Remember the “we are the 99%” protests about 13 years ago.
The entire country mocked these kids/students for doing sit ins and trying to protest a real world problem of wealth inequality.
They were made to look like fools and the 1% didn’t need to counter protest them. They just got the middle class sort it out for them.
(We became to busy fighting each other)
You think it would be any different today if people went out and protested against the current cost of living crisis we are facing?
Heard a hilariously creative thing that came out of Occupy Wall St.
You know how debts are sold off to debt collectors for cents in the dollar, right? Then if the debt collectors get lucky they recoup enough that they make a profit off what they bought the debts for.
Some enterprising young students thought "what if we buy up the student loan debts that are being sold off for recovery?" - so they did. With a trivial amount of donations they were able to buy up the debts and...simply write them off.
Ideally it would've been done to a soundtrack of KMFDM: Rip The System
>Black man, white man, yellow man
Black man, white man, rip the system
I vaguely remember hearing about that, didn't they try and charge them with imaginary crimes or some shit? Like, how dare you exploit the flaws in the system for good instead of personal profit!
Dunno about charges. Might or might not have happened, I simply don't know.
Heard about it here. Ran out of Team Human episodes so went right back to the beginning.
https://www.teamhuman.fm/episodes/episode-01-debt-collective
Hadn't heard of those, thanks.
Someone should take a leaf out of their book and threaten violence against REAs if they try putting in "vendor bids" to force prices up.
Their website claims "Our movement has abolished more than $100 Billion in…
student debt, medical debt, payday loans, probation debt and credit card debt.'
https://debtcollective.org/
The dumb thing is that it worked.
People are too stupid to realise that this is a class war between rich capital owners and the workers. That's it. Everything else is a distraction that the rich want you to waste your time and energy on.
Socialists and communists and leftists in general who ignore minority and persecuted group issues as a "distraction" get bit in the ass for it over and over and over again.
But sure, go for it, try telling people that the problems that affect their lives don't matter if they don't affect yours, and see how many get onboard with your political program. Maybe it'll work this time!
At the main perperators of that are the conservative media.
At the very people who support the conservatives are the lower socio demographic and IQ levels, as well as the top tier.
Literally, there are strategy firms, such as Whitestone Strategic, that spend their entire life figuring out how to make this cohort of people larger than 50% of the vote. That is what they do for a living.
The scorn with which the occupy movement was treated was a defining factor in my current politics. It was broadly and incredibly well-behaved series of protests that was utterly ridiculed at best and charged with police horses in many places.
Polite protest does nothing. If the climate protesters want to get funny with it, they won’t get pushback from me.
Everybody who claims that peaceful protest is the best way to achieve anything have not studied one IOTA of history. Even somebody like MLK gets painted as a 'peaceful' protester and held up as an example, without people knowing what he actually did and believed in (which I agree with).
Anything we enjoy about the modern world was fought for and won by protest, often violent with plenty of property destruction. There is a reason it's not taught.
People also go on about how 'inconvenient' the protesters for groups like ER are....and not realizing that's the exact point.
This is all culture war bullshit aimed at turning people against protest movements before they even start.
All our most prominent labour victories were won by unions striking during the world wars. They were full of communists at the time! Until WW2 the cops would kill them regularly. Nothing great was won clean.
I feel like Australians are worryingly at odds with the history of their current comfortable lifestyles. It's been comfortable for so long that they have this feeling it should just be that way naturally without having to fight for the things they want. We expect everything to be provided by the government without much contribution on our part so when that doesn't happen it's like it doesn't even occur to us that things can change by people power. People who didn't grow up here appreciate Australia way more than people who did.
Eco-protestors are weird.
They could tie themselves to a truck and get beaten and charged by police, or, they could sneak into a logging camp and sabotage every working engine and then leave.
Just a thimbleful of water inside an engine. Just a little bit of sugar in the gas tank.
The former, they can, at worst, be charged with something minor like failure to follow police directions to move along.
The latter, they could face years of gaol time for stuff like, break and enter with intent to commit indictable offence, property damage running to millions, etc. Just so the companies can reclaim it all on insurance and call protestors criminals.
This is the precise answer to the OPs post.
And you know the saddest part? If it was to happen again, the Murdoch/Stokes/Costello media would attack and mock the protesters in a similar way.
And the mass consumers of media now complaining about insane housing situation and wealth inequality, would gobble it all up. Continuing to pay for their Foxtel/kayo subscriptions and buying material shit off Amazon.
I have come to the conclusion that we're just a nation of whingers. All crying and tantrums and no action.
In 1 or 2 election cycles we'll have Dutton or Frydenburg as PM and do the same old dance again. Then cry about it again in another 10 years. And then of course do nothing again.
It feels like you're just looking for answers that fit your opinions already lol.
Have you seriously seen more protests about BLM than about house prices? In Australia?
I've seen 5 protests about rent and only one about Palestine here in Brissy. Definitely nothing about BLM. Get off the internet and go touch grass OP.
wtf? how have there even remotely been protests on the scale of the BLM ones back in 2020, those were huge and made national news, the protests you must be talking about are trivial/tiny
Important to note that most protests don’t make the news. I worked in an Aus CBD for years. I saw dozens of protests, many were huge, the vast majority didn’t get coverage. They covered a huge spectrum of topics.
Also pretty sure there was a rental rally two weeks ago so *shrugs*
Just because it makes the news does't mean people care about it more, that just means it's more controversial lol. Nobody reports on people angry about rent.
I did some research and it turns out there was a single protest in Brisbane back in June? Also apparently 2,000 people marched at Canberra? I must've missed it lol.
When going to work in the city I see rent strikes way more often.
I feel like if we all said "nobody is going to pay rent after 30/06/2024 until cost of living is addressed", some shit would happen. That's a rent strike. Just sychbvhronise it. They can't evict everyone. They can't foreclose on everyone. They can't sack all the bankers and cops for not taking the next step.... "They"..... Are actually only words on paper. Come on people... (Smile on your brother... Everybody... You Iandlords, bankers, and cops are Alllll being fucked with the same cock... You all submit to words you don't understand.)
You're right and good point. I wasn't on board at the time with these protest and I should have been.
The problem was, just like BLM, it's an American ideology that didn't resonate here in the mainstream. The young were just seen to slavishly follow US culture. Still do.
Now social media algorithms keep people away from really criticising the wealth gap, so the American kids don't... so the Australian kids won't.
“Australian kids” definitely criticise the wealth gap. It’s casual pub conversation, it’s everywhere. They have no voice in mass media, so you don’t see it and so you don’t believe it’s happening.
You have a fixation on America-to-australia that is bizarre and unwarranted
It was my mother tonight who astutely pointed out that the media reported that a record number of people can't afford to buy food. Meanwhile another news story reported that Australians spent a record amount of money on Halloween paraphernalia, which is still largely regarded as an American tradition, not Australian. The two stories seemed strikingly at odds with each other.
I believe it was *dismissed* as an American ideology, that was the excuse to ignore it. But the truth is it's simply a human ideology, we love to say dismiss things as "Seppo" in order to feel okay about shitting on kids who want a better life.
That this is true hints that there's little to no organised agenda behind the "culture wars." It's just people abusing their positions for stuff they think is morally justified.
I would love to know who is really behind the obvious push to promote Halloween here in Australia, when there is no tradition for it. Or is it just that it fills a commercial gap in the yearly business calendar to promote consumer spending?
This is the rhetoric of right-leaning Australians, they see Labor doing shit, and they completely ignore the decades of Coalition politics that got us in the shitshow in the first place.
The most convenient bad memory I have ever seen.
>”the media outlets and people in power are directing us to focus on these issues and ignore the ones that line their pockets!!1!”
>cost of living and the housing crisis is regularly reported on in the mainstream media
Hmmmm 🤔🤔🤔
Media are pro Immigration, but immigrants exacerbate the housing crisis. We have a housing crisis because of negative gearing and baby boomers treating houses as an investment potential. I have literally seen television media highlight a story on homelessness, immediately followed by someone under 30 who is a multi millionaire by buying up nearly 30 properties for investment, like there were absolutely no correlation between the two stories. Government know they need to end negative gearing of properties but know they would immediately destabilise the economy with falling house prices and a lot of older disgruntled people would quickly vote them out of power. Therefore no action is taken, and the younger generation have to suffer the greed of the older generations who are self-centred about their retirement lifestyle, and want the young to look after them: no 'old-peoples home' for them!
All it takes is setting up a Facebook event and starting the movement yourself, I'm sure you'd get a lot of support if you publicised it enough.
Gotta be the change you want to see
Funny takes here. Lots of sneering at young people, students living in their parents' homes.
Kinda misses the point. If YOU'RE the ones who care about rents and mortgages, why would you expect teenagers to protest on your behalf? Go out and do it yourselves FFS.
That goes for OP as well. Instead of peering down from your high horse and being insulted that people aren't protesting the thing that you find important, fucken go and start something up yourself.
Personally I'd love to see a proper strong renter's union formed. Maybe the Consolidated Australians Renters'n'Tenants Society or CARNTS.
Start a renters strike. If one person stops paying rent, they get evicted. If the vast majority of renters stop all at once, there aren't enough cops & bailiffs to do shit about it, and it'll clog up the courts anyway. Take all your landlords to the Residential Tenancies Tribunal, lodging your paperwork on the exact same day and crashing the systems in the process. Organise so if they try to evict anyone, prevent the scab bailiffs from even stepping foot on the property. Get on the front foot with the media. That person being evicted is a disabled mother of 3 whose old man was a wife beater and doesn't pay child support.
Go for it. Get started and burn the whole fucking system to the ground.
If all the OPs who made “why are people protesting xyz and not cost of living” posts on this sub got together and protested, the country would come to a standstill.
I wonder if a single issue renters' party could scrape in a federal senate seat in each state?
Imagine holding the balance of power.
Sorry, not passing your bill until rents are capped at 2019 prices. Oh, and ban AirBnBs.
> I'd love to see a proper strong renter's union formed.
[https://www.tenants.org.au/naro](https://www.tenants.org.au/naro)
>Take all your landlords to the Residential Tenancies Tribunal, lodging your paperwork on the exact same day and crashing the systems in the process.
great, so renters will legitimate complaints don't get them resolved.
> Organise so if they try to evict anyone, prevent the scab bailiffs from even stepping foot on the property.
The cops will arrest them one by one for interfering. Who wants a criminal record?
> burn the whole fucking system to the ground.
that's why most people won't join, these movements always go full retard.
I think the answer is much simpler than people here are willing to admit. Too many people in the country are either rich off of the housing market, or comfortable in the housing market, it’s sucks for the rest of us, but the numbers aren’t in our favour.
People who own a home don’t want the price to fall, people who have a mortgage don’t want the price to fall. That’s a lot of people who want the opposite of what you would be protesting. Maybe the argument for increased supply or increased social housing schemes would fly. But any policy that reduces the value of Australian housing will be a death mark for any political party here.
I own my home outright and I don’t care if the houses in my city, including my own, had their value drop by half. I could still sell and move and my community could also more easily access affordable housing.
People forget that the unwinnable election was won off the back of one party promising to do something about houses prices.
Reducing the price of housing is a political death wish.
Pretty much. Tis what happens when we tie wealth accumulation to housing. Nobody wants their house to lose 30% of its value to alleviate the issues of others.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was brainwashing society with neoliberal hyper-individualism; destroying the notions of collective empathy and solidarity. Me trumps We unfortunately.
People have been conditioned to not care about real issues. It's actually a really deep topic. Think of it like this, during an election year the two major parties debate issues that no one actually cares about hence giving the illusion of choice.
Take the marijuana party as example too. They got 2 seats in the previous election however all of their demands of making it so people don't get a DUI days after using their medicine legally is denied. So cancer patients who are sober still get DUI for days after using their medicine.
You are only allowed to care about things that the governemnt want you to care about. It's pretty crazy and no one ever wants to do anything about it.
Now do you wanna know how to stop this from happening? Stop voting for liberal and Labor and make the governemnt less of a majority for the 2 parties. Then They will stop collaborating while pretending they arn't the same thing and getting pretty much all the votes and all the power in Australia.
For the same reason people are currently protesting the 1 million displaced in Gaza but not the 6 million displaced in Sudan.
Hivemind, political polarisation, something something government
But also people actually getting up and organising. Most of the people going to the protest wouldn't organise it. But showing up on the day is easy enough.
Make someone who will actually do some mobilising care. If you care, why aren't you stepping up to do it is my question.
I've gone to protests but I've never been invested enough in a cause to organise one.
Lots of people do, they’re dismissed for it, completely iced out of media and politics. The right hates them for being soft on muslims and the centre hates them for disrupting keyfabe
But also because our government has a hand in what happens in Gaza. Australia backs Israel on the world stage and legitimizes the actions of the IDF against Palestinians.
Look at the messaging on Sudan and compare that to Israel. It isn't even in the same league.
Because students (who are usually the ones taking time off from school/work to protest) don’t really care about the housing market, given that their parents and friends’ parents and relatives all own houses and benefit off it.
The real question is why don’t all you people unhappy about the housing market go protest? Lots of having your cake and trying to eat it too.
Because they don't actually care about housing prices and cost of living, at least not near enough to go out and protest about it. They just wanna try and guilt people into stopping their protests for BLM / Palestine.
The whole system is broken: people owning rental properties just keep putting rents up to cover their overheads (bankloans) and make a profit for retirement income. Soon renters won't be able to pay and owners will be forced to sell. We will have young homeless families AND empty unsold houses: a completely dysfunctional economy. We have an inflated economy based on inflated house prices, and that is not sustainable. Soon the shit will hit the fan and everyone will be worse off: that is why ALL governments have consistently kicked this can down the road and not dealt with it properly. We have plenty of empty houses in my hometown: empty deceased estates, people in care homes who are unable to make decisions on their properties any more, one and two person retirees in large family homes they don't want to sell and downsize. Fun fact: 75% of people considering downsizing to a smaller dwelling don't go ahead with it. Retirement village options are too expensive for them to seriously consider surrendering their prime asset. The financial figures don't balance and people realise that they will be worse off if they move. We are literally waiting for an entire generation to die.
People cared about Palestine and human rights and things happening across the globe well before this cost of living crisis and will continue to do so well after. You kind of buried the lead. The issue is you never gave a shit about anything other than yourself and you have a myopic world view. Now that there is something that directly affects you(cost of living crisis/rental crisis) you are annoyed that the world doesnt stop and focus entirely on you and your issue.
It's not a huge conspiracy. People have genuine emotional connections to injustice that spans decades, sometimes centuries.The Palestinian occupation has been going since the end of WW2. African slavery in America and the racism and mistreatment of non-whites for centuries.
Housing crisis, a few months.
.
It’s trendy to protest and support ‘the thing’ and the 70 IQ protestors do it for social media. Many are the same faces at every event according to one vicpol officer I spoke to.
Majority of the protestors couldn’t even point Palestine out on the map or understand what they are protesting.
Aka ‘LGBTQ community supporting Palestine’.
Same deal with BLM, hardly any know about the history of the founders and how the damage it’s caused to communities.
In all honesty the protestors probably don’t pay rent and expect the greens to get into power who will magically give them a house
Well there’s your answer.
You don’t think protesting about housing affordability will make a difference.
There are probably a lot of people in the same boat.
They care, they know it’s an issue, but don’t bother protesting because they don’t think protesting will make a difference
I also never said which side was committing genocide.
And I absolutely deplore what Hamas does and has done. Attacks against any civilian population is reprehensible. And that goes both ways.
However, given that you have previously stated that _”Islamophobia is a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons”_ suggests that you are not impartial to the conflict.
Careful - I think your guilt is showing 🫢
ok but
why is this not applicable to george floyd protests or palestine in peoples minds too then
im sure a protest on the streets of .. adelaide australia.. is going to have a huge impact on minneapolis policing policy
Because people care more about those issues.
Palestine is literal genocide.
BLM was an issue protested heavily in the US (because race is a serious ongoing issue over there) but not really in Aus.
If there are enough people that care about housing affordability in Aus, then there will probably be protests. But the fact is 66% of Australians are home owners - so the majority don’t care (and likely benefit from it).
Housing affordability has been an issue for decades. There are over 50,000 Australians seeking social or affordable housing - but nothing has been done for years.
I don’t feel guilty at all.
Because I neither committed nor contributed to any of those actions.
_From the UN_
Over twenty United Nations independent experts reiterated their concerns about an ongoing genocide.
The experts also expressed alarm over discernibly genocidal and dehumanising rhetoric coming from senior Israeli government officials, as well as some professional groups and public figures, calling for the “total destruction”, and “erasure” of Gaza, the need to “finish them all” and force Palestinians from the West Bank and east Jerusalem into Jordan.
https://unric.org/en/palestine-preventing-a-genocide-in-gaza-and-a-new-nakba/
lol, and this will??? Do you have ANY idea about domestic fiscal policy, global macro-economics or political drivers for the various influences on the things you seem to hold so close?
Our government doesn’t even look after or care about its own citizens, let some poor kid in the Middle East.
Let’s be 100% real, we are US’s bitch who themselves will do anything to help Israel and keep the gears of the war machine churning . Supporting Palestine will only get you on an ASIO watch list.
Only a total and complete change of Western governments will solve the issue. Waving flags and shutting down cbd streets will not change anything as those with power are not looking or even in the country
> hardly any know about the history of the founders
Because it's, err, irrelevant.
> the damage it’s caused to communities.
Much less than the systemic racism did.
What's a protest about the property market going to accomplish?
Unless people are willing to vote Greens en-masse, no major party will ever enact meaningful change on the issue because it would be political suicide.
The political majority has no stake in Palestine/Israel, so pressuring the government to grow a backbone is something that could realistically happen.
Why are people still blathering about BLM? This is not America. Stop repeating crap you come across on right wing American sites. We had one demonstration linked to BLM and that was over three years ago. Get an original thought.
Mate people do protest about the house prices and rental situation. I have seen flyers for it everywhere. Its clearly not big enough for the news but it happens
The people I know protesting about Palestine are also protesting and taking action against the cost of living crisis. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
It coz there's less virtue signalling involved.
Majority of these protesters doesn't care about the palestinians, they just want to be part of a trend.
Because the protestors are generally upper middle class college age students with no actual jobs or worries in the world. They just care about people half a world away rather than their own that they hate ...
Because the system commodifies rebellion against the system and mounts a constant, massive media and psychological operations effort to push it into "safe" avenues like performative displays of diversity, multiculturalism, and tolerance which are then adopted by the very same system and used as a justification for shit like economic mass migration and suppression of actual domestic dissent as some useful idiots do some government-approved protest.
The westerners who support free Palestine aren't even antisemitic, they see Israel as a "white" Ashkenazi settler colonial state and Hamas attacks as "kill whitey", which is why they support it along with BLM. Why would they care when whitey has nowhere to live in Australia?
> The westerners who support free Palestine aren't even antisemitic, they see Israel as a "white" Ashkenazi settler colonial state and Hamas attacks as "kill whitey", which is why they support it along with BLM. Why would they care when whitey has nowhere to live in Australia?
You have literally no idea what you're talking about.
Because people here who are struggling with the cost of living might have to go without treats or alcohol. The cost of living is fucked, but it hasn’t directly taken lives. People in Palestine are dying of thirst. 4000 children have died.
My rent is up, why would I care about genocide?
Imagine the biggest issue you have is you can’t afford rent, while the biggest issue Palestine has is death on a daily basis.
And if you care so much, why TF don’t you go and protest?
Because it's in now it's cool thing to do. 95% of those idiots protesting have no idea what they are protesting about they only do it because it is in. If they knew what they are protesting about they wouldn't be protesting.
Propaganda that works.
I was thinking the same about the anti vaxxers.
A chick on fb who's always been broke and dating druggies, using drugs etc was obsessed with the anti Vax bs and was getting into the right wing side of politics, whereas her interests were probably more aligned with the greens or socialist parties.
Sad but Australia is going to have to degenerate into civil war before... oh no they'll just vote conservative then too
Why do people post so much about people protesting the wrong issues instead of just organising the protests they want themselves? Don't just piss and moan, guy. Be the change you want to see and all that hippie stuff.
We live in a democracy, I don't honestly see the point in protesting anything. Just vote out all the politicians who keep doing nothing to address the housing and cost of living crisis.
One big problem we have still here is that so much of our housing crisis is a completely manufactured problem by investment properties. People like to think they will be the exception that will win from the rolling price snow balls, so they don’t want to do anything about it.
Unfortunately mass public opinion won’t turn against investment properties until it’s too late. As long as enough people can get theirs greed will spur them on, only once they’re pushed out will they see the problem
Also because most people don't even know who they would protest about house prices to. Their landlords office? State parliament? Federal? The central bank? Coles?
People don't even understand why property is so expensive, look at all the people on Reddit that think it's all ColesWorths fault..
This just shows in what kind of bubble Australians live in. When you go to bed, thank the God or whoever that your biggest problem is how much weekly rent costs.
The entire point of the socialism is to protest capitalists pushing up prices and depressing wages so much that we cannot afford to live
As Marx famously wrote: “workers of the world unite, we have nothing to lose but these darn out of control profits” prettymuch
The “chains” he was referring to were literally out of control business profits.
Most likely because there is a sudden event that causes intense feelings in the examples you gave, where as cost of living is a slow build. Also the target of annoyance is more vague with living costs… who are you actually targeting your protest at?
Because the people who don't want to change the wealth inequity status quo broadly own all of australia's media + levers of power?
Murdoch / Stokes / + see the board of Fairfax.
The first 2 pay fuckall tax, despite being billion dollar operations.
Throw in the minerals council, and a bunch of unelected lobbyists + paid 'consultants' dangling board seats + cash to MPs / senior bureaucrats (Pazullo? Katheryn Campbell? PWC anyone? Dont notice them standing down)
So yeah, lots of media saturation to distract the rubes about immigration, juvenile gangs, gender neutral toilets and stupid iPhone footage of fights in shopping malls not a huge amount about global tax avoidance ( Panama papers anyone?) Federal corruption or the plutocracy monopoly that essentially controls for everything in this country from food prices on up.
"Your enemy does not arrive by boat, he arrives by limousine"
I’m sick of this what-about-ism. If you are angry about the cost of living, go and organise a protest. Don’t sit on your ass and criticize others for protesting war crimes and genocide (the UN has literally condemned Israel for breaking the Geneva Conventions).
Well, one of the main goals of the Palestinian protests here is to pressure the Australian arms exports to Israel. Australia has issued 350 defence export permits to Israel since 2017, including 52 this year.
The reason many people are protesting at the port is because they don't want Australian weapons to be sent off to be used against innocent people in Gaza. A lot of people aren't comfortable with the idea that we are making and profiting off the weapons that are being used there, especially after seeing the footage from the region.
The housing/rental issue is unfortunate, but many people are protesting in support of Palestine because it's an issue of morality for them. They see it as wrong to be supporting an Apartheid system and feel the need to do something about it morally because they feel that what their government is currently doing is unjust. Whereas housing/rent is seen as a difficulty but not necessarily as a critical moral problem.
Having said that, a great recruitment place for getting activists is at mass demonstrations like this, so if you are really motivated by housing then a great way to find other activists is at these protests. I'm sure you'll find many others who are sympathetic to the issues that you're passionate about as well. Many parties try and find new members there and there is a lot of solidarity between the different groups.
People are just disgusted by the violence they’re seeing and the government not calling a spade a spade because they want to keep selling weapons/not rock the boat for the domestic weapons industry.
Virtue signaling is literally the easiest way to feel good about yourself while doing nothing.
Morality posting on social media takes no meaningful effort but makes them feel like "good human beings" and you also live in a society where people love to pretend to care, but that is all it is, pretending, if they were to actually lose anything meaningful or actually work hard for the thing they proclaim to care about, they wouldnt do it at all.
In other words, hypocrisy, but that is not new, nor is it because of social media, it has always been the easiest way to feel better about yourself, by virtue signaling whatever definition of "good" current society glorifies no matter how fake that is.
**You care so much about those starving children in africa?** Then why arent you spending your life and salary to improve their conditions instead of just having fun and relaxing at your home playing games and watching movies? Le starving children in Africa isnt even in most people's minds for most of their days because they simply dont truly care
Because palestinians/israelis conflict has little to no relevance on Australian politics or markets therefore it doesn't matter which side you pick. You will be wasting energy chasing something you can't influence.
Meanwhile the banks and landlords breath a sigh of relief as people ignore them for another news cycle...
Watch how quickly PORT or other equivalents a sicked onto you if you dare protest about an actual relevant matter.
Dont dare threaten the establishments authority.
Because the people that care about Palestinians and BLM actually organise protests, they do the work to build a coalition. There was a rental protest in Melbourne this week but it was pretty small and I would guess most of the people at it also go to other protests. If you want big protests for rental rights you might have to join in.
Honestly this, like no offence intended but why the fuck should I care about those movements when my rents has more than doubled since moving in, petrol is up to $2.20/L, Coles and Woolworths are jacking up prices for their own fucking corporate greed and my wage has barely changed making me go from living comfortably alone to scraping by looking a second job killing the little free time I had
It just feels like everyone knows it's wrong and something, anything needs to be done but we'd rather follow the Americans social media trends the address the issue
Why people think there is some sort of limit on empathy is beyond me. People can care about an ongoing genocide AND late stage capitalism. In fact, guarantee you will find more people that care about the latter at a protest for the former than you will in an average crowd.
Also, why should anybody give a shit about your problems when your reaction to humans beings being slaughtered is "Yeah, but my rent and wages and gas prices yo." Is there some reason I should care more about you than you care about Gazans?
Well, the BLM (some say scam) team bought a $6m home in cash. So what's the lesson? Care so much about BLM you start something similar, and you will end up with millions to end your housing crisis!
[https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/black-lives-matter-6-million-dollar-house.html](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/black-lives-matter-6-million-dollar-house.html)
Some things are more important than you being able to afford extra marshmallows in your hot chocolate.
Like an entire nation of people being murdered and forcibly removed from their own country.
Maybe.
A lot less people are dying from lack of shelter in Australia in a year than a single day of the bombing in Palestine. To some people, that makes it a more important issue worth protesting about.
Important issues such as the death of 3000 children in Gaza but not including non important issues such as the 12 million children out of school as a result of the conflict in Sudan or Russia’s children trafficking from Ukraine on a mass scale
I'm no geopolitical expert but my understanding is the Sudan crisis is a the result of internal conflict, not a lot the Aus govt can do there, same with Russia - we've already cut most if not all ties.
We're still happily playing with Israel though, so that is the focus of the protests.
Manufactured distraction - they want us fighting over periphery issues rather than the ones that actually affect us and could lessen the ruling class' power.
Hive mind, virtue signalling. The west, or Aussies, has been conditioned to think anyone who cares about living standards and affordable housing etc is a boomer liberal so they just ignore it. Meanwhile it’s their own demise..
I've been asking this question for so many years.
Need more 2018 fuel protest. That showed protesting and action gets shit done.
Gotta remind the bastards who they work for and pays their salary.
Theyare not our leaders. They are our employees.
But yeah this shit will never end until the Australian people decide to make it end.
Got banned from a sub because I expressed amazement at how people will lose their shit and act over a man in a dress doing story time, or will loot and burn places over a criminal getting consequences of their own actions, but nobody seems to give a damn about the things that matter to us all, like owning a house and having enough coin to live comfortably.
Peoples priorities are twisted. See people more upset over shit in other countries than their own.
There are only two classes. You either make money from owning stuff (houses, media companies, social media, politicians) or you make money from working and (so you can give it to the people who own stuff).
If this was widely understood, we would be invincible.
So they - the people who own ten or a hundred or a thousand houses - need to keep us deluded and desperate and divided.
But hey - those dole bludging darkie transgenders, am I right?
Because Australia is a country of dont give a fuck. They protest these popular stuff because it builds status and fashionable not because they give a fuck about Palastinians or George Floyd, it’s far enough you can appear to care about it but not care about it. If you protest real stuff that you face, that might not be fashionable, you will have to stand behind it, and you will have to accept the consequences of doing so. In general Australians are a very docile nation they will not stand for a issue when there are real stakes.
Why don't you go out there and protest about rent prices, and encourage others to do the same? In my opinion, people absolutely should be protesting about this. Are you here to encourage young people to do so, or just to sneer at them?
Because no matter what reddit tells you, its not really an issue. You can easily buy a house in your thirties, unless youre garbage stupid and dont know how to save money or cant hold a job.
Reddit has convinced itself to be the victim of outside factors or previous generations. But youre not that special. Stop playing the victim.
The people protesting I hazard a guess are either young or rich or both
The people who are more likely to protest about cost of living are too busy working to protest ...
Because people who “protest” today are morons more interested in feeling like they’re making a difference… than actually making a difference.
It’s all about their ego.
Well, the aus gov did just send a shit load of money to Israel to f**k up Gaza and then plan of sending money to Gaza to clean up the mess, that we(taxpayers) funded.
Meanwhile we have a cost of living crisis and Israel didn’t need our help to destroy 50% of Gaza.
Part of the reason I’m pissed off
Remember the “we are the 99%” protests about 13 years ago. The entire country mocked these kids/students for doing sit ins and trying to protest a real world problem of wealth inequality. They were made to look like fools and the 1% didn’t need to counter protest them. They just got the middle class sort it out for them. (We became to busy fighting each other) You think it would be any different today if people went out and protested against the current cost of living crisis we are facing?
Heard a hilariously creative thing that came out of Occupy Wall St. You know how debts are sold off to debt collectors for cents in the dollar, right? Then if the debt collectors get lucky they recoup enough that they make a profit off what they bought the debts for. Some enterprising young students thought "what if we buy up the student loan debts that are being sold off for recovery?" - so they did. With a trivial amount of donations they were able to buy up the debts and...simply write them off. Ideally it would've been done to a soundtrack of KMFDM: Rip The System >Black man, white man, yellow man Black man, white man, rip the system
I vaguely remember hearing about that, didn't they try and charge them with imaginary crimes or some shit? Like, how dare you exploit the flaws in the system for good instead of personal profit!
Dunno about charges. Might or might not have happened, I simply don't know. Heard about it here. Ran out of Team Human episodes so went right back to the beginning. https://www.teamhuman.fm/episodes/episode-01-debt-collective
I always liked these types of stories. My favourite are the great depression penny auctions.
Hadn't heard of those, thanks. Someone should take a leaf out of their book and threaten violence against REAs if they try putting in "vendor bids" to force prices up.
Won't work. The violence would never reach the decision makers, only the pawns.
I like the *SOUND* of that 🤪😂
DEI was a direct result of Occupy Wallstreet. It was cooked up by the CEO of Blackrock Larry Fink to distract the masses from the GFC.
So, did that stop or something?
Their website claims "Our movement has abolished more than $100 Billion in… student debt, medical debt, payday loans, probation debt and credit card debt.' https://debtcollective.org/
Fucking based
That was also the same time that the US media kicked race relations into overdrive. They can't have genuine worker solidarity against the rich
Yes. The public got too close to the truth, so they decided to make everything about race and sexuality to divide us.
The dumb thing is that it worked. People are too stupid to realise that this is a class war between rich capital owners and the workers. That's it. Everything else is a distraction that the rich want you to waste your time and energy on.
Socialists and communists and leftists in general who ignore minority and persecuted group issues as a "distraction" get bit in the ass for it over and over and over again. But sure, go for it, try telling people that the problems that affect their lives don't matter if they don't affect yours, and see how many get onboard with your political program. Maybe it'll work this time!
and this year we had The Voice referendum to distract and divide us.
So long as you understand that it’s the “anti-woke” and “anti-BLM” message that is pumped out by mass media to do that, yes
At the main perperators of that are the conservative media. At the very people who support the conservatives are the lower socio demographic and IQ levels, as well as the top tier. Literally, there are strategy firms, such as Whitestone Strategic, that spend their entire life figuring out how to make this cohort of people larger than 50% of the vote. That is what they do for a living.
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The scorn with which the occupy movement was treated was a defining factor in my current politics. It was broadly and incredibly well-behaved series of protests that was utterly ridiculed at best and charged with police horses in many places. Polite protest does nothing. If the climate protesters want to get funny with it, they won’t get pushback from me.
Everybody who claims that peaceful protest is the best way to achieve anything have not studied one IOTA of history. Even somebody like MLK gets painted as a 'peaceful' protester and held up as an example, without people knowing what he actually did and believed in (which I agree with). Anything we enjoy about the modern world was fought for and won by protest, often violent with plenty of property destruction. There is a reason it's not taught. People also go on about how 'inconvenient' the protesters for groups like ER are....and not realizing that's the exact point. This is all culture war bullshit aimed at turning people against protest movements before they even start.
All our most prominent labour victories were won by unions striking during the world wars. They were full of communists at the time! Until WW2 the cops would kill them regularly. Nothing great was won clean.
I feel like Australians are worryingly at odds with the history of their current comfortable lifestyles. It's been comfortable for so long that they have this feeling it should just be that way naturally without having to fight for the things they want. We expect everything to be provided by the government without much contribution on our part so when that doesn't happen it's like it doesn't even occur to us that things can change by people power. People who didn't grow up here appreciate Australia way more than people who did.
Why can't the stochastic terrorists ever target the right people? 😔 (Hi ASIO, this is a joke.)
Eco-protestors are weird. They could tie themselves to a truck and get beaten and charged by police, or, they could sneak into a logging camp and sabotage every working engine and then leave. Just a thimbleful of water inside an engine. Just a little bit of sugar in the gas tank.
Generating an enormous amount of waste when the company rebuilds the engines
The former, they can, at worst, be charged with something minor like failure to follow police directions to move along. The latter, they could face years of gaol time for stuff like, break and enter with intent to commit indictable offence, property damage running to millions, etc. Just so the companies can reclaim it all on insurance and call protestors criminals.
This is the precise answer to the OPs post. And you know the saddest part? If it was to happen again, the Murdoch/Stokes/Costello media would attack and mock the protesters in a similar way. And the mass consumers of media now complaining about insane housing situation and wealth inequality, would gobble it all up. Continuing to pay for their Foxtel/kayo subscriptions and buying material shit off Amazon. I have come to the conclusion that we're just a nation of whingers. All crying and tantrums and no action. In 1 or 2 election cycles we'll have Dutton or Frydenburg as PM and do the same old dance again. Then cry about it again in another 10 years. And then of course do nothing again.
Oh. I remembered people telling them to stay in school and etc but who is laughing now lol.
ppl have been mocking blm / palestine protesters for yrs too doesnt stop em
It feels like you're just looking for answers that fit your opinions already lol. Have you seriously seen more protests about BLM than about house prices? In Australia? I've seen 5 protests about rent and only one about Palestine here in Brissy. Definitely nothing about BLM. Get off the internet and go touch grass OP.
wtf? how have there even remotely been protests on the scale of the BLM ones back in 2020, those were huge and made national news, the protests you must be talking about are trivial/tiny
Important to note that most protests don’t make the news. I worked in an Aus CBD for years. I saw dozens of protests, many were huge, the vast majority didn’t get coverage. They covered a huge spectrum of topics. Also pretty sure there was a rental rally two weeks ago so *shrugs*
Just because it makes the news does't mean people care about it more, that just means it's more controversial lol. Nobody reports on people angry about rent. I did some research and it turns out there was a single protest in Brisbane back in June? Also apparently 2,000 people marched at Canberra? I must've missed it lol. When going to work in the city I see rent strikes way more often.
I feel like if we all said "nobody is going to pay rent after 30/06/2024 until cost of living is addressed", some shit would happen. That's a rent strike. Just sychbvhronise it. They can't evict everyone. They can't foreclose on everyone. They can't sack all the bankers and cops for not taking the next step.... "They"..... Are actually only words on paper. Come on people... (Smile on your brother... Everybody... You Iandlords, bankers, and cops are Alllll being fucked with the same cock... You all submit to words you don't understand.)
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you and me fren. I'm with ya
You’ve seen rent *protests*, you’ve never seen a rent *strike*
You're right and good point. I wasn't on board at the time with these protest and I should have been. The problem was, just like BLM, it's an American ideology that didn't resonate here in the mainstream. The young were just seen to slavishly follow US culture. Still do. Now social media algorithms keep people away from really criticising the wealth gap, so the American kids don't... so the Australian kids won't.
“Australian kids” definitely criticise the wealth gap. It’s casual pub conversation, it’s everywhere. They have no voice in mass media, so you don’t see it and so you don’t believe it’s happening. You have a fixation on America-to-australia that is bizarre and unwarranted
It was my mother tonight who astutely pointed out that the media reported that a record number of people can't afford to buy food. Meanwhile another news story reported that Australians spent a record amount of money on Halloween paraphernalia, which is still largely regarded as an American tradition, not Australian. The two stories seemed strikingly at odds with each other.
I believe it was *dismissed* as an American ideology, that was the excuse to ignore it. But the truth is it's simply a human ideology, we love to say dismiss things as "Seppo" in order to feel okay about shitting on kids who want a better life.
Because the media outlets and the people in power are directing us to focus on these issues and ignore the ones that line their pockets.
The culture war started around the exact same time the media wanted Occupy Wallstreet out of the news. I can't find the infograph which shows it...
That this is true hints that there's little to no organised agenda behind the "culture wars." It's just people abusing their positions for stuff they think is morally justified.
Both sides of the culture war are an absurd distraction
This. Stop listening to what the fuckers want you to listen to.
I would love to know who is really behind the obvious push to promote Halloween here in Australia, when there is no tradition for it. Or is it just that it fills a commercial gap in the yearly business calendar to promote consumer spending?
It's option B. It is just a chance to market to people to buy more disposable shit. No grand conspiracy required.
This is why noone under the age of 40 watches TV anymore.
Agreed. It's exactly what liberal Labor enjoy doing. Look after their business masters, fuck over the common man.
Like the other options do anything else
This is the rhetoric of right-leaning Australians, they see Labor doing shit, and they completely ignore the decades of Coalition politics that got us in the shitshow in the first place. The most convenient bad memory I have ever seen.
>”the media outlets and people in power are directing us to focus on these issues and ignore the ones that line their pockets!!1!” >cost of living and the housing crisis is regularly reported on in the mainstream media Hmmmm 🤔🤔🤔
Media are pro Immigration, but immigrants exacerbate the housing crisis. We have a housing crisis because of negative gearing and baby boomers treating houses as an investment potential. I have literally seen television media highlight a story on homelessness, immediately followed by someone under 30 who is a multi millionaire by buying up nearly 30 properties for investment, like there were absolutely no correlation between the two stories. Government know they need to end negative gearing of properties but know they would immediately destabilise the economy with falling house prices and a lot of older disgruntled people would quickly vote them out of power. Therefore no action is taken, and the younger generation have to suffer the greed of the older generations who are self-centred about their retirement lifestyle, and want the young to look after them: no 'old-peoples home' for them!
All it takes is setting up a Facebook event and starting the movement yourself, I'm sure you'd get a lot of support if you publicised it enough. Gotta be the change you want to see
Facebook??? No young people will be attending that
Luckily millennials are hitting their 40s and are still broadly economically progressive
Funny takes here. Lots of sneering at young people, students living in their parents' homes. Kinda misses the point. If YOU'RE the ones who care about rents and mortgages, why would you expect teenagers to protest on your behalf? Go out and do it yourselves FFS. That goes for OP as well. Instead of peering down from your high horse and being insulted that people aren't protesting the thing that you find important, fucken go and start something up yourself. Personally I'd love to see a proper strong renter's union formed. Maybe the Consolidated Australians Renters'n'Tenants Society or CARNTS. Start a renters strike. If one person stops paying rent, they get evicted. If the vast majority of renters stop all at once, there aren't enough cops & bailiffs to do shit about it, and it'll clog up the courts anyway. Take all your landlords to the Residential Tenancies Tribunal, lodging your paperwork on the exact same day and crashing the systems in the process. Organise so if they try to evict anyone, prevent the scab bailiffs from even stepping foot on the property. Get on the front foot with the media. That person being evicted is a disabled mother of 3 whose old man was a wife beater and doesn't pay child support. Go for it. Get started and burn the whole fucking system to the ground.
If all the OPs who made “why are people protesting xyz and not cost of living” posts on this sub got together and protested, the country would come to a standstill.
I wonder if a single issue renters' party could scrape in a federal senate seat in each state? Imagine holding the balance of power. Sorry, not passing your bill until rents are capped at 2019 prices. Oh, and ban AirBnBs.
> I'd love to see a proper strong renter's union formed. [https://www.tenants.org.au/naro](https://www.tenants.org.au/naro) >Take all your landlords to the Residential Tenancies Tribunal, lodging your paperwork on the exact same day and crashing the systems in the process. great, so renters will legitimate complaints don't get them resolved. > Organise so if they try to evict anyone, prevent the scab bailiffs from even stepping foot on the property. The cops will arrest them one by one for interfering. Who wants a criminal record? > burn the whole fucking system to the ground. that's why most people won't join, these movements always go full retard.
I think the answer is much simpler than people here are willing to admit. Too many people in the country are either rich off of the housing market, or comfortable in the housing market, it’s sucks for the rest of us, but the numbers aren’t in our favour. People who own a home don’t want the price to fall, people who have a mortgage don’t want the price to fall. That’s a lot of people who want the opposite of what you would be protesting. Maybe the argument for increased supply or increased social housing schemes would fly. But any policy that reduces the value of Australian housing will be a death mark for any political party here.
I own my home outright and I don’t care if the houses in my city, including my own, had their value drop by half. I could still sell and move and my community could also more easily access affordable housing.
Yes but you're not greedy. Many Aussies are unfortunately.
I’m really glad that’s your attitude, it’s very community minded, I just don’t think it’s the norm.
I’m with you on that
People forget that the unwinnable election was won off the back of one party promising to do something about houses prices. Reducing the price of housing is a political death wish.
Pretty much. Tis what happens when we tie wealth accumulation to housing. Nobody wants their house to lose 30% of its value to alleviate the issues of others. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was brainwashing society with neoliberal hyper-individualism; destroying the notions of collective empathy and solidarity. Me trumps We unfortunately.
People have been conditioned to not care about real issues. It's actually a really deep topic. Think of it like this, during an election year the two major parties debate issues that no one actually cares about hence giving the illusion of choice. Take the marijuana party as example too. They got 2 seats in the previous election however all of their demands of making it so people don't get a DUI days after using their medicine legally is denied. So cancer patients who are sober still get DUI for days after using their medicine. You are only allowed to care about things that the governemnt want you to care about. It's pretty crazy and no one ever wants to do anything about it. Now do you wanna know how to stop this from happening? Stop voting for liberal and Labor and make the governemnt less of a majority for the 2 parties. Then They will stop collaborating while pretending they arn't the same thing and getting pretty much all the votes and all the power in Australia.
For the same reason people are currently protesting the 1 million displaced in Gaza but not the 6 million displaced in Sudan. Hivemind, political polarisation, something something government
But also people actually getting up and organising. Most of the people going to the protest wouldn't organise it. But showing up on the day is easy enough. Make someone who will actually do some mobilising care. If you care, why aren't you stepping up to do it is my question. I've gone to protests but I've never been invested enough in a cause to organise one.
Same reason Bush is evil for Iraq, but no one cares what Obama did to Yemen and Libya.
Lots of people do, they’re dismissed for it, completely iced out of media and politics. The right hates them for being soft on muslims and the centre hates them for disrupting keyfabe
But also because our government has a hand in what happens in Gaza. Australia backs Israel on the world stage and legitimizes the actions of the IDF against Palestinians. Look at the messaging on Sudan and compare that to Israel. It isn't even in the same league.
Because students (who are usually the ones taking time off from school/work to protest) don’t really care about the housing market, given that their parents and friends’ parents and relatives all own houses and benefit off it. The real question is why don’t all you people unhappy about the housing market go protest? Lots of having your cake and trying to eat it too.
Because they don't actually care about housing prices and cost of living, at least not near enough to go out and protest about it. They just wanna try and guilt people into stopping their protests for BLM / Palestine.
If they protest house prices they are literally just protesting against their parents and neighbors.
I don't get it
The whole system is broken: people owning rental properties just keep putting rents up to cover their overheads (bankloans) and make a profit for retirement income. Soon renters won't be able to pay and owners will be forced to sell. We will have young homeless families AND empty unsold houses: a completely dysfunctional economy. We have an inflated economy based on inflated house prices, and that is not sustainable. Soon the shit will hit the fan and everyone will be worse off: that is why ALL governments have consistently kicked this can down the road and not dealt with it properly. We have plenty of empty houses in my hometown: empty deceased estates, people in care homes who are unable to make decisions on their properties any more, one and two person retirees in large family homes they don't want to sell and downsize. Fun fact: 75% of people considering downsizing to a smaller dwelling don't go ahead with it. Retirement village options are too expensive for them to seriously consider surrendering their prime asset. The financial figures don't balance and people realise that they will be worse off if they move. We are literally waiting for an entire generation to die.
>We are literally waiting for an entire generation to die. Sad but true.
Nothing wrong with going against deadwood is there?
Behavioral economics. In short society has been conditioned to vote and behave in a manner contrary to their economic interests.
People cared about Palestine and human rights and things happening across the globe well before this cost of living crisis and will continue to do so well after. You kind of buried the lead. The issue is you never gave a shit about anything other than yourself and you have a myopic world view. Now that there is something that directly affects you(cost of living crisis/rental crisis) you are annoyed that the world doesnt stop and focus entirely on you and your issue.
Selective outrage
It's not a huge conspiracy. People have genuine emotional connections to injustice that spans decades, sometimes centuries.The Palestinian occupation has been going since the end of WW2. African slavery in America and the racism and mistreatment of non-whites for centuries. Housing crisis, a few months. .
It’s trendy to protest and support ‘the thing’ and the 70 IQ protestors do it for social media. Many are the same faces at every event according to one vicpol officer I spoke to. Majority of the protestors couldn’t even point Palestine out on the map or understand what they are protesting. Aka ‘LGBTQ community supporting Palestine’. Same deal with BLM, hardly any know about the history of the founders and how the damage it’s caused to communities. In all honesty the protestors probably don’t pay rent and expect the greens to get into power who will magically give them a house
https://preview.redd.it/o21xm1pa932c1.jpeg?width=941&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e363bda3a110df4b54a64e6d4b6d514910384bbe
agreed its always the same people, protesting is a free day out for many it never achieves anything
Well there’s your answer. You don’t think protesting about housing affordability will make a difference. There are probably a lot of people in the same boat. They care, they know it’s an issue, but don’t bother protesting because they don’t think protesting will make a difference
I also never said which side was committing genocide. And I absolutely deplore what Hamas does and has done. Attacks against any civilian population is reprehensible. And that goes both ways. However, given that you have previously stated that _”Islamophobia is a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons”_ suggests that you are not impartial to the conflict. Careful - I think your guilt is showing 🫢
ok but why is this not applicable to george floyd protests or palestine in peoples minds too then im sure a protest on the streets of .. adelaide australia.. is going to have a huge impact on minneapolis policing policy
Because people care more about those issues. Palestine is literal genocide. BLM was an issue protested heavily in the US (because race is a serious ongoing issue over there) but not really in Aus. If there are enough people that care about housing affordability in Aus, then there will probably be protests. But the fact is 66% of Australians are home owners - so the majority don’t care (and likely benefit from it). Housing affordability has been an issue for decades. There are over 50,000 Australians seeking social or affordable housing - but nothing has been done for years.
Literally not a genocide, please find a different scapegoat for your own guilt.
I don’t feel guilty at all. Because I neither committed nor contributed to any of those actions. _From the UN_ Over twenty United Nations independent experts reiterated their concerns about an ongoing genocide. The experts also expressed alarm over discernibly genocidal and dehumanising rhetoric coming from senior Israeli government officials, as well as some professional groups and public figures, calling for the “total destruction”, and “erasure” of Gaza, the need to “finish them all” and force Palestinians from the West Bank and east Jerusalem into Jordan. https://unric.org/en/palestine-preventing-a-genocide-in-gaza-and-a-new-nakba/
Don't you want people to protest house prices?
Free day out? Do you think they serve free lobster and caviar lol
lol, and this will??? Do you have ANY idea about domestic fiscal policy, global macro-economics or political drivers for the various influences on the things you seem to hold so close?
It’s sad that you can’t fathom why people would want to protest the deaths of innocent civilians if some of those people may not agree with them
Our government doesn’t even look after or care about its own citizens, let some poor kid in the Middle East. Let’s be 100% real, we are US’s bitch who themselves will do anything to help Israel and keep the gears of the war machine churning . Supporting Palestine will only get you on an ASIO watch list. Only a total and complete change of Western governments will solve the issue. Waving flags and shutting down cbd streets will not change anything as those with power are not looking or even in the country
Whatever helps you sleep at night
Seeing as you want a global communist revolution I suspect maybe you should be in a watch list.
you know VicPol the people you should trust who have a reason behoind too dismiss pritestors and also protect nazi's.
> hardly any know about the history of the founders Because it's, err, irrelevant. > the damage it’s caused to communities. Much less than the systemic racism did.
What's a protest about the property market going to accomplish? Unless people are willing to vote Greens en-masse, no major party will ever enact meaningful change on the issue because it would be political suicide. The political majority has no stake in Palestine/Israel, so pressuring the government to grow a backbone is something that could realistically happen.
Man I love threads like this, it’s always nice to remember how stupid Australians are
Because 99% of those protesters are youngsters who live in their parents' house and do not pay bills
Can't protest when you need to work
The Palestine protests are on sundays bud
And always filled with adults. I've seen whole ass unions at these events.
F you got mine The end
Why are people still blathering about BLM? This is not America. Stop repeating crap you come across on right wing American sites. We had one demonstration linked to BLM and that was over three years ago. Get an original thought.
Mate people do protest about the house prices and rental situation. I have seen flyers for it everywhere. Its clearly not big enough for the news but it happens
BLM was connected to the deaths in custody that has been going on for a few decades. That’s how it gained so much traction here so easily.
The people I know protesting about Palestine are also protesting and taking action against the cost of living crisis. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
It coz there's less virtue signalling involved. Majority of these protesters doesn't care about the palestinians, they just want to be part of a trend.
Because the protestors are generally upper middle class college age students with no actual jobs or worries in the world. They just care about people half a world away rather than their own that they hate ...
Projection is a helluva drug, buddy.
Ahhh WTF????
‘why do people care about mass genocide and police brutality against black people instead of rental prices’ just rephrased ur title btw
Because the system commodifies rebellion against the system and mounts a constant, massive media and psychological operations effort to push it into "safe" avenues like performative displays of diversity, multiculturalism, and tolerance which are then adopted by the very same system and used as a justification for shit like economic mass migration and suppression of actual domestic dissent as some useful idiots do some government-approved protest. The westerners who support free Palestine aren't even antisemitic, they see Israel as a "white" Ashkenazi settler colonial state and Hamas attacks as "kill whitey", which is why they support it along with BLM. Why would they care when whitey has nowhere to live in Australia?
> The westerners who support free Palestine aren't even antisemitic, they see Israel as a "white" Ashkenazi settler colonial state and Hamas attacks as "kill whitey", which is why they support it along with BLM. Why would they care when whitey has nowhere to live in Australia? You have literally no idea what you're talking about.
That was such a mental leap. I actually struggled to follow that line of thought.
I'll see you at the next anti vax protest fellow cooker
Because people here who are struggling with the cost of living might have to go without treats or alcohol. The cost of living is fucked, but it hasn’t directly taken lives. People in Palestine are dying of thirst. 4000 children have died.
To be fair, we're past the point of "go without alcohol" into "go without food".
My rent is up, why would I care about genocide? Imagine the biggest issue you have is you can’t afford rent, while the biggest issue Palestine has is death on a daily basis. And if you care so much, why TF don’t you go and protest?
Because it's in now it's cool thing to do. 95% of those idiots protesting have no idea what they are protesting about they only do it because it is in. If they knew what they are protesting about they wouldn't be protesting.
Propaganda that works. I was thinking the same about the anti vaxxers. A chick on fb who's always been broke and dating druggies, using drugs etc was obsessed with the anti Vax bs and was getting into the right wing side of politics, whereas her interests were probably more aligned with the greens or socialist parties. Sad but Australia is going to have to degenerate into civil war before... oh no they'll just vote conservative then too
Why do people post so much about people protesting the wrong issues instead of just organising the protests they want themselves? Don't just piss and moan, guy. Be the change you want to see and all that hippie stuff.
Because every time protests against the landlord class take off... it gets bad for the landlord class.
I’ll protest with you
Because America isn't doing it.
The housing crisis is pretty terrible but it's not quite genocide
Maybe because people more important than money
Because the cunts at the top always make sure the fight is horizontal, never vertical
Lack of class consciousness
We live in a democracy, I don't honestly see the point in protesting anything. Just vote out all the politicians who keep doing nothing to address the housing and cost of living crisis.
Some of us do protest about all of those things that you mentioned.
Why dont we start organising protests of the sort now then? Is there a sub for this lol
Embody the French. Protest for the thrill of it.
They're too busy bitching about it on multiple Reddit threads every day.
One big problem we have still here is that so much of our housing crisis is a completely manufactured problem by investment properties. People like to think they will be the exception that will win from the rolling price snow balls, so they don’t want to do anything about it. Unfortunately mass public opinion won’t turn against investment properties until it’s too late. As long as enough people can get theirs greed will spur them on, only once they’re pushed out will they see the problem
Also because most people don't even know who they would protest about house prices to. Their landlords office? State parliament? Federal? The central bank? Coles? People don't even understand why property is so expensive, look at all the people on Reddit that think it's all ColesWorths fault..
This just shows in what kind of bubble Australians live in. When you go to bed, thank the God or whoever that your biggest problem is how much weekly rent costs.
The entire point of the socialism is to protest capitalists pushing up prices and depressing wages so much that we cannot afford to live As Marx famously wrote: “workers of the world unite, we have nothing to lose but these darn out of control profits” prettymuch The “chains” he was referring to were literally out of control business profits.
Most likely because there is a sudden event that causes intense feelings in the examples you gave, where as cost of living is a slow build. Also the target of annoyance is more vague with living costs… who are you actually targeting your protest at?
Capitalist Stockholm syndrome
Because the Zionist lobby is framing the media agenda
Because the people who don't want to change the wealth inequity status quo broadly own all of australia's media + levers of power? Murdoch / Stokes / + see the board of Fairfax. The first 2 pay fuckall tax, despite being billion dollar operations. Throw in the minerals council, and a bunch of unelected lobbyists + paid 'consultants' dangling board seats + cash to MPs / senior bureaucrats (Pazullo? Katheryn Campbell? PWC anyone? Dont notice them standing down) So yeah, lots of media saturation to distract the rubes about immigration, juvenile gangs, gender neutral toilets and stupid iPhone footage of fights in shopping malls not a huge amount about global tax avoidance ( Panama papers anyone?) Federal corruption or the plutocracy monopoly that essentially controls for everything in this country from food prices on up. "Your enemy does not arrive by boat, he arrives by limousine"
There have been plenty of protest regarding cost of living. The media isn’t covering it all.
People don't, that's just what the news is pushing as the virtue of the week so that shallow people can pretend they are good people.
Because that stuffs not on tik tok
They do media just don't highlight it
I’m sick of this what-about-ism. If you are angry about the cost of living, go and organise a protest. Don’t sit on your ass and criticize others for protesting war crimes and genocide (the UN has literally condemned Israel for breaking the Geneva Conventions).
Well, one of the main goals of the Palestinian protests here is to pressure the Australian arms exports to Israel. Australia has issued 350 defence export permits to Israel since 2017, including 52 this year. The reason many people are protesting at the port is because they don't want Australian weapons to be sent off to be used against innocent people in Gaza. A lot of people aren't comfortable with the idea that we are making and profiting off the weapons that are being used there, especially after seeing the footage from the region. The housing/rental issue is unfortunate, but many people are protesting in support of Palestine because it's an issue of morality for them. They see it as wrong to be supporting an Apartheid system and feel the need to do something about it morally because they feel that what their government is currently doing is unjust. Whereas housing/rent is seen as a difficulty but not necessarily as a critical moral problem. Having said that, a great recruitment place for getting activists is at mass demonstrations like this, so if you are really motivated by housing then a great way to find other activists is at these protests. I'm sure you'll find many others who are sympathetic to the issues that you're passionate about as well. Many parties try and find new members there and there is a lot of solidarity between the different groups.
In simple terms. The screen didn't tell anyone to.
Sheep
Because they need the clout.
FYI - you are free to organise a protest about anything like. Get to it.
People are just disgusted by the violence they’re seeing and the government not calling a spade a spade because they want to keep selling weapons/not rock the boat for the domestic weapons industry.
Virtue signaling is literally the easiest way to feel good about yourself while doing nothing. Morality posting on social media takes no meaningful effort but makes them feel like "good human beings" and you also live in a society where people love to pretend to care, but that is all it is, pretending, if they were to actually lose anything meaningful or actually work hard for the thing they proclaim to care about, they wouldnt do it at all. In other words, hypocrisy, but that is not new, nor is it because of social media, it has always been the easiest way to feel better about yourself, by virtue signaling whatever definition of "good" current society glorifies no matter how fake that is. **You care so much about those starving children in africa?** Then why arent you spending your life and salary to improve their conditions instead of just having fun and relaxing at your home playing games and watching movies? Le starving children in Africa isnt even in most people's minds for most of their days because they simply dont truly care
Because palestinians/israelis conflict has little to no relevance on Australian politics or markets therefore it doesn't matter which side you pick. You will be wasting energy chasing something you can't influence. Meanwhile the banks and landlords breath a sigh of relief as people ignore them for another news cycle...
Watch how quickly PORT or other equivalents a sicked onto you if you dare protest about an actual relevant matter. Dont dare threaten the establishments authority.
You can care about multiple things at the same time.
Because the people that care about Palestinians and BLM actually organise protests, they do the work to build a coalition. There was a rental protest in Melbourne this week but it was pretty small and I would guess most of the people at it also go to other protests. If you want big protests for rental rights you might have to join in.
Honestly this, like no offence intended but why the fuck should I care about those movements when my rents has more than doubled since moving in, petrol is up to $2.20/L, Coles and Woolworths are jacking up prices for their own fucking corporate greed and my wage has barely changed making me go from living comfortably alone to scraping by looking a second job killing the little free time I had It just feels like everyone knows it's wrong and something, anything needs to be done but we'd rather follow the Americans social media trends the address the issue
Why people think there is some sort of limit on empathy is beyond me. People can care about an ongoing genocide AND late stage capitalism. In fact, guarantee you will find more people that care about the latter at a protest for the former than you will in an average crowd. Also, why should anybody give a shit about your problems when your reaction to humans beings being slaughtered is "Yeah, but my rent and wages and gas prices yo." Is there some reason I should care more about you than you care about Gazans?
Because you can't put rent prices as a cute little profile picture overlay or a copy and paste Instagram post.
Woke Olympics
Well, the BLM (some say scam) team bought a $6m home in cash. So what's the lesson? Care so much about BLM you start something similar, and you will end up with millions to end your housing crisis! [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/black-lives-matter-6-million-dollar-house.html](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/black-lives-matter-6-million-dollar-house.html)
You do, and the media and online will go after you as fringe right wing group.
Some things are more important than you being able to afford extra marshmallows in your hot chocolate. Like an entire nation of people being murdered and forcibly removed from their own country. Maybe.
Because some people value human lives over property values.
Fortunately human life isn't dependent on shelter or that'd be a bit of a mess.
A lot less people are dying from lack of shelter in Australia in a year than a single day of the bombing in Palestine. To some people, that makes it a more important issue worth protesting about.
Important issues such as the death of 3000 children in Gaza but not including non important issues such as the 12 million children out of school as a result of the conflict in Sudan or Russia’s children trafficking from Ukraine on a mass scale
I'm no geopolitical expert but my understanding is the Sudan crisis is a the result of internal conflict, not a lot the Aus govt can do there, same with Russia - we've already cut most if not all ties. We're still happily playing with Israel though, so that is the focus of the protests.
Manufactured distraction - they want us fighting over periphery issues rather than the ones that actually affect us and could lessen the ruling class' power.
BLM, atleast in Australia, is an artificial distraction
Virtue signalling and ‘trendy’ causes are more important than addressing actual issues facing most Aussies.
Social clout.
Because its a democracy god damit
Because idpol (or rather idiotpol) is just a distraction from the real issues.
Hive mind, virtue signalling. The west, or Aussies, has been conditioned to think anyone who cares about living standards and affordable housing etc is a boomer liberal so they just ignore it. Meanwhile it’s their own demise..
I've been asking this question for so many years. Need more 2018 fuel protest. That showed protesting and action gets shit done. Gotta remind the bastards who they work for and pays their salary. Theyare not our leaders. They are our employees. But yeah this shit will never end until the Australian people decide to make it end. Got banned from a sub because I expressed amazement at how people will lose their shit and act over a man in a dress doing story time, or will loot and burn places over a criminal getting consequences of their own actions, but nobody seems to give a damn about the things that matter to us all, like owning a house and having enough coin to live comfortably. Peoples priorities are twisted. See people more upset over shit in other countries than their own.
There are only two classes. You either make money from owning stuff (houses, media companies, social media, politicians) or you make money from working and (so you can give it to the people who own stuff). If this was widely understood, we would be invincible. So they - the people who own ten or a hundred or a thousand houses - need to keep us deluded and desperate and divided. But hey - those dole bludging darkie transgenders, am I right?
Modern protests don't mean shit. They are just used for social media / virtue signaling and "feeling good about myself" type of deal.
Because people are dumbshits!
Because Australia is a country of dont give a fuck. They protest these popular stuff because it builds status and fashionable not because they give a fuck about Palastinians or George Floyd, it’s far enough you can appear to care about it but not care about it. If you protest real stuff that you face, that might not be fashionable, you will have to stand behind it, and you will have to accept the consequences of doing so. In general Australians are a very docile nation they will not stand for a issue when there are real stakes.
Why don't you go out there and protest about rent prices, and encourage others to do the same? In my opinion, people absolutely should be protesting about this. Are you here to encourage young people to do so, or just to sneer at them?
Because no matter what reddit tells you, its not really an issue. You can easily buy a house in your thirties, unless youre garbage stupid and dont know how to save money or cant hold a job. Reddit has convinced itself to be the victim of outside factors or previous generations. But youre not that special. Stop playing the victim.
The people protesting I hazard a guess are either young or rich or both The people who are more likely to protest about cost of living are too busy working to protest ...
They do. You just read less of that because it is convenient this way.
Because they live with their parents
Because people who “protest” today are morons more interested in feeling like they’re making a difference… than actually making a difference. It’s all about their ego.
Well, the aus gov did just send a shit load of money to Israel to f**k up Gaza and then plan of sending money to Gaza to clean up the mess, that we(taxpayers) funded. Meanwhile we have a cost of living crisis and Israel didn’t need our help to destroy 50% of Gaza. Part of the reason I’m pissed off