This cartoon says it all about nationalism....

Ok, the flag belongs to the United States of North America.
(I think it very arrogant of that nation to call itself the United States of America when apart from Canada and Mexico also in the Northern portion of the continent , the word America covers Central and South America as well!)

But Australia goes on with bullshit about Australian values and the ANZAC spirit and such to pander to the base instincts of our own version of a compliant neo-fascist government.
We spend enormous amounts on the various Institutes of Sport and Cricket Academy and such, to basically amuse the masses to distract them from real world issues. (To paraphrase Karl Marx, "Sport is the opiate of the Australian people"). There is a word to cover this hype: read my lips - PROPAGANDA!

With the phony war on terror as the excuse to introduce sedition laws and such, and the hammering by our politicians and their media cronies of the phrase "Australian values" we are going down the bullying path example set by the U.S of N.A. It is an insidious form of censorship where anyone who doesn't agree with the unwritten code of politically correct normality is intimidated into submission and silence.

It is COMPULSORY PATRIOTISM!

The war on terror is a phoney war.
Yes, there has been Bali, 911 and such, but neither Oz or our imperialist mentors have dispatched troops anywhere to fight terrorists. At the time we attacked Iraq I don't recall Howard mentioning we were going there to fight terrorists in all his lying excuses.
Ok, Bush eventually promoted the idea in the U.S. , but look at the money the Yanks pour into TV evangelists. They are gullible enough to believe any crap and very slow to wake up to reality.
(Mmm, I don't think we are too different, at that!)

There has not been one genuine terrorist threat averted here or abroad by the new heavy handed laws that have attacked our civil liberties, nor would they have stopped attacks that have occurred.
The pre-existing laws were just as adequate, or, if the glass is half empty, the new laws will be just as inadequate.
In other words, the true purpose of the laws is to intimidate dissenters into silence or at best into cream-puff discussions.

Patriotism, nationalism, etc, serve no real purpose for the general populace. While we swallow this gumbo from the ruling elites, they are in fact moving our nations towards globalisation and the New World Order. We, as their puppets have less to show for a more insecure yet increasingly more demanding lifetime of toil. Our planet is ever more degraded and unattractive. Our women, our sick, and our unemployed are more degraded. We are still cannon fodder.
Capitalism is on the cusp of transition into a new phase, where capital will in fact matter less.
It will still be about power and control, but control of people and labour will be more to the fore and money less so.

The equation is simple. Lets call our ruler JimboCorp. JC needs more labour. They borrow workers from privatised but government endorsed prison systems. The modern equivalent of the chain gang is paid a nominal wage. The prison charges the prisoner for his lodgings, he comes out just as broke but possibly more bitter than when he went in.
JimboCorp needs more slaves (oops, workers) we arrest more. If JC is working on a huge project, we may have to introduce a few more laws.

If you think this is fanciful, consider the fact that the U.S. has the highest prison population in the world. (2,135901 as at 30 Dec 2004) and the highest rate as proportion of population (724 per 100,000).
U.S. incarceration rates by race, June 30, 2004:

* Whites: 393 per 100,000
* Latinos: 957 per 100,000
* Blacks: 2,531 per 100,000

Look at just the males by race, and the incarceration rates become even more frightening, June 30, 2004:

* White males: 717 per 100,000
* Latino males: 1,717 per 100,000
* Black males: 4,919 per 100,000 (4.92%!)

In Australia,the prisoner population in Australia has increased by more than 40% over the decade to June 2004. (The adult Australian population increased by only 15% in the same period.)

Indigenous people represented 22% of the total prisoner population as at 30 June 2005. Indigenous persons in Western Australia and South Australia were 19 and 13 times more likely than non-Indigenous people to be in prison.

According to a Jesuit report, "Much of the dramatic increase in the Australian prison population can be explained by the relationship between untreated mental health needs, subsequent illegal use of drugs as a form of self-medication, and the eventual intervention of the criminal justice system."

Do a Google! China had 1.43 million prisoners at a rate of 111 as of Oct 2002. It has a huge population, we go on about their civil rights, yet their ratio is much less!
Oil and coal are very rapidly getting scarcer. Nuclear power is a relatively short term option as the reserves of easily extractable uranium are limited.

If you still think this scenario is fanciful, feel free to comment. But please explain to me why a supposedly great, successful society imprisons so many, most of who are poor, black, and hispanic, and how, after all this, this society is meant to be a paragon for the whole planet!
And why I should believe the U.S. is a compassionate and virtuous world policeman!