Political Future for Australia: Side-Step Those Long-Established Imperial Command Structures

Person speaking at a podium with microphone.
Image: US PBS News- 23 September 2025: President Trump’s UNGA Address in Action Mode

Public Broadcasting News (PBS) in the USA provided a useful summary of President Trump’s hour-long address to the UN General Assembly (UNGA). The address fundamentally questioned the purpose of the U.N.’s existence.

PBS offered a dot point summary of the address after an initial verbal swipe at the performance of the access escalator and the teleprompter by President Trump:

  • Lack of recognition for President Trump’s role as a global peacemaker in preventing seven wars which justifies his claim for a Nobel Peace Prize
  • Criticism of over 140 countries who had recognized the Palestinian state which represented most assembled nations in the UNGA
  • Requesting European to cease Russian oil and gas imports before the US administrations take a harder line against Russia
  • Criticism of the Trump administrations perceived tolerance of illegal immigration by many representative democracies
  • Total rejection of the need for climate change initiatives
  • Concluding reference to a new dialogue between the US Administration and Brazil’s President Lula of the Workers’ Party

Yale Insights offers a provocative assessment of President Trump’s capacity to continue the mainstream trends in US politics with the emergence of a heightened command structure from the Oval Office.

Pointed Finger Directives in the Heightened Command Structures from the Oval Office (Image: Yale Insights)

The Yale Insights correctly tag President Trump as being quite out of step with mainstream US political traditions while still acknowledging the long-term impact of conservative populism on the leadership style of the superpower:

“Unlike any leader of any free-market economy around the world, President Trump has seized control of private enterprise’s strategic decision-making and investment policies while invading corporate board rooms so that he may dictate leadership staffing, punish corporate critics, and demand public compliance with his political agenda. This is far more dangerous to capitalism than a city-run grocery store.”

As expected, Yale Insights offers a variety of opinions in its news releases and articles. Sang Kim as Professor of Operations Management claims that the full impact of Trumpism on the US domestic economy and the wider global economy is still evolving.

The Albanese Government with the assistance of the vast resources available from key government departments is rightly cautious of the trend lines evident in Trumpism. The Albanese Government rides high in the latest Newspoll. These trendlines will improve if Labor leaders abandon the colonial cringe which shackled previous generations of leaders during the Cold War and beyond.

US literary leaders like Gore Vidal (1925-2012) warned Americans about the negative impact of the long transitions from republican values to affinity with archaic empires armed with both lethal weapons and corporate power nodes that control much global investment in developed OECD countries.

ABC News and ABS data keeps everyone up to date on the extent of US foreign investment in Australia and the misuse of the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement as a mechanism for tax evasion by multinational companies and corporate control of large sections of the Australian media landscape (Images: ABS 7 May 2025):

In the heightened command structure of US politics, more concessions can be demanded from compliant Australian leaders for closer integration with the US in investment and greater freedom for mainstream US media and networking giants here.

As a middle power, Australia cannot isolate itself from their global command structures. However, unlike European countries, Australia still has room to maneuver through its co-operative trading and investment links with the countries in Oceania and Asia. My previous article covered these possibilities in Alternative Political Futures: Fortress Australia with Progressive Regional Investment Links.

The Albanese Government with its majority in the House of Representatives and potential control of the senate within an emergent progressive united front can become more independent of the global arms race and tax evasion by multinational companies.

Australians can avoid being hijacked by the momentum of the out-of-control MAGA vehicle:

Image: The Guardian 17 November 2024 with Illustration from Chris Riddell of the Observer

John Pilger’s article for The Guardian (23 October 2014) to mark the passing of Gough Whitlam of course carries a warning to all progressive Labor leaders to be responsibly cautious in their endeavours on both economic and security matters:

“Whitlam knew the risk he was taking. The day after his election, he ordered that his staff should not be ‘vetted or harassed’ by the Australian security organisation, ASIO – then, as now, tied to Anglo-American intelligence. When his ministers publicly condemned the US bombing of Vietnam as ‘corrupt and barbaric,’ a CIA station officer in Saigon said: ‘We were told the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators.’

Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone. “Try to screw us or bounce us,” the prime minister warned the US ambassador, “[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention.”

Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, ‘This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House … a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion.’

Pine Gap’s top-secret messages were decoded by a CIA contractor, TRW. One of the decoders was Christopher Boyce, a young man troubled by the ‘deception and betrayal of an ally.’ Boyce revealed that the CIA had infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred to the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as ‘our man Kerr.’

Kerr was not only the Queen’s man, he had longstanding ties to Anglo-American intelligence. He was an enthusiastic member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, The Crimes of Patriots, as ‘an elite, invitation-only group … exposed in Congress as being founded, funded and generally run by the CIA.’ The CIA ‘paid for Kerr’s travel, built his prestige … Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money’.”

Best wishes to our Prime Minister when he makes it to the White House to remind President Trump that unlike Greenland and Canada, he represents an independent state with a capacity to terminate our ties with the US Global Alliance and the Pine Gap Communication Base as well as the AUKUS protocols from those Morrison years in government which were to be the bait for a khaki-election in 2020 that would deliver a sweeping victory to the LNP as in 1966 when Australians opted to Go All the Way with the USA.

Respecting Albo’s Support for Palestine in a Heightened US Command Structure

Image: SBS News 22 September 2025

 

Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building on the critical issues raised in each article. Your comments on this and related articles can be recorded on theaimn.net site.

 

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About Denis Bright 47 Articles
Denis is a registered teacher and a member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis has recent postgraduate qualifications in journalism, public policy and international relations. He is interested in advancing pragmatic policies compatible with contemporary globalisation.

20 Comments

  1. We are not the flavour of the month in Washington after re-confirming our commitment to carbon reduction to counter climate change (which Trump reckons is a con job) and our recognition of Gaza which the Trump administration threatened would bring about ‘punitive’ consequences.
    Unfortunately, we have now paid the US a second $800 million payment bringing total payments so far to $1.6 billion under the Aukus agreement without any guarantee that we will ever receive any submarines.
    As part of the Aukus deal Australia has agreed to pay about $4.6 billion towards boosting US shipbuilding capacity and as payment for three or four Virginia Class submarines.

    I think they saw us coming with no delivery dates scheduled for the now obsolete submarines and zero chance of getting our money back.

  2. What a break to have Albanese elected narrowly in 2020 against expectations in the LNP that the preferred advertising agency in Topham Guerin would ace the result with its populist rhetoric on behalf of Scott Morrison and then Peter Dutton in 2024. Topham Guerin had assisted in achieving conservative victories in Britain and NZ on MAGA style marketing.

  3. Now, all Albanese has to do,with effectively no opposition, outside the trash media,is shrug off the mediocrity that has marked Labor’s time in government.
    They have to aim a little bit higher than middle of the road, given the gigantic problems that are right now confronting us.Less bullshit, more action.

  4. The lyrics of the Piano Man reminded me of the new style of personalized politics which is promoted by the corporate media to create a fake style of political participation as the Saturday night crowd shuffles in to drown their sorrows in an alienated capitalist society.

    A recent YouGov focus group survey shows that more Australia’s reject the politics of meaningless slogans: n this survey Australians were asked if they think Australia should be more socialist or capitalist on an eleven-point scale, 0-10. 0-4 indicates a degree of support towards socialism, and 6-10, a degree of support for capitalism. 5 is the neutral option, placed equally between socialism and capitalism.

    This poll found that 53% of 18-24-year-olds think Australia should be more socialist, while only 22% think it should be more capitalist; a net support for socialism at +31%: https://au.yougov.com/politics/articles/49840-53-of-18-to-24-year-olds-want-more-socialism

    What’s wrong in the older Australia age-groups when they tolerate co-payments for essential home care in their twilight years!

  5. Good comment Political Submariner.

    Substance abuse through over-consumption of topic and gin as mentioned in the lyrics of the Piano Man is a lower middle class agenda which is duplicated by advocates of compulsive use of social media to the delight of exploitative corporations with tax avoidance strategies to avoid their social responsibilities.

    Which readers are up to date with more contemporary lyrics about social alienation in the societies with which Trump advocates for humanity?

    Billy Joel’s Piano Man was released in 1972-That was so long ago. But the lyrics carry troubled images: The lyrics paint a vivid picture of the bar’s patrons—characters like “John at the bar,” “Paul is a real estate novelist,” and “Davy, who’s still in the Navy”—each seeking a brief, melodic escape from their mundane or troubled lives.

    Billy Joel is a veteran composer but is still three years younger than Trump having been born in 1949 when Truman as US President continued nuclear weapons testing.

    What new releases tell us about our alienation from political participation from Trump’s nasty messages which have just been extended to warnings against the use of panadol but not aspirin!

  6. Political lobbyists and political insiders might have some reservations about my articles for AIM Network.

    I enjoyed investigating the antics of President Trump and PM Scott Morrison at the opening of Anthony Pratt’s Box Factory at Wapakoneta in Ohio in 2019:https://theaimn.com/domestic-politics-abroad-in-the-name-of-official-state-visits-updating-australian-the-summit-values-on-the-run-at-partisan-events-in-the-trump-era/

    I pass Anthony Pratt’s existing or former industrial site as the Visy Glass Factory in West End in Brisbane almost every day. It was once the site of the State Education Department’s Correspondence School with its possible reacquisition by the state government as a media centre for the 2032 Olympics.

    SMH and other news outlets offer more news about Anthony Pratt’s associations with President Trump and his acquisition of US Citizenship:
    (https://theaimn.com/domestic-politics-abroad-in-the-name-of-official-state-visits-updating-australian-the-summit-values-on-the-run-at-partisan-events-in-the-trump-era/ 16 November 2024):

    According to The New York Times, his wife, Revere, donated $US1 million ($1.55 million) to Trump’s inauguration, which Pratt could not do as an Australian citizen.

    As the Times said in October last year, no one was more adept at exploiting the Trump presidency than Pratt.

    He also acquired a $US200,000 a year membership at Mar-a-Lago resort and put full-page ads in Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal praising Trump policies and his job creation efforts.

    As Pratt says on secret recordings reported in this publication: “My superpower is that I am rich.”

    His assiduous grooming of Trump paid off quickly as the May 2018 dinner at Mar-a-Lago showed. And the following year, Trump was guest of honour at the opening of Pratt Industries’ $500 million paper mill in Ohio with then-prime minister Scott Morrison.

    Pratt had a lot to celebrate.

    Trump’s generous corporate tax cuts, from 35 per cent to 21 per cent, and depreciation allowances are estimated to have added around $US2 billion to Pratt’s wealth, on paper, thanks to his US packaging business.

    If Trump had not been re-elected, these tax cuts, which he had enacted in 2017, would have expired next year. And the president-elect has promised to reduce the corporate tax rate even further to 15 per cent, further boosting the fortunes of his billionaire supporters like Pratt.

  7. I am pleased about the intrusion of discussion about the lyrics of the Piano Man (1972) into comments about political participation.

    The US electorate is not short on political discussion in the traditional and electronic media coverage of events like President Trump’s speech to the General Assembly.

    National opinion polls in the New York Times (25 September 2025) all predate President Trump’s UN Address.

    The President’s disapproval rating averages 54 percent on this polling from various public opinion research agencies: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html.
    This is still comparable to Barack Obama who had a disapproval rating of 56 percent on Gallop polling in September 2013.

    Like the drinking team in the Piano Man, the US electorate is not embedded in profound political analysis.

    I am not saturated with awareness of contemporary musical themes. I would like to hear from readers about the musical themes which define our times.
    Over 50 years have passed since the Piano Man was first released. What is trending in today’s popular culture?

  8. Thanks to Billy Joel’s lyrics in the Piano Man, poignant images of alienated lives have been identified:

    Here in Australia, 14 percent of the votes in the hamlet of Rappville in the Page electorate in Northern NSW were informal. The National Party has neglected its disadvantaged local communities and wealthy investors are buying up properties near coastal resorts for speculative gain.

    The National Party welcomes this speculative boom.

    Preferences from far-right parties in Rappville actually built up the National Party’s vote from a primary vote of 53 percent to over 74 percent.

  9. My favorite tune ever – “Piano Man”.
    It is timeless – here are the lyrics”:

    It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday
    The regular crowd shuffles in
    There’s an old man sitting next to me
    Making love to his tonic and gin

    He says, “Son, can you play me a memory?
    I’m not really sure how it goes
    But it’s sad and it’s sweet
    And I knew it complete
    When I wore a younger man’s clothes.”

    Sing us a song you’re the piano man
    Sing us a song tonight
    Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody
    And you’ve got us feeling alright

    Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
    He gets me my drinks for free
    And he’s quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
    But there’s some place that he’d rather be

    He says, “Bill, I believe this is killing me.”
    As the smile ran away from his face
    “Well, I’m sure that I could be a movie star
    If I could get out of this place.”

    Now Paul is a real estate novelist
    Who never had time for a wife
    And he’s talking with Davy, who’s still in the Navy
    And probably will be for life

    Sing us a song. You’re the piano man
    Sing us a song tonight
    Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody
    And you’ve got us feeling alright

    It’s a pretty good crowd for a Saturday
    And the manager gives me a smile
    ‘Cause he knows that it’s me they’ve been coming to see
    To forget about life for a while

    And the waitress is practicing politics
    As the businessmen slowly get stoned
    Yes, they’re sharing a drink they call “Loneliness”
    But it’s better than drinking alone

    And the piano. It sounds like a carnival
    And the microphone smells like a beer
    And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
    And say, “Man, what are you doing here?”

    Sing us a song. You’re the piano man
    Sing us a song tonight
    Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody
    And you’ve got us feeling alright

    I often wonder if this tune was the inspiration for the US tv series “Cheers” – a bar in Boston starring Ted Danson, Rhea Perlman and others.

  10. Mediocrates: What are the sequels to the Piano Man after 50 years since 1972? Has its excellence been repeated for our generation? If so, readers can acknowledge the new musical genres to assist in the youth out of their alienation embedded in the shackles of consumerism and worse.

  11. My limited skills do not extent to musical lyrics, Mediorcrates. Thanks for your comments on the Piano Man. I came across the arms dealer Basil Zaharoff (1849-1936) in a recent SBS doco on the history of the Orient Express. Like Trump, made his fame and fortune from selling weapons, often to both sides in an armed conflict. He received an Order of the British Empire for his deadly commitments. In retirement from lobbying, Zaharoff could afford to buy the Chateau de Balincourt at Arronville near Paris. It is still owned by his descendants who now live in seclusion behind its high walls and security fences on their occasional visits like Donald Trump today at Mar-a-Lago -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Zaharoff

  12. Mediocrates:
    The B side of the Piano Man single was a song called The Entertainer. Part of it goes:
    “You’ve heard my latest record
    Spin on the radio.
    It took me years to write it;
    They were the best years of my life.
    It was a beatutiful song
    But it ran too long
    If you’re gonna have a hit
    You’ve gotta make it quick
    So they cut it down to 3:05”

    Patently a reference to Piano Man. I did once hear the extended version (recorded at a concert) but it doesn’t seem to available anywhere online.

  13. Thanks Leefe and others who responded with comments on the Piano Man lyrics: The lyrics from the piano bar touch on alienation in US contemporary society but could be in any Australian or global city.

    I did some Vox Popoli on follow-ups to the lyrics of the Piano Man.

    I asked a music teacher at a family event on Sunday about the existence of sequels to Billy Joel’s lyrics but he could not nominate any quality sequels and valued the excellence of those lyrics.

    On a not so crowded Translink trains to the Lang Park match last Sunday, I raised the problem with local Bronco supporters who were rewarded for their helpful comments with a 16-14 win against the Penrith Panthers at Lang Park.

    Interest in this topic was incredible and my questions were well received. Almost everyone knew the words of Piano Man and the respect for the quality of the lyrics was shared with the music teacher in some Brisbane-West Schools.

    Gemini Google Bard also offers this take on the possible setting of the Piano Man:

    The setting for the lyrics of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” is based on The Executive Room, a now-defunct piano bar located in the Wilshire district of Los Angeles, California.

    Joel worked there for approximately six months in 1972–1973 under the pseudonym “Bill Martin” to avoid the attention of his then-contracted record company while trying to get out of a bad deal. He has confirmed that the characters in the song—like John the bartender, Paul the “real estate novelist,” and the waitress “practicing politics” (who was his first wife, Elizabeth Weber)—were all based on real people he encountered during this time.

    In the early 1970s, Billy Joel moved to Los Angeles to escape a disastrous recording contract and a bad management deal in New York. To pay the bills and keep a low profile, he took a gig playing piano at The Executive Room, using his first and middle names, Bill Martin. This bar, as Joel describes, was not a glamorous Hollywood hotspot but a quiet, almost forgettable establishment for local regulars.

    The song’s meticulous and intimate details are a direct reflection of this environment. “It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday, the regular crowd shuffles in” sets a tone of predictable, comfortable routine. The characters are not grand figures, but working-class patrons with unfulfilled aspirations:

    Paul, the real estate agent, “was a novelist / Who never had time for a wife.”

    John, the bartender, “gets me my drinks for free,” but harbors the frustrated dream of being a “movie star.”

    The bar thus serves as a literal hiding place for Joel and a figurative sanctuary for its patrons, all seeking a temporary escape from their “real” lives.

    Speculation: The Bar as a Theater of Lost Dreams

    The most fertile ground for speculation lies in the song’s profound emotional landscape, framed by the bar’s atmosphere. The Executive Room is not merely a backdrop; it is a confessional booth and a theatre of lost dreams.

    The key line, “Yes, they’re sharing a drink called loneliness / But it’s better than drinking alone,” suggests the true “setting” is an emotional one of shared isolation. The physical space of the bar, with the piano man at its center, is what facilitates this shared experience.

    One could speculate that the lyrics are less about who the characters are and more about the psychological function of the bar:

    The Role of the Music: The chorus—”Sing us a song, you’re the piano man / Sing us a song tonight / Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody / And you’ve got us feelin’ alright”—suggests that the music’s true purpose is not entertainment, but memory and emotional transportation. The old man asks for a “memory” rather than a “melody,” highlighting the bar’s function as a time machine, taking patrons back to a younger, more hopeful self.

    The Irony of the Piano Man: Speculation also focuses on Joel’s own place in the narrative. He’s an artist hiding, an exile forced to play for tips, yet the patrons idolize him, asking, “‘Man, what are you doing here?'” This line, often interpreted as genuine curiosity about his talent, could also be a subtle acknowledgment of the universality of failure. They see his talent but recognize the shared trap: a great dream stuck in a small, dead-end room. In this sense, The Executive Room becomes a microcosm of the entire entertainment industry—a place where dreams go to be forgotten, or occasionally, to be quietly chronicled.

    Ultimately, while the bricks and mortar of the setting belonged to The Executive Room in Los Angeles, the true power of “Piano Man” is set in the collective human condition of unfulfilled potential, a universal bar where every patron is a reflection of the “Piano Man” himself.

    The Bronco Supporters on the train from Richlands near Inala in Brisbane’s West offered Lisi’s Say Less which is an Aussie Rap genre set at Goodna Station and nearby localities in Goodna, in Ipswich: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Say+Less+and+Libl+and+Googna and https://www.youtube.com/shorts/M1jQbXPwego: Also https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EIrNK0v7c4w

    Another couple in Milton the next day offered existential Inxs music and Never tear Us Apart in particular. It won’t open on my computer because I do not have Youtube Premium.

    Another family member who is an urban planner offered the lyrics of Paul Kelly. She had just returned from a trip to the USA to check out innovations in accommodation for elderly people. Some of the rentals charged were $US25,000 a month which were affordable only to the wealthiest retirees.

    Gemini Google Bard offers a good take on Paul Kelly’s lyrics which was generated through media monitoring by the robots in Silicon Valley. It is still worth considering. Always ask the robots for a title, essay format and detailed references with your requests and don’t forget to change the spelling to Australian English if you are using the feedback at high school or tertiary institutes:

    Paul Kelly: Chronicler of Australian Identity and Modern Estrangement
    The Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly is renowned for crafting lyrics that serve as vivid, often bittersweet vignettes of everyday life. By blending a distinctly Australian vernacular and geography with profound observations on the human condition, his work consistently explores universal struggles, including many themes that resonate with the sociological concept of modern alienation. While his primary lyrical focus is on the intricacies of romantic love and place, Kelly’s capacity to capture isolation, displacement, and moral failure positions him as a crucial chronicler of contemporary emotional estrangement.

    A central feature of Kelly’s songwriting is his ability to root universal experiences in the specific details of Australian settings. By naming locations like St Kilda and Kings Cross, or referencing local culture, he makes the emotional content immediately accessible and culturally grounded. Songs like “From St Kilda to Kings Cross” use the simple act of traveling between two urban centers to explore deep personal longing and regret. The narrator’s journey reveals that changing location does not resolve internal conflict, concluding that “everything goes on just the same.” This narrative device perfectly frames the sense of geographical displacement reflecting emotional isolation—a personal form of alienation where the individual feels disconnected from their surroundings or unable to find true belonging.

    Kelly also delves deeply into the paradoxical nature of relationships, providing a lyrical mirror for the alienation that occurs between individuals. His love songs often detail scenes of heartbreak, betrayal, and longing, using complex archetypes where men and women are cast as victims, predators, heartbreakers, or the broken-hearted. A compelling example of this moral complexity is his adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story into the song “Everything’s Turning to White” or the album So Much Water So Close to Home. By adopting the perspective of a woman whose husband displays unsettling indifference to a moral crisis, Kelly conveys profound emotional alienation. The intimacy of their relationship is fractured by a severe moral disconnect, illustrating how individuals can feel utterly estranged from those closest to them, a core facet of personal alienation.

    Beyond the personal, Kelly has consistently used his platform for social and political commentary, addressing collective forms of alienation. His protest songs, such as the seminal “From Little Things Big Things Grow,” chronicle the struggle of the Gurindji people for land rights, highlighting the historical alienation of Indigenous Australians from their land and political power. Similarly, his environmental lament, “Sleep Australia Sleep,” critiques collective apathy towards climate change, portraying a society alienated from nature and its own long-term survival. In these works, Kelly critiques the bureaucratic, capitalist, or indifferent systems that make the individual or marginalized group feel powerless—a classic characteristic of social alienation.

    Ultimately, Paul Kelly’s lyrics function as more than just popular songs; they are miniature studies in the human condition. His detailed storytelling of romantic failure, displacement, and systemic injustice serves to articulate the pervasive sense of being “frozen inside,” disconnected, or powerless. By combining a unique national voice with profound human empathy, Kelly captures the specific anxieties and emotional distances that define modern life, offering a powerful reflection on contemporary societal and personal alienation.

    References
    Tutor English VCE ATAR. “Paul Kelly, Don’t Start Me Talking – The Meaning in a Nutshell.” Tutor English VCE ATAR. [Source URL for Snippet 1.1, accessed via Google Search]

    PAUL KELLY — STORIES OF ME. “Songs about Place.” Paul Kelly: Stories of Me (Education Section). [Source URL for Snippet 2.3, accessed via Google Search]

    anzuk education – blog. “A Story. A Song. A Film (and a great idea for English teachers).” anzuk education blog. [Source URL for Snippet 4.2, accessed via Google Search] (Details Paul Kelly’s use of Raymond Carver’s story So Much Water So Close to Home to explore conflict and isolation.)

    PAUL KELLY — STORIES OF ME. “Songs about Social Change.” Paul Kelly: Stories of Me (Education Section). [Source URL for Snippet 2.1, accessed via Google Search] (Details “From Little Things Big Things Grow” and Indigenous land rights.)

    EBSCO. “Alienation | Research Starters.” EBSCO Research Starters. [Source URL for Snippet 3.2, accessed via Google Search] (Provides an overview of the concept of alienation in social theory, including Marx, Arendt, and postmodern critiques.)

    Cauvin, Nicole. “Alienation: The Modern Condition.” Sacred Heart University Review, Vol. 7, Iss. 1, Article 3, 1987. [Source URL for Snippet 3.3, accessed via Google Search] (Discusses the philosophical definition of alienation and its application to modern society and work.)

    Each reference can be checked out on Gemini Google Bard as a follow-up exercise.

  14. Like the patrons in those Piano Bars in the USA, our leaders seem to be cut off and just as alienated from issues which concern us from Gaza to traffic problems and housing shortages while corporates flourish on the financial markets under President Trump as the global patron of high finance. There is very little real participation on politics beyond slogans about fake issues like the extent of crime in Q which got Crisafulli elected as Premier in 2024. Multinational advertising agencies generate the slogans at election time and lobbying agencies line up to arrange their contracts with far-right governments.

  15. Who can share more poetical and musical lyrics with verbal images comparable to the Piano Man (1972-73) in a local Australian setting a half century later when the problem of alienation and associated mental health blues has intensified?

    Thanks to those Bronco supporters who shared these options on the train from Richlands on the way to Lang Park for that 16-14 victory over Penrith Panthers last Sunday: he Bronco Supporters on the train from Richlands near Inala in Brisbane’s West offered Lisi’s Say Less which is an Aussie Rap genre set at Goodna Station and nearby localities in Goodna, in Ipswich: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Say+Less+and+Libl+and+Googna and https://www.youtube.com/shorts/M1jQbXPwego: Also https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EIrNK0v7c4w

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