David Rowe, Australian Financial Review
I thought, for about five minutes, about marching in the local event yesterday. Then I thought surely in 2017 women do not need to march to highlight basic human rights? Haven't we come a long way since the days when women were paid less and didn't have access to birth control and had to stay in a terrible relationship because they had nowhere else to go or no means of support?
So I blithely drove off to see the sea and returned home to watch tennis. Then today I saw the amazing turnout in many cities, but most particularly in Washington DC and Los Angeles. Because women do not have the same basic human rights as men and a man who has been elected as President of the United States is probably going to take away some of what they have.
In recent months I have met two women who are trailblazers for women in the ADF. They are the "firsts" in their fields and I am stunned by their achievements. I'm also impressed with the young men who work with them and treat them as equals. So yes, there are still opportunities for firsts, but we should not be regressing 100 years.
Donald Trump campaigned to make America great again and I think he may have done so on his second day. His visit to CIA HQ and the press briefing conducted by Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary and Communications Director, on the size of President's
penis inauguration crowd were sights to behold. Trump casually throwing it out there in front of a memorial wall to CIA agents who had given their lives in service to their country that the US may well go to war in Iraq and then Spicer's blatant lies about the size of the crowd to the White House Press Corps. Enough disinformation to feed the frenzy of "fake news" so they will be quoted by supporters/media/and others for a few hours or days.
What a fiasco the US and the World has got itself into. How did someone like DJT become president? People watch reality TV and think they have real power. You have to admire him for having the smarts to take advantage of the times and get himself elected to power as if he was still hosting The Apprentice but it leaves all of us poorer on a social and political level.
In Australia, there are a few politicians who think if they jump on the Trump bandwagon they will win the highest office in various states or nationally.
That's a really simplistic reaction to what has turned out to be a very poor government with Malcolm Turnbull in the role of PM. Picking on the sick and poor is never a good way to take the population with you.
We are all members of what should be a civil society but sometimes stuff happens that makes you question that.
Maybe the world needed Trump. Maybe we all need to collectively get off our bums and be involved in the democratic process, at least those of us lucky enough to live in a democracy, apart from showing up and voting. Couldn't hurt.
During the working-with-politicians phase a few years ago I would tell as many people as possible how they could effectively engage with policy and parliament. Everything from petitions to writing to local MPs and Senators to making submissions to parliamentary inquiries. I was surprised how many people were unaware of these opportunities. But I guess you have little dissent if you don't invite it.
I used to have my political views on FB as "stand and be counted". Let's do this.
Yes we can.