproductive freedom was on the ballot and won in 2022, 2023, and they will find out again, in 2024.
If Americans send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you, I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again!
America cannot go back. I am here tonight to show the way forward. Because I know how far we’ve come.
Philosophical compatibility is hard to achieve in life-values politics. Biden is a Catholic who believes in abortion rights. He walks a fine line. Despite the way traditional Catholics and militant Evangelicals might see Roe v. Wade, it was a compromise, a difficult compatibility in life-values politics. Now, we are seeing the practical expression in the United States of unintended consequences of repealing the legislation. An Australian perspective is mixed but it is unlikely that the Australian legislation on abortion will be repealed.
Four years ago next week, before I came to office, our country was hit by the worst pandemic and the worst economic crisis in a century.
Remember the fear. Record job losses. Remember the spike in crime. And the murder rate.
A raging virus that would take more than 1 million American lives and leave millions of loved ones behind.
A mental health crisis of isolation and loneliness.
A president, my predecessor, who failed the most basic duty. Any President owes the American people the duty to care.
That is unforgivable.
I came to office determined to get us through one of the toughest periods in our nation’s history.
And we have. It doesn’t make the news but in thousands of cities and towns the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told.
So let’s tell that story here and now.
America’s comeback is building a future of American possibilities, building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down, investing in all of America, in all Americans to make sure everyone has a fair shot and we leave no one behind!
The pandemic no longer controls our lives. The vaccines that saved us from COVID are now being used to help beat cancer.
Turning setback into comeback.
That’s America!
Philosophical compatibility for medical ethics is achieved by sidelining the margins at both ends of the debate spectrum. This might be unfortunate, but political decision making has the middle on the mainstream of expert opinion. Australian perspectives were mixed on the Covid pandemic and restrictive measures made, but the practical expression in Australia of Health Safety was for social intervention. The practical expression in the United States was not as good for safe outcomes because of the libertarian ideology. Liberaltarianism advocates higher risk-taking for the absolute value of the individual.
I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Now our economy is the envy of the world!
15 million new jobs in just three years—that’s a record!
Unemployment at 50-year lows.
A record 16 million Americans are starting small businesses and each one is an act of hope.
With historic job growth and small business growth for Black, Hispanic, and Asian-Americans.
800,000 new manufacturing jobs in America and counting.
More people have health insurance today than ever before.
The racial wealth gap is the smallest it’s been in 20 years.
Wages keep going up and inflation keeps coming down!
Inflation has dropped from 9% to 3%—the lowest in the world!
And trending lower.
And now instead of importing foreign products and exporting American jobs, we’re exporting American products and creating American jobs—right here in America where they belong!
And the American people are beginning to feel it.
Consumer studies show consumer confidence is soaring.
Buy American has been the law of the land since the 1930s.
Past administrations including my predecessor failed to Buy American.
Not any more.
On my watch, federal projects like helping to build American roads bridges and highways will be made with American products built by American workers creating good-paying American jobs!
Thanks to my Chips and Science Act the United States is investing more in research and development than ever before.
During the pandemic a shortage of semiconductor chips drove up prices for everything from cell phones to automobiles.
Well instead of having to import semiconductor chips, which America invented I might add, private companies are now investing billions of dollars to build new chip factories here in America!
Creating tens of thousands of jobs many of them paying over $100,000 a year and don’t require a college degree.
In fact my policies have attracted $650 Billion of private sector investments in clean energy and advanced manufacturing creating tens of thousands of jobs here in America!
Thanks to our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 46,000 new projects have been announced across your communities—modernizing our roads and bridges, ports and airports, and public transit systems.
Removing poisonous lead pipes so every child can drink clean water without risk of getting brain damage.
Providing affordable high speed internet for every American no matter where you live.
Urban, suburban, and rural communities—in red states and blue.
Record investments in tribal communities.
Because of my investments, family farms are better be able to stay in the family and children and grandchildren won’t have to leave home to make a living.
It’s transformative.
A great comeback story is Belvidere, Illinois. Home to an auto plant for nearly 60 years.
Before I came to office the plant was on its way to shutting down.
Thousands of workers feared for their livelihoods. Hope was fading.
Then I was elected to office and we raised Belvidere repeatedly with the auto company knowing unions make all the difference.
The UAW worked like hell to keep the plant open and get those jobs back. And together, we succeeded!
Instead of an auto factory shutting down an auto factory is re-opening and a new state-of-the art battery factory is being built to power those cars.
Instead of a town being left behind it’s a community moving forward again!
Because instead of watching auto jobs of the future go overseas 4,000 union workers with higher wages will be building that future, in Belvidere, here in America!
Here tonight is UAW President, Shawn Fain, a great friend, and a great labor leader.
And Dawn Simms, a third generation UAW worker in Belvidere.
Shawn, I was proud to be the first President in American history to walk a picket line.
And today Dawn has a job in her hometown providing stability for her family and pride and dignity.
Showing once again, Wall Street didn’t build this country!
The middle class built this country! And unions built the middle class!
When Americans get knocked down, we get back up!
We keep going!
That’s America! That’s you, the American people!
It’s because of you America is coming back!
It’s because of you, our future is brighter!
And it’s because of you that tonight we can proudly say the State of our Union is strong and getting stronger!
Sociologically achieving philosophical compatibility is also difficult: “Urban, suburban, and rural communities—in red states and blue.” But it clear from Joe Biden’s speech that the compatibility is the compatibility of “the Middle Class(es)”. In one part of the unscripted speech, Biden gave the unions credit for the modern rise of the Middle Class, and there is a truth in that statement. The organised working classes did become the middle classes, economically and politically. On the other hand, from the 1980s, there were sections of ‘white’ middle classes who took a downturn in their financial fortunes. We saw this, as a practical expression in the United States, in Falling Down, a 1993 American psychological thriller film. Hence, in the politics of the Republican party, there came a narrative of the social threats to ‘whiteness’, which fueled anti-immigrant policies, which had a long history in the American narrative. There is a practical expression in Australia of such hatred and resentment, but, whatever the happenings, the Australian perspective is that “we” are not as bad as Americans in their history on the accounts of excessive wealth, racism, and violence, which form a sociological pattern of interlocking factors.
Tonight I want to talk about the future of possibilities that we can build together.
A future where the days of trickle-down economics are over and the wealthy and biggest corporations no longer get all the breaks.
I grew up in a home where not a lot trickled down on my Dad’s kitchen table.
That’s why I’m determined to turn things around so the middle class does well the poor have a way up and the wealthy still does well.
We all do well.
And there’s more to do to make sure you’re feeling the benefits of all we’re doing.
Americans pay more for prescription drugs than anywhere else.
It’s wrong and I’m ending it.
With a law I proposed and signed and not one Republican voted for we finally beat Big Pharma!
Instead of paying $400 a month for insulin seniors with diabetes only have to pay $35 a month!
And now I want to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it!
For years people have talked about it but I finally got it done and gave Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs just like the VA does for our veterans.
That’s not just saving seniors money.
It’s saving taxpayers money cutting the federal deficit by $160 Billion because Medicare will no longer have to pay exorbitant prices to Big Pharma.
This year Medicare is negotiating lower prices for some of the costliest drugs on the market that treat everything from heart disease to arthritis.
Now it’s time to go further and give Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for 500 drugs over the next decade.
That will not only save lives it will save taxpayers another $200 Billion!
Starting next year that same law caps total prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare at $2,000 a year even for expensive cancer drugs that can cost $10,000, $12,000, $15,000 a year.
Now I want to cap prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year for everyone!
Folks Obamacare, known as the Affordable Care Act is still a very big deal.
Over one hundred million of you can no longer be denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.
But my predecessor and many in this chamber want to take that protection away by repealing the Affordable Care Act.
I won’t let that happen!
We stopped you 50 times before and we will stop you again!
In fact I am protecting it and expanding it.
I enacted tax credits that save $800 per person per year reducing health care premiums for millions of working families.
Those tax credits expire next year.
I want to make those savings permanent!
Women are more than half of our population but research on women’s health has always been underfunded.
That’s why we’re launching the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, led by Jill who is doing an incredible job as First Lady.
Pass my plan for $12 Billion to transform women’s health research and benefit millions of lives across America!
I know the cost of housing is so important to you.
If inflation keeps coming down mortgage rates will come down as well.
But I’m not waiting.
I want to provide an annual tax credit that will give Americans $400 a month for the next two years as mortgage rates come down to put toward their mortgage when they buy a first home or trade up for a little more space.
My Administration is also eliminating title insurance fees for federally backed mortgages.
When you refinance your home this can save you $1,000 or more.
For millions of renters, we’re cracking down on big landlords who break antitrust laws by price-fixing and driving up rents.
I’ve cut red tape so more builders can get federal financing, which is already helping build a record 1.7 million housing units nationwide.
Now pass my plan to build and renovate 2 million affordable homes and bring those rents down!
Ideologically the challenge to philosophical compatibility are worldviews on capitalism and its economic alternatives, and on the principles of fairness, justice and liberty. Ideologies — major belief systems — prioritizes certain principles over other principles. This is the conflict. But what if there was not the system of partisan prioritization, but a system of balancing out the concerns of a democracy. Trumpism, although it is not seen by a quarter of Americans, is a choice against a system of compatibility. The practical expression in the United States is to see such a democrat hope for social compatible, or the ideal of a civil society, as an impractical ideal. Instead, the country has hyper-competitive “entrepreneurship”. But are the American money-markets that entrepreneurial? This is, ironically, the argument of many of Trump’s followers, trying to find riches in alternative currencies. Again, on the Left or Right, the uneducated masses follow the pipedream like lemmings leaping off a cliff. Get-Quick-Rich schemes have its practical expression in Australia. But it is off-set by an Australian national mythology of “fairness”.
To remain the strongest economy in the world we need the best education system in the world.
I want to give every child a good start by providing access to pre-school for 3- and 4-year-olds.
Studies show that children who go to pre-school are nearly 50% more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a 2- or 4-year degree no matter their background.
I want to expand high-quality tutoring and summer learning time and see to it that every child learns to read by third grade.
I’m also connecting businesses and high schools so students get hands-on experience and a path to a good-paying job whether or not they go to college.
And I want to make college more affordable.
Let’s continue increasing Pell Grants for working- and middle-class families and increase our record investments in HBCUs and Hispanic and Minority-serving Institutions
I fixed student loan programs to reduce the burden of student debt for nearly 4 Million Americans including nurses firefighters and others in public service like Keenan Jones a public-school educator in Minnesota who’s here with us tonight.
He’s educated hundreds of students so they can go to college now he can help his own daughter pay for college.
Such relief is good for the economy because folks are now able to buy a home start a business even start a family.
While we’re at it I want to give public school teachers a raise!
The philosophical compatibility on Education was challenged by the culture-history wars. In both countries there grew a hatred and resentment towards educational processes and theories. It is not that there were not problems in the education systems. There are issues to work out, but the practical expression in the United States was one of outraged opinion along ideological lines. Henry Giroux illuminated this insight for the American education system:
Giroux, Henry (1983, co-edited with David E. Purpel). The Hidden Curriculum and Moral Education: Deception or Discovery? Berkeley: McCutchan.
Giroux, Henry and Stanley Aronowitz (1985). Education Under Siege: The Conservative, Liberal, and Radical Debate Over Schooling, Westport: Bergin and Garvey Press.
Giroux, Henry (1988). Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Giroux, Henry and Stanley Aronowitz (1991). Postmodern Education: Politics, Culture, and Social Criticism, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
The Australian perspective is usually caught up in the rhetoric of the American culture-history warfare, which is explained by Giroux.
Now let me speak to a question of fundamental fairness for all Americans.
I’ve been delivering real results in a fiscally responsible way.
I’ve already cut the federal deficit by over one trillion dollars.
I signed a bipartisan budget deal that will cut another trillion dollars over the next decade.
And now it’s my goal to cut the federal deficit $3 trillion more by making big corporations and the very wealthy finally pay their fair share.
Look, I’m a capitalist.
If you want to make a million bucks—great!
Just pay your fair share in taxes.
A fair tax code is how we invest in the things that make a country great—health care, education, defense, and more.
But here’s the deal.
The last administration enacted a $2 Trillion tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the very wealthy and the biggest corporations and exploded the federal deficit.
They added more to the national debt than in any presidential term in American history.
For folks at home does anybody really think the tax code is fair?
Do you really think the wealthy and big corporations need another $2 trillion in tax breaks?
I sure don’t. I’m going to keep fighting like hell to make it fair!
Under my plan nobody earning less than $400,000 will pay an additional penny in federal taxes.
Nobody. Not one penny.
In fact the Child Tax Credit I passed during the pandemic cut taxes for millions of working families and cut child poverty in HALF.
Restore the Child Tax Credit because no child should go hungry in this country!
The way to make the tax code fair is to make big corporations and the very wealthy finally pay their share.
In 2020 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 Billion in profits and paid zero in federal income taxes.
Not any more!
Thanks to the law I wrote and signed big companies now have to pay a minimum of 15%.
But that’s still less than working people pay in federal taxes.
It’s time to raise the corporate minimum tax to at least 21% so every big corporation finally begins to pay their fair share.
I also want to end the tax breaks for Big Pharma, Big Oil, private jets, and massive executive pay!
End it now!
There are 1,000 billionaires in America.
You know what the average federal tax rate for these billionaires is? 8.2 percent!
That’s far less than the vast majority of Americans pay.
No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a teacher, a sanitation worker, a nurse!
That’s why I’ve proposed a minimum tax of 25% for billionaires. Just 25%.
That would raise $500 Billion over the next 10 years.
Imagine what that could do for America. Imagine a future with affordable child care so millions of families can get the care they need and still go to work and help grow the economy.
Imagine a future with paid leave because no one should have to choose between working and taking care of yourself or a sick family member.
Imagine a future with home care and elder care so seniors and people living with disabilities can stay in their homes and family caregivers get paid what they deserve!
Tonight, let’s all agree once again to stand up for seniors!
Many of my Republican friends want to put Social Security on the chopping block.
If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age I will stop them!
Working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do. It’s not fair.
We have two ways to go on Social Security.
Republicans will cut Social Security and give more tax cuts to the wealthy.
I will protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share!
Too many corporations raise their prices to pad their profits charging you more and more for less and less.
That’s why we’re cracking down on corporations that engage in price gouging or deceptive pricing from food to health care to housing.
In fact, snack companies think you won’t notice when they charge you just as much for the same size bag but with fewer chips in it.
Pass Senator Bob Casey’s bill to put a stop to shrinkflation!
I’m also getting rid of junk fees those hidden fees added at the end of your bills without your knowledge. My administration just announced we’re cutting credit card late fees from $32 to just $8.
The banks and credit card companies don’t like it.
Why?
I’m saving American families $20 billion a year with all of the junk fees I’m eliminating.
And I’m not stopping there.
My Administration has proposed rules to make cable travel utilities and online ticket sellers tell you the total price upfront so there are no surprises.
It matters.
And so does this.
The philosophical compatibility in economics is usually the global systems that economists “discover”, “map” or “construct”. We can have different economic systems, but there is only one planet. The trouble is that the practical expression in the United States is usually “Planet America”. And the practical expression in Australia can be as insular, but an Australian perspective, is, on average, less troubled by isolationism.
In November, my team began serious negotiations with a bipartisan group of Senators.
The result was a bipartisan bill with the toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen in this country.
That bipartisan deal would hire 1,500 more border security agents and officers.
100 more immigration judges to help tackle a backload of 2 million cases.
4,300 more asylum officers and new policies so they can resolve cases in 6 months instead of 6 years.
100 more high-tech drug detection machines to significantly increase the ability to screen and stop vehicles from smuggling fentanyl into America.
This bill would save lives and bring order to the border.
It would also give me as President new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming.
The Border Patrol Union endorsed the bill.
The Chamber of Commerce endorsed the bill.
I believe that given the opportunity a majority of the House and Senate would endorse it as well.
But unfortunately, politics have derailed it so far.
I’m told my predecessor called Republicans in Congress and demanded they block the bill. He feels it would be a political win for me and a political loser for him.
It’s not about him or me.
It’d be a winner for America!
My Republican friends you owe it to the American people to get this bill done.
We need to act.
And if my predecessor is watching instead of playing politics and pressuring members of Congress to block this bill, join me in telling Congress to pass it!
We can do it together. But here’s what I will not do.
I will not demonize immigrants saying they “poison the blood of our country” as he said in his own words.
I will not separate families.
I will not ban people from America because of their faith.
Unlike my predecessor, on my first day in office I introduced a comprehensive plan to fix our immigration system, secure the border, and provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and so much more.
Because unlike my predecessor, I know who we are as Americans.
We are the only nation in the world with a heart and soul that draws from old and new.
Home to Native Americans whose ancestors have been here for thousands of years. Home to people from every place on Earth.
Some came freely.
Some chained by force.
Some when famine struck, like my ancestral family in Ireland.
Some to flee persecution.
Some to chase dreams that are impossible anywhere but here in America.
That’s America, where we all come from somewhere, but we are all Americans.
We can fight about the border, or we can fix it. I’m ready to fix it.
Send me the border bill now!
Can we have philosophical compatibility for issues of global migration? For certain, nationalism gets in the road of compatibility for these complex issues. In the off-script moment, Joe Biden had to play “both sides of the fence”. The practical expression in the United States is, both, the country welcoming refugees as the national story, and the nativism. It is also there as an practical expression in Australia. In this regard, I do not think an Australian perspective is far from the American story.
A transformational moment in our history happened 59 years ago today in Selma, Alabama.
Hundreds of foot soldiers for justice marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named after a Grand Dragon of the KKK, to claim their fundamental right to vote.
They were beaten bloodied and left for dead.
Our late friend and former colleague John Lewis was at the march.
We miss him.
Joining us tonight are other marchers who were there including Betty May Fikes, known as the “Voice of Selma.”
A daughter of gospel singers and preachers, she sang songs of prayer and protest on that Bloody Sunday, to help shake the nation’s conscience. Five months later, the Voting Rights Act was signed into law.
But 59 years later, there are forces taking us back in time.
Voter suppression. Election subversion. Unlimited dark money. Extreme gerrymandering.
John Lewis was a great friend to many of us here. But if you truly want to honor him and all the heroes who marched with him, then it’s time for more than just talk.
Pass and send me the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act!
And stop denying another core value of America our diversity across American life.
Banning books.
It’s wrong!
Instead of erasing history, let’s make history!
I want to protect other fundamental rights!
Pass the Equality Act, and my message to transgender Americans: I have your back!
Pass the PRO Act for workers rights! And raise the federal minimum wage because every worker has the right to earn a decent living!
The philosophical compatibility for civil rights is difficult to achieve. Some philosophers will argue that is because of the “civil rights” narrative, and a better narrative is not about constitutional rights at all, but on human nature and the respect for all life forms. There are political truths in this counter-argument, but the history has gone too far to reject the “civil rights” narrative, which is, in fact, the practical expression in the United States. Much less so, it is the practical expression in Australia, which nostalgically looks to the British common law tradition. Rather than judicious rights, an Australian perspective is to fairness in common sense.
We are also making history by confronting the climate crisis, not denying it.
I’m taking the most significant action on climate ever in the history of the world.
I am cutting our carbon emissions in half by 2030.
Creating tens of thousands of clean-energy jobs, like the IBEW workers building and installing 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.
Conserving 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030.
Taking historic action on environmental justice for fence-line communities smothered by the legacy of pollution.
And patterned after the Peace Corps and Ameri Corps, I’ve launched a Climate Corps to put 20,000 young people to work at the forefront of our clean energy future.
I’ll triple that number this decade.
The rise of the global culture-history wars coincided with the denial of climate change. After the mid-century narratives about mainstream “facts” and truth-telling, the non-expert outliers got their “day in court” of public opinion. But it all flies in the face of philosophical compatibility. In the practical expression in the United States, it simply does not work. The practical expression in Australia is more reliant on “authority” as vocalized “trust”. But in recent times, there has been an Americanism, coinciding with an Australian perspective and narrative of distrusting authority (the history of the Australian ‘rebelling’ outlaw). American radical schools of thought in anarchism have carried through on the streets of Melbourne. That has been primarily on the issue of health authority, but it also aligns well with the same suspicion of authority in relation to climate change solutions.
All Americans deserve the freedom to be safe, and America is safer today than when I took office.
The year before I took office, murders went up 30% nationwide the biggest increase in history.
That was then.
Now, through my American Rescue Plan, which every Republican voted against, I’ve made the largest investment in public safety ever.
Last year, the murder rate saw the sharpest decrease in history, and violent crime fell to one of the lowest levels in more than 50 years.
But we have more to do.
Help cities and towns invest in more community police officers, more mental health workers, and more community violence intervention.
Give communities the tools to crack down on gun crime, retail crime, and carjacking.
Keep building public trust, as I’ve been doing by taking executive action on police reform, and calling for it to be the law of the land, directing my Cabinet to review the federal classification of marijuana, and expunging thousands of convictions for mere possession, because no one should be jailed for using or possessing marijuana!
To take on crimes of domestic violence, I am ramping up federal enforcement of the Violence Against Women Act, that I proudly wrote, so we can finally end the scourge of violence against women in America!
And there’s another kind of violence I want to stop.
With us tonight is Jasmine, whose 9-year-old sister Jackie was murdered with 21 classmates and teachers at her elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Soon after it happened, Jill and I went to Uvalde and spent hours with the families.
We heard their message, and so should everyone in this chamber do something.
I did do something by establishing the first-ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention in the White House that Vice President Harris is leading.
Meanwhile, my predecessor told the NRA he’s proud he did nothing on guns when he was President.
After another school shooting in Iowa he said we should just “get over it.”
I say we must stop it.
I’m proud we beat the NRA when I signed the most significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years!
Now we must beat the NRA again!
I’m demanding a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines!
Pass universal background checks!
None of this violates the Second Amendment or vilifies responsible gun owners.
Guns and crime has become the global archetypal image of the United States. And yet, as the rest of the world understands, there is philosophical compatibility, even as imperfect and fallible, in tackling crime and gun-racketting. The practical expression in Australia was Howard’s restriction of gun-ownership. The overwhelming Australian perspective is that Howard help to prevent the madness of the NRA-type influence in our country.
As we manage challenges at home, we’re also managing crises abroad including in the Middle East.
I know the last five months have been gut-wrenching for so many people, for the Israeli people, the Palestinian people, and so many here in America.
This crisis began on October 7th with a massacre by the terrorist group Hamas.
1,200 innocent people women and girls men and boys slaughtered, many enduring sexual violence.
The deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
250 hostages taken.
Here in the chamber tonight are American families whose loved ones are still being held by Hamas.
I pledge to all the families that we will not rest until we bring their loved ones home.
We will also work around the clock to bring home Evan and Paul, Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.
Israel has a right to go after Hamas.
Hamas could end this conflict today by releasing the hostages, laying down arms, and surrendering those responsible for October 7th.
Israel has an added burden because Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population. But Israel also has a fundamental responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Gaza.
This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined.
More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Most of whom are not Hamas.
Thousands and thousands are innocent women and children.
Girls and boys also orphaned.
Nearly 2 million more Palestinians under bombardment or displaced.
Homes destroyed, neighborhoods in rubble, cities in ruin.
Families without food, water, medicine.
It’s heartbreaking.
We’ve been working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire that would last for at least six weeks.
It would get the hostages home, ease the intolerable humanitarian crisis, and build toward something more enduring.
The United States has been leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
Tonight, I’m directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters.
No U.S. boots will be on the ground.
This temporary pier would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.
But Israel must also do its part.
Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and ensure that humanitarian workers aren’t caught in the cross fire.
To the leadership of Israel I say this.
Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip.
Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority.
As we look to the future, the only real solution is a two-state solution.
I say this as a lifelong supporter of Israel and the only American president to visit Israel in wartime.
There is no other path that guarantees Israel’s security and democracy.
There is no other path that guarantees Palestinians can live with peace and dignity.
There is no other path that guarantees peace between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia.
Creating stability in the Middle East also means containing the threat posed by Iran.
That’s why I built a coalition of more than a dozen countries to defend international shipping and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.
I’ve ordered strikes to degrade Houthi capabilities and defend U.S. Forces in the region.
As Commander in Chief, I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and military personnel.
The philosophical compatibility in geo-politics is very difficult. The solution is undoing militarism. This is not the same as the military in the United States. Although there are practical expression of militarism, there are many in decision-making of the military who are aware of the issue and are more committed to “peace-enforcement” than wanting to open war fronts. This is true in Australia as in the United States. The difference, though, is that United States has had a history in violent covert military operations (to avoid a war) and undermining democratic governments through covert spy operations. Australians, in recent years, are asking for perspective on whether we have similar practical expression in Australia
For years, all I’ve heard from my Republican friends and so many others is China’s on the rise and America is falling behind.
They’ve got it backward.
America is rising.
We have the best economy in the world.
Since I’ve come to office, our GDP is up.
And our trade deficit with China is down to the lowest point in over a decade.
We’re standing up against China’s unfair economic practices.
And standing up for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
I’ve revitalized our partnerships and alliances in the Pacific.
I’ve made sure that the most advanced American technologies can’t be used in China’s weapons.
Frankly for all his tough talk on China, it never occurred to my predecessor to do that.
We want competition with China, but not conflict.
And we’re in a stronger position to win the competition for the 21st Century against China or anyone else for that matter.
Whether East-West can find philosophical compatibility is an open question. Since the mid-century there have been fruitful East-West dialogue for mutual understanding. Both Australian and American perspective is not homogeneous. There are those who fear the loss of an European narrative and outlook, and those who believe that the world would be better place if we enlarged our worldview.
Here at home I’ve signed over 400 bipartisan bills.
But there’s more to do to pass my Unity Agenda.
Strengthen penalties on fentanyl trafficking.
Pass bipartisan privacy legislation to protect our children online.
Harness the promise of A.I. and protect us from its peril.
Ban A.I. voice impersonation and more!
And keep our one truly sacred obligation, to train and equip those we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families when they come home, and when they don’t.
That’s why I signed the PACT Act, one of the most significant laws ever, helping millions of veterans who were exposed to toxins and who now are battling more than 100 cancers.
Many of them didn’t come home.
We owe them and their families.
And we owe it to ourselves to keep supporting our new health research agency called ARPA-H and remind us that we can do big things like end cancer as we know it!
Let me close with this.
I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while.
And when you get to my age certain things become clearer than ever before.
The habit not to think but take the easy way out is what ties together all of these issues in this section of the speech. The unity is the philosophical compatibility. It has less to do with Australian or American perspective, or even practical expression in Australia or in the United States. It has to with learning together.
I know the American story.
Again and again I’ve seen the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation.
Between those who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move America into the future.
My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy.
A future based on the core values that have defined America.
Honesty. Decency. Dignity. Equality.
To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor.
Now some other people my age see a different story.
An American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution.
That’s not me.
I was born amid World War II when America stood for freedom in the world.
I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, among working people who built this country.
I watched in horror as two of my heroes, Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy, were assassinated and their legacies inspired me to pursue a career in service.
A public defender, county councilman, elected United States Senator at 29, then Vice President, to our first Black President, now President, with our first woman Vice President.
In my career I’ve been told I’m too young and I’m too old.
Whether young or old, I’ve always known what endures.
Our North Star.
The very idea of America, that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives.
We’ve never fully lived up to that idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either.
And I won’t walk away from it now.
Nationalism does bring a type of philosophical compatibility, but there is a necessity to challenge, in reconsidering the idea of our country. It is necessary to have an idea of national citizenship, but the dangers and misunderstanding stems from the filters of our own perception: ‘culture’, ‘religion’, ‘secularity’ and they are often themes that the average Australian or American misunderstands.
My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old our ideas are.
Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are among the oldest of ideas.
But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back.
To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future of what America can and should be.
Tonight you’ve heard mine.
I see a future where we defend democracy not diminish it.
I see a future where we restore the right to choose and protect other freedoms not take them away.
I see a future where the middle class finally has a fair shot and the wealthy finally have to pay their fair share in taxes.
I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis and our country from gun violence.
Above all, I see a future for all Americans!
I see a country for all Americans!
And I will always be a president for all Americans!
Because I believe in America!
I believe in you the American people.
You’re the reason I’ve never been more optimistic about our future!
So let’s build that future together!
Let’s remember who we are!
We are the United States of America.
There is nothing beyond our capacity when we act together!
May God bless you all.
May God protect our troops.
For Joe Biden the philosophical compatibility is believing in America with the framework of ‘the Democrat’ national story. As an Australian perspective, we say “Fair enough”. Republicans will mostly likely not believe Joe Biden. The problem for the Republicans is that the majority of Americans — both centralists and the leftwing — believe the mythological story of Joe Biden, and the Republicans do not have any other story than Donald Trump’s MAGA narrative. Globally, the MAGA is too thin, and is itself the story of American decline: to tell a successful political lie, you tell a big one. But Americans today, in the majority, no longer see any benefit in the lying. The crux of matter is whether they will come out and vote accordingly.
Note: There were impromptu sections which were added and developed before the publication of the transcript. They also add value in a grand State of Union speech.
What has happened in the United States is a shift of the weight of the Block-Thinking Division between “Religious” and “Secular”. Let me unpack that phrasing. Block-thinking is the cognition motivated by the collective agenda of an interest group, usually a political advocacy organisation with ‘religious’ or ‘secular’ pretense. In these cases, the ‘religious’ or ‘secular’ is only a mask for the aggressive political tactics.
A Block-Thinking Division is a reference to the binary thinking which is completely false on the basis of what was explained in the block-thinking.
“To critics, the burgeoning number of taxpayer-financed religious students adds up to an unwelcome mingling of government and religion, and a drain on dollars that could support public schools, which unlike private schools are required to serve all students. That occurs both when public school students use vouchers to attend private schools — meaning their public schools lose per-pupil funding — and when the state spends large amounts of money on students whose families would otherwise pay private school tuition themselves.”
…
“For much of the 20th century, a bipartisan consensus protected a separation of church and state. But in recent decades, advocates who thought separation had gone too far advanced the opposite argument: Limiting the rights of religious groups in schools and other government settings constitutes discrimination.”
…
“We [the United States] are, as a society, underwriting religion,” he [Richard Katskee, Appellate Litigation Clinic. Duke University School of Law] said. “That’s not what the public schools are supposed to be about.”
In Australia it is not the same, colleagues in religious institutions still have evidence that some religious schools do actually need more public funding as a matter of equity. Often the cases are not a matter of the overall administration label, but whether the school is fairly catering to the community it serves, and these factors go beyond the idiotic labels of “religious” or “non-religious” in politically-charged administration.
But our resistance to the Block-Thinking Division is being eroded by choices in our education systems, I know in Queensland many ignorantly-based choices, in history and now (the unfolding history). The fact might be dismissed as ‘just thinking’ of “the times,” but the inconvenient fact remains that there have always been critics of the systems-thinking when it became skewed in cognition. The unacceptable tragedy is that arrogant political decision makers thought they knew better than the critics. I think of Dr Michael Macklin back in the 1970s at the University of Queensland, in the 1980s as Senator for Queensland, in the 1990s as the inaugural CEO of Hall Chadwick Education Advisory, and in the first decade of this century as the Professor and Dean of Arts at the University of New England.
Now, by nearly every experts’ “opinion,” Australia has experienced a great decline in our education systems. Yes, that is generalisation against where there has been improvements but the loss and pain has been to the greater scale.
I have attempted to demonstrate over the past years that our political leaders have not been thinking deeply and accurately. They have been thinking in shallow political terms and in skewed claims (falsehoods). I am not alone in these claims but I am the Queensland cognition historian who has explained the set of problems from the applied fields of epistemology and ontology. I am not paid, and I am now broke, and have risked all on the global cutting-edge scholarship for Queensland.
On a Sunday morning doing research on the centenary of the Greater Brisbane Plan and the election of the first Greater Brisbane Council, I came across this informative article published in a German journal; the Germans are generally the better intellectual historians, in my humble opinion (it seems they invented field from the days of Kant and Hegel). The article was published in 1955 and it is relevant to what is happening in 2024! Spiral Historiography.
King, H. W. (1955). The Scope and Nature of Urban Research in Australia (Wesen und Grenzen der stadtgeographischen Forschung in Australien). Erdkunde, 9(4), 317–320. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25636251
“Though there is a large and growing body of general literature relating to the towns and cities of Australia, urban geographical research in the continent has been much neglected compared with what has been done in Britain, Europe and the United States of America.
Popular works of book length on towns vary from collections of excellent camera studies with many photographs of special interest and value to the geographer 1), to descriptive 2), anecdotal 3), and antiquarian historical 4) writings; in a more serious vein many books relate specifically to topics like the history of individual centres 5) and particular facets of town and city life 6), and of course the detailed reports of several town planning bodies have also been published 7).
…
The descriptive studies relate principally to the evolution of individual towns or cities and to their urban morphology and function: thus, among the latter we have Zierer’s studies of Brisbane, Newcastle, Melbourne, Sydney, Broken Hill 11) and Rowe’s examination of the form and function of the rural town of Murwillumbah 12); in the former, the origins of Canberra as a capital, and the evolution of mining centres (Byng, Broken Hill) and ports (Port Kembla, Whyalia, Brisbane) are traced by various writers 13). Some of them besides being brief give only a thin treatment of their chosen topics, and others like Zierer’s (written after a lightning-like reconnaissance) very obviously indicate that the centre have not been studied in detail, at least in the field.” [my 2024 emphasis; has anything changed?]
REFERENCES
1) Such as Frank Hurley’s studies of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, for example, Sydney and its Resorts, Sydney, 1948.
2) Cf., W. S. Jevons, ‘A Social Survey of Australian Cities 1858’, MS. in Mitchell Library, Sydney. W. Denning, Capital City (Canberra), Sydney. 1938.
3) Cf., C. H. Bertie, Stories of Old Sydney, Sydney, n. d./. Gale, Canberra, History and Legends, Queanbeyan, 1927.
4) Cf., W. A. Bayley, Lilac City, The Story of Goulburn, Goulburn, 1954. W. A. Bayley, Border City ? City of Albury, Albury, 1954.
5) T. Worsnop, The City of Adelaide, Its Origin and Progress, Adelaide, 1878. H. V. Nunn, Maryborough (Victoria) 1854?1954, The Story of a Century, Melbourne, 1954. G. Forbes, History of Sydney, Sydney, 1926. A. R. Macleod, The Transformation of Manellae (Manilla, N. S. W.), Manilla, 1949. C. H. Coombe, History of Gawler, Adelaide, 1920. C. Daley, The History of South Melbourne, Melbourne, 1940. F. Watson, A Brief History of Canberra, Canberra, 1927. R. Wyatt, History of Goulburn, Goulburn, 1941. D. Wild, The Tale of a City, Geelong 1850-1950, Melbourne, 1950.
9) Colin Clark, ‘The Economic Functions of a City in Relation to its Size’, Econometrica (Chicago), Vol. 13, No. 2, 1945, pp. 97?113; ‘Land Settlement in Queensland’, Econ. News (Bulletin of Queensland Bureau of Industry), Vol. 19, Nos. 7?8, 1950, pp. 1?8; ‘The Urban Population Capacity of Australia’, Paper read to Section G, ANZAAS (Brisbane Meeting) May, 1951.
11) C. M. Zierer, ‘Brisbane — River Metropolis of Queensland’, Econ. Geogr., Vol. 17, 1941, pp. 327 –45. ‘Industrial Area of Newcastle, Australia’, Econ. Geogr., Vol. 17, 1941, pp. 31 — 49. ‘Melbourne as a Functional Centre’, Ann. Ass. Amer. Geogr., Vol. 31, 1941, pp. 251?288. ‘Land Use Differentiation in Sydney’, Ann. Amer. Geogr., Vol. 32, 1942, pp 255 –308. Broken Hill, Australia’s Greatest Mining Camp’, Ann. Ass. Amer. Geogr., Vol. 30, 1940, pp. 83 –108.
12) J. B. Rowe, ‘The Form and Function of the Rural Township’, Aust. Geogr., Vol. 4, No. 8, 1944, pp. 217 — 25.
13) Griffith Taylor, ‘The Evolution of a Capital (Canberra)’ Geogr. J. Vol. 43, 1914, pp. 378 — 395 and pp. 536 –554; Una R. Emanuel, ‘The Rise and Decline of the Mining Village of Byng’, Aust. Geogr., Vol. 1, Part 2, 1929, pp. 79 — 81; Megan C. Allen, ‘Broken Hill, N. S. W.’, Geogr., Vol. 39, 1954, pp. 13 — 20; E. A. Crago & A. G. Lowndes, ‘Port Kembla and its Harbour’, Aust. Geogr., Vol. 1, Part 3, 1931, pp. 50 — 58; J. B. Rowe, ‘Whyalla, A Study of Geography in the Making’, Aust. Geogr., 20 Vol. 5, No. 7, 1948, pp. 176 — 182; L. J. Jay, ‘The Origins and Early Growth of Brisbane, Geography, Vol. 37. 1952, pp. 166 – 178.
From detailed analysis for the article, from the standpoint of 2024, these are the facts:
There has not been, for Queensland, an economist like Colin Clark, nor a geographer like C. M. Zierer, since the days of Colin Clark and C. M. Zierer (i.e., mid-century);
The way Colin Clark and C. M. Zierer led the fields of the Queensland economy and geography is outdated, and yet town planning continues to run on those patterns with rhetoricallips-serviceto global shifts in the knowledge-bases (with the education system politically over-obsessed with technic); the critics being the academic urban sociologists and the unpaid scholars in the fields of history, sociology, theories of education, and philosophy.
These are not merely broad criticisms that the Government, Queensland Education, and The University of Queensland can ignore. There are detailed criticisms on the failures in thinking. For example, and this is only one example of many, the work of Dr Margaret Cook overtakes the work of C. M. Zierer, and yet her criticisms on town planning, in relation to the Bremer-Brisbane River system, and water management for the City of Brisbane are being largely ignored by the powers-that-be.
I accuse the Queensland Government and The University of Queensland of intellectual corruption. There is no evidence (that is, “negative knowledge”, a legitimate area of investigation in epistemology) that institutions do nothave the hooks of developers and other corporate bad-players (the positive transparency is not there) in their decision-making. What this ‘negative knowledge’ means is that, in not knowing what should be known, the powers-that-be can arrogantly dismiss the otherwise clearly understood problems in their decision-making. In knowledge and learning that is not legitimate.
I make this accusation with nothing to lose. This weekend my home loan account has gone to zero and I am in danger of losing my home. It seems the Premier and the Vice-Chancellor of The University of Queensland has not understood in my campaign that 1) ignoring persons with nothing to lose is dangerous to their reputation, 2) it would be better to have a significant critic inside the tent than pissing outside, and 3) it would be so much easier, both intellectually and politically, if I was simply offered employment, or a contract, to the standard of my knowledge-base and skills.
If my friends wish to help, ask the Premier and the Vice-Chancellor, what their response is to my request. I think that the Premier and the Vice-Chancellor have switched off the listening capacity.
—
Kind regards,
Neville Buch
Historian,
Professional Historians Australia (Queensland)
Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society (ANZHES)
Convenor, Sociology of Education Thematic Group, The Australian Sociological Association (TASA).
President, Southern Brisbane Suburban Forum (SBSF).
Director, Brisbane Southside History Network (BSHN).
MPHA (Qld), Ph.D. (History) UQ., Grad. Dip. Arts (Philosophy) Melb., Grad. Dip. (Education) UQ.
Neville Buch (Pronounced Book) Ph.D. is a certified member of the Professional Historians Association (Queensland). Since 2010 he has operated a sole trade business in history consultancy. He was a Q ANZAC 100 Fellow 2014-2015 at the State Library of Queensland. Dr Buch was the PHA (Qld) e-Bulletin, the monthly state association’s electronic publication, and was a member of its Management Committee. He is the Managing Director of the Brisbane Southside History Network.
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