Good afternoon, lovely to have such a delicious lunch and to reconvene and to be here in this special space to learn from our next keynote speaker. My name is Connie Blomgren and I work at Athabasca University and I am part of the program co-chair committees for the conference and I am now calling myself a cousin to NorQuest because everybody... So it feels like family to be now be a part of AU and NorQuest. So I'm here to just warmly welcome Sandra LaMouche, who is a Nihau'a Eskwi kri woman from Big Stone Kri Nation in Treaty 8 territory. She's married to a Pekani man and has two boys age 14 and 9 and on Sunday afternoon she had a... because she's a hockey mom so she had to go to a hockey game first and the... that was the younger guy and then she came even the little older one was still playing. Sandra holds a Bachelor of Arts in Native American Studies from the University of Lethbridge and a Master of Arts from Trent University. Her thesis is entitled and I'm doing my best here but I am a baby when it comes to Blackfoot and Kri so Natona Mayo Pimadisawin seeking a good life through Indigenous dance. Her thesis is available online and I know I'll be reading it and I encourage you to do so as well. In addition to being a champion hoop dancer and an award-winning Indigenous educator, Sandra is also a visual artist with a new exhibition being displayed this November in the City of Lethbridge. She is authored a children's book, has a young adult novel under development and soon will be part of an artist in residence program at the Bant School of Fine Arts where she will develop a play about an Indigenous woman who encounters understandings of contemporary Indigenous life including the difficult topic of murdered and missing Indigenous women and children. Sandra recently auditioned and acted in the play Honor Beat, a story about two growing Indigenous sisters and their dying mother which was the role played by Sandra. During the summer she was part of a small dance tour with several other Indigenous women and they performed in Whitehorse and Dawson City in the Yukon and she told me that she found the Yukon landscape just so magical with the big mountains and the really large rivers. In July 2024 Sandra has a month-long sovereignty-themed art residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico. So as you can see her accomplishments just keep growing because that one about the Santa Fe she just told me at lunch and we had dinner together and we've been hanging out and so it's like oh yeah right there is that too. So as we welcome Sandra to our Open Education Global Conference let us soften our hearts and observe using our minds and enter into the teachings of her dance. Her steps and movement are part of her keynote message. I invite you to listen with your body and to feel with your spirit. Hi hi. Tansa, Sandra Lemusch, Nitsigasun, Nia, Nehiro, Esquail. I'm a Kree woman from the Big Stone Kree Nation, my mom's community and my dad is from the Kapawayno First Nation. Under the Indian Act I'm only able to enroll or associate with one of the communities of my parents. It is one of the ways that under the colonial policies that we experience the continued erasure and assimilation of Indigenous peoples in Canada. I am born of these colonial policies. I am born of missing and murdered Indigenous women. I am born of residential school survivors, day school survivors, Metis resistance and relocations. But I'm also born of medicine people, drum keepers, language speakers. I am born of hunters and trappers and bead workers and storytellers. And I am not successful and resilient in spite of being Indigenous. It is because I am Indigenous that I am able to be resilient and successful. It is the stories, the culture, the language, and the teachings that I've received that allow me to be strong and to persevere. So today I wanted to talk about Nidonak Mio Pematiswin. This is a Kree philosophy that I learned and Dr. Anthony Michael Hart did research with Kree elders and he came up with an explanation or description of what this means. Mio Pematiswin means the good life and Nidonak means seeking the good life. So it's an active and lifelong journey to seek a good life. It takes constant work and balance. What he described it as was a process of learning, growing, being, and being and becoming. So our Kree philosophy of living a good life centers around constant movement and growth. It's about always learning, always trying, always pushing yourself. And it is lifelong. So until you are an elder, until you are done living, you're always learning and growing. And I was really interested in the philosophies of Indigenous people because of the hoop dance. And when I first became a hoop dancer, I learned the different history, teachings, and stories that go with the hoop. And the hoop dance changed my life in terms of spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental well-being. And so when I did my master's thesis, I wanted to learn more about this. How come I didn't learn this as a kid? How life-changing this was for me? I wish I would have known earlier. And so part of that was learning of Indigenous dance history and more of the oppression that Indigenous dances and culture and spirituality were actually illegal in Canada and the U.S. up until 1950. And so when I started to learn hoop dancing, even starting as a child, as a dancer, tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical, it didn't have the same impact that hoop dancing had on me. And so I wanted to look more into the symbolism, the symbolism of the dances and the hoops. And so within the hoop you will see it contains, it is what encompasses all of the four directions. And so I came up with this idea of looking at wellness and well-being as tied to learning and growing. And all of this is essential to living a good life. And so here we have the Nehiwak Medicine Wheel that I was taught by family friends. And in the east is the spiritual. And I often describe spirit as our culture and identity. And in the east is like the sun rising as well. So it's represented by fire. And I think of spirit as that spark within us, that light within all of us that we all have. And so when you're taking care of your spirit, you feel that passion, that drive, that spark, that excitement in what you are doing. In the south is the physical body. And it also for me is our physical environment. It could be your home. It could be connection to the land, diet, fitness. For me it's going on 16 years sobriety as part of that physical wellness and healing. In the west is emotional characterized by adulthood. And that includes represented by the water because when you're really emotional, it shows up through the water. What my mom taught me is water is healing. In the north is the element of air, the mental, the mind. It's our thoughts. And it's represented by our elders. And in this version I also have the concentric circles. And so when the individual is in the center, family and community, or family and friends, and then community and then nation. And this is representative of Indigenous ways of being and wellness and learning, because everything that you do impacts everybody around you. And it also carries on throughout Indigenous in different generations. So it could be passed down from generation to generation. And so that's why you see the elder is connected to the spiritual. The elders teach the children and that cycle continues on. And so I have the picture of the ripples in the water, representing that stone thrown in the, like a stone thrown in the water, that ripple effect of all of our actions. And so in Indigenous ways of knowing that I am familiar with, we don't just grow up as an individual person growing from small to big. We also grow outwards.  We grow out into the family to having friends.  And then as an elder, you're actually growing outwards where you're influencing your whole entire nation and all of the young ones that are coming up. So that's part of our Indigenous ways is that we are connected to all of those around us. One of the ways we are connected is also through our DNA and what we would call blood memory.  And so as an example, a few years ago I was struggling with anxiety, so bad that it was sometimes difficult for me to leave my house and to be in public. And I remember sitting there and smelling this wahimasa gun, Diamond Willow Fungus. And for some reason it was just like a strongly, a strong scent. And I had kept it by my bed for a long time, for years probably, but during this period it was like it was a stronger smell than it had been before. And so I held it in my hands and I inhaled and exhaled deeply and I could feel myself calm down. And then I started to carry it with me wherever I went, out of the house in my jacket pocket, in my purse. And every time I was starting to feel anxious I would take that wahimasa gun and I would smell it. And I got really curious, why am I doing this? Like why am I doing this? I've only known it to be used as a smudge, which is where we burn it and the smoke is used for prayers. So that's the way that I've known it to be used. And so I looked into it a little bit more and I found this article, American Mycological Society Journal. And in there it said that kree people and kree women specifically used to make this diamond willow into necklaces and wear it as a spiritual protection. And I found that really interesting. And here you see a picture of my mushum and he's holding up a drum, but he is from the community where we use this medicine a lot and burn it and smudge with it a lot. So it was reminding me of that. And then the other photo is from the Glenbow Museum. And you see the wahimasa gun sewn on to the robes of the kree men. And so it was valued for its scent and it was worn as protection. And so I found this really interesting because nobody I knew had known this practice. And so it was a really old practice of wearing and carrying this medicine with you. And how did I, how was I able to learn that just through my body senses and my blood memory? So I ended up looking at some of the scientific properties of the diamond willow. And I found that sometimes these funguses grow out of the wounds of trees, of these willows. And the knowledge that I learned kind of grew out of my own wound of struggling with with the anxiety that I had. And so this this connection that we have, you know, our indigenous knowledge is not just all in the mind in the brain and with words. It's also in all of our senses. So the way we know the world is through smell, touch, taste, hearing, sight, feeling. And we also have other senses. Intuition is one that my mama has taught me about. But we also have dreams and vision. So we have all of this expansive knowledge system. We know the world in more ways than often Western education will allow us to. And then this knowledge is also intergenerational. So like the concentric circles, I had this knowledge within me that I didn't even know that I held until I went through this experience. And so part of this teaching for me is about related to the hoops as well. So each hoop is said to represent a challenge in our life. And the more we go through these hoops, the stronger, wiser, better that we become. And so it's a teaching about all of life that we go through challenges, struggles to become better. And as a hoop dancer dances, you'll see beautiful designs and shapes. And then you'll also see a moment of change, challenge, and transformation as they move from one design to the next. And so when I do the hoop dance, I often think of one of the ways I describe it is the beautiful struggle of life. And so for me, it's not just about always looking at the beauty in life, but we also need to look at those challenges that we have and go through those challenges and not always run from them, but take them as an opportunity. And sometimes I even take those challenges and I bring them towards me so that I could go through them and in order to grow and become stronger. So sometimes I go towards those challenging things or things that I know are hard for me that I struggle with. But it's not just to say that struck just because I've been oppressed that it's helps me. It's also a reminder about responsibility. And so with the hoop, there's no beginning, there's no end, it's constant motion. And so it represents what what you do in the world comes back to you. So it's a teaching about responsibility. So it's not meant to excuse oppressive or abusive or violent behavior of anybody. It's meant to show responsibility. But when I think of that, what you do has consequences. I also think of justice. And what does that mean in terms of justice for Indigenous people? What are the consequences? Are people having their fair share of consequences? Are people, are some people experiencing more consequences than maybe they deserve? And so I received, I didn't tell you about this Connie, I received another grant from the Canada Council of the Arts to do a dance piece. And I started to explore more of this blood memory and this wahimasa and medicine and what does it mean out of wounds is what it's called growing out of wounds and growing, experiencing blood memory and transformation through through trauma, actually. And so I was told if you're going to be a keynote, you should have a book to promote. So here is my book. It is called We Belong to the Drama. It was published this May and it was the experience my son had. So it's based on a true story. He was at daycare for the first time and he had spent, this is him in sitting on the grass, he had spent his first year of life going to powwows and being around the drum every weekend. And so when he went to daycare, he was the only Indigenous child in the daycare and it was really difficult for him and he cried every single time until one day I saw another parent who brought her child's favorite music and so I said, oh, I'm going to show them powwow music, drum music. And so they started to play different drums from around the world and it wasn't until the native powwow drum music that my son recognized it. He was able to distinguish that sound from all of the other drum sounds from different cultures around the world and he got so excited and they pulled out some of their little toy drums and he started to call his friends over, which is the teaching of our drums is that it brings us together. It brings people together. It's meant to build peace and he brought some little craft feathers to the drum and he started tickling their faces which is what I would do with him.  And the next day, the next morning, it was time to have breakfast and then after breakfast, he grabbed his shoes and he grabbed his coat and he went to the door and he was excited to go to daycare for the first time. I didn't have to fight with him and then when I dropped him off, there were no tears and so he didn't feel bad and I didn't feel bad either. And so this story is about the sound of the drum and in the book, you'll learn the teaching of, you know, he was listening to the drum before he was born, not only at powwows but also that's the first sound that we hear is our mother's heartbeat. And so we used that in our teachings, right, that you're also teaching, you know, you don't also have all of your past ancestors knowledge but you're also carrying all of those things forward for the future generations. And so how we are bound now in time between the past and the future. And so my son now is 14 years old and he's quite a bit taller than me. And then my nine-year-old said I have to write a book about him so I've been like trying to trying to figure out what that's going to be. And one of the quotes I used in this book is from Brené Brown and she talks about belonging and belonging is not about fitting in, that's the opposite of belonging. Belonging is being accepted for who you are, not having to change who you are to fit into the expectations of others. And so that's the teaching in this book. I also really wanted to include some Cree language and so the Cree literacy network helped with the translation but I also use Cree kinship terms.  So it doesn't always have the same gender binary that we're used to in colonial languages or the English language. So I wanted to include that and to share that diversity and how important that is because when we're all trying to fit into one mold, you know, it constrains us and it doesn't allow us true belonging and to be who we are. A part of my thesis that we looked at was self-determination. And so self-determination was a key part in healing and so when you're going on a healing journey, one of the things that you need to learn how to do is to make decisions for yourself to go on that journey. And so a lot of our teachings are through stories and one of the people I interviewed, Rosa John, who has a dance company close to here, she shares how she teaches her kids and her grandkids and she tells them everything in your outfit is from a living animal and so you have to respect that animal and that person who made your outfit because they gave their life, they gave their time, you know, to allow you to have that. And so she said it's not a rule, it's an option of knowing and so when it's an option of knowing, those children and those youth are able to decide for themselves and when we decide for ourselves what to do, it's more powerful. We're more likely to stick to that rather than being told this is the rule, hard rule, don't do this. It's not as an effective way of teaching and so that's why I like to use a lot of storytelling and in my performances and my dances and in the hoop dance itself it's known as a storytelling dance. And so when you see the dancers dance they do tell their own stories and I think, yeah, so I wanted to say hi, hi, thank you. This is my Instagram thing, QR code. And yeah, I'm going to be performing a hoop dance for you and then afterwards we will have time for a Q&A. What can we say except wow, hey, amazing. So we'll just let Sandra catch her breath and drink a water and slow her heart down a bit. But we do have time for a couple of questions so I mean there's lots of things we could ask about as we can hear from her beautiful presentation, many points of entry for us so there's a microphone over there and one over here so if we have questions come on up. Okay, we're ready, yeah. Anybody with questions? Okay, we have a gal over here. Thank you so much for that. I was wondering if first before I asked my question could you tell us how to not bring our cultural ways of thanking you for your gift? Like I wasn't sure if we should applaud during your performance or not so could you tell us what, how would you like to receive our appreciation? I think it just needs to come from the heart but applause is good, yeah, it's okay to yell during the performance. This used to be a ceremonial dance and so ceremony is not appropriate but entertainment, how we do it now is okay to clap, cheer, whatever, pictures and usually people will tell you if that's not okay and so that's a good way to learn or else you could watch what other people are doing I guess. Well thank you again. Thanks. So my other question relates to that and a lot of what you said spoke to me as a mother and how can I create space for ceremony but I'd like to know your advice on you know as we learn about for example your culture and what ceremony means and how you described it and I'd like to carefully curate that into my life and how do I create ceremony in my life while teaching my child to respect what ceremonies mean in other places without cultural assimilation of your definition of ceremony in those sort of pieces. Yeah I think one of the great things is that there are so many Indigenous authors who share their perspective and if you could learn from the people where you live is the best related to the land you live on. So whether it's the plants or the stories the lots of the land places have you know stories behind them or certain significance to animals um and then like some of the practices like gratitude you could do every day and that's like a human you know just a human thing that we should all be doing um yeah. Thank you so much um what really came through to me was just how much you gave of yourself and um a question I have and I don't even know if something could answer in this sort time but was there a moment that you or some turning point that had you decided to share yourself like this because at some point that must have happened like I'm going to share myself my story um and I'm just left really moved and curious. My nickname in childhood was Mousy just because I was so quiet I was just like nibbled on food I was just really a mouse and that's what my young adult novel youth novel is going to be about but um as I started to dance people just asked me what does your beadwork mean what does the dance mean and that's how I got more into public speaking and I did like toastmasters and TEDx and stuff like that so I know just basically basics of how to structure and like not say um if you can help it yeah thank you. So I think being in education for 10 years um was a big drive and then sharing my son's story of how important our culture is was that has really been my my own fire of like kids that can't even talk yet know if they belong or not and I'm getting emotional just thinking of it right now. Yeah I'm not sure what we are like for time I don't have a watch on and my phone's there some yeah okay thank you well three minutes so we had well there could be time for one more question if there's anybody else with a question but if not oh I'm sorry there's one coming here okay not a question just a thank you and a moment of gratitude for being vulnerable with us as a group this is a really difficult thing to do and I think I'm okay to say this on behalf of everyone thank you for sharing your story with us. Hi Jenny there is time for one more question will squeak in. Great thank you thank you so much for your gift Sandra I really appreciate it. What I saw as an outsider in what you were doing was that it looked much more creative than tradition so I think I'm seeing a lot of your joy your art your interpretation of the art in that and I wonder if I imagine that you do share that with other indigenous women and others in your community how can we support you to keep doing that. Thank you for that yeah just share I think if you just share the book that I have a website if you want to share I have taught lots of youth and even like foster children I had a group that I worked with closely for years and mentored them and they've they're all some of them have continued and so that's how we that's how I do it because people just approach me one-on-one that's how my teacher did it yeah you could share if you ever need a conference speaker or entertainment I don't know thank you I do I do a lot of different like I do a lot of these so yeah I I feel like really blessed and grateful that I do have lots of opportunities so sometimes booking two years in advance for things or like a year in advance so yeah but I do as much as I can when I can without like depleting myself so I do make a lot of room for that self-care and stuff yeah yeah thank you thanks so much again we've had a wonderful time learning from you and we just have this small gift from dark quest college for you thank you so there's coffee outside and then sessions


Welcome to Access a Trader, the number one community for those who are committed to taking control of their trading in order to achieve success, profitability, and longevity. Thank you for joining us. Here's Dan Shapiro to help you find your edge, master your process, and own your future. First of all, everything in the market. Guys, remember this. And this is a great question. And it's usually asked by traders who have been trading less than three years. They'll look at level two and say, oh my god, Dan, there's a huge seller. There's a huge seller at the price. And usually, huge sellers are there at whole numbers. Whole numbers is the area where, personally, I probably, 99% of every single trade I take is going to be at a whole number. Just because you're looking for liquidity, especially retail, right? Most retail fund managers, retail index funds, retail, as you can see the word retail, those are used a few times. But the majority, if you're a swing trader and you have an active swing or exposure to the market, if you're buying stock or selling the stock long term, you're not going to turn around and say, well, I want to sell the stock 58.39. You're either going to sell the stock at 58. Or you're going to sell the stock at 59. How many of you guys are going to turn around unless you're specifically day trading and we see a supply zone at 58.39? If you're a swinging stock, you've been holding the stock for five months, right? You're not going to wake up and turn around today and say, look, I want to sell the stock. You're not going to turn around and say, I want to sell it at 58.39, right? You're either going to sell it at 58. You're going to sell it at 59.  The highest bid and the lowest offer, right? That's your level two. And you're going to run into something called the reload seller. And have you guys noticed there could be 40,000 offered? Let's just use the number 58 bucks, right? So 40,000 offered at 58. And a huge volume surge comes in, right? And they lift all that stock at 58, leaving one guy there with 100 shares. Have you guys noticed that, right, guys? All of a sudden, all this massive volume comes in, right, guys? All this massive, type of one in the channel. Have you guys noticed that? A massive volume surge comes in. They take the whole stock, right? They take the whole offer. And then all of a sudden, some guys just sitting there, literally with 100 shares left, right? That's called the reload seller, OK? If you guys notice on every one of your trading platforms, you should have an area on your platform when you're buying or selling a security that you can hide your order, right? On the bottom, it doesn't make a difference what platform you have. Every platform, at least in this day and age, should have it. You should have something called showing or visible, right? Something or anything in that area. So basically, if I have, I'm just using any number, so if I'm a fund and I have 1 million shares for sale, OK? If I'm David Einhorn and David Einhorn turns around and says, you know what? Let me sell 500,000 shares of Tesla. Or I'll give you a better example, a real life example. If you guys remember two weeks ago, there was a pivot on Tesla, right? There was a pivot on Tesla at 7.15. You guys remember that, right? 7.15, 7.15. You guys remember that? 7.15, 7.15. And do you guys remember who was selling stock? Every single day that email went out, Kathy Wood, right? Sold gazillion shares of, she must have sold what? 3 million, 4 million shares of Tesla during that time. Apparently, we knew who the reload seller was. So every single time Tesla would get to that 7.15 level and needed to confirm, right? Guess what happened? The macro seller came in, the reload seller came in, and no matter how much stock they took off that offer at 7.15, let's just call it she would not move, right? She would not move. And she's showing 500 shares at a time, but yet she's selling millions and millions of shares. So when you're looking at level two, and we know this because we know the importance of getting into these pivots, right? We know the importance of getting into these pivots and how important those price levels are. We know that if there's a reload seller in the market and he's not moving, okay? That means he has a lot more shares to sell. And the one thing that when you run into a reload seller, I don't care how good the stock moves. It could be Tesla on Monday going through this number here, right? We all know what the number is here, okay? If they don't move, if you see hundreds of thousands of shares moving and the stock doesn't appreciate within 30, 40 seconds, you know there's a seller in the crowd. There is no mystery why the stock is not rising. If there's a technical level, okay? Stock, again, guys, there is no manipulation, okay? There is no boogeyman. There is no secret society, okay? Buyers clean up sellers, the stock goes higher. Sellers clean up buyers, the stock goes lower. That's it, there is, I give you my word, I'm doing this for 22 years. There is no boogeyman pulling the rope, okay? So get this whole thought process out of your head, the markets, there's no manipulation of the market. There's technology, right? There is technology, okay?  There is quants, there is algorithms that are taking advantage of price action, but they are buyers and sellers too. They need money in their accounts to do exactly the same thing. They just do it faster. So you could be running into an algorithm, okay? But the algorithm needs to be financially backed, okay? There is no such thing as an algorithm without money. So no matter if it's a reload seller via algorithm, a seller manually, okay? If they can't reclaim, if they can't clean up those sellers at that price and you don't see the stock moving over the number or over the price that they keep on taking stock, you know that's your first, second and 12th clue, there's a reload seller in the crowd. Now you have two choices, right? You have two choices. You can sit there, sit there until the cows come home and clear out, and have them clear out the seller and wait till finally the stock goes higher. Guess what? We don't know how much stock the person has for sale. He might have 50,000 for sale. He might have 5 million for sale.  After they first, you know, they're cleaning them up for two, three minutes and the guy's not moving, people are gonna finally turn around and go, yep, there's a reload seller in the crowd, let me get out. Now imagine all those people who bought that stock at the same time and he's turning around and saying, you know what, there's a reload seller in the crowd, he's not moving, let's all get out at once, right? The stock's not gonna come in 20, 30 cents, the stock's gonna come in two, three, four dollars a share. So you have two, realistically, you have two courses of action. You can sit there in God's hands, praying to God, saying, please God, let this guy move, please God, let this guy move. You could do that, right? But that's not a proactive thing.   You always wanna, we preach control, right guys? We preach control. We're not looking to be right. We're looking to be, you know, we're looking to be smart. We're looking to be adults. We're looking to put ourselves in a position of strength. And sometimes being in a position of strength means that if you're holding aces, you gotta look that hand. That's just the reality. Sometimes you have a great hand and you're about to play a great hand, but that person is not moving and guess what? You can get out of the trade, right? You can literally get out of the trade, get a paper cut, right? Little paper cut loss, get out of the trade. And once they finally clean them up, you can always get back in. Guys, this is not real estate that you buy it and hope for a buyer five months, six months a year, your property's on the market. This is a stock market. You could get in and out, right? In and out very, very quickly, especially when aims like Tesla and Facebook and Apple, you know, and everything in between. So the last thing you wanna do is be a victim, be in the market God's hands. We don't know how much stock the guy is for sale, but the easiest way to, the easiest way to spot a reload seller is if you are entering a trade, you have monster volume come in on the offer and just the guy doesn't wanna move, right? He just does not wanna move. That's your first sign. Hey, look, something's about to happen here. I don't wanna be a victim. I wanna stay in control and I could always re-enter my position because it really matter, because Jay, think about it. Does it really matter when you're trading Tesla, right? Does it make a difference if you're along at 805 or 806 honestly? If the stock is going at 830, they're betting 830, 850, 860, 900 calls. Does it really make a difference? Get out of the trade, right? Get out of the trade, absolutely. Get out of the trade, take a 10, 15 cent loss who cares, right? It's the cost of doing business. Once the guy is completely removed, gets cleaned up, then you're gonna see appreciation of the stock. So, yeah, that's the easiest way. That's the easiest way to kind of remove yourself from being a victim of a real old self, right? So that's that.


Utility maximization subject to the budget constraint under the chapter of consumer behavior. Utility maximization is required when we have to optimize the consumption of a consumer. And this can be possible that the consumer is going to maximize the utility without consideration of the budget or with consideration of the budget. As we know the consumer has various preferences available to him and at the same time consumer has a very long list of the wishes to attain various commodities. And as per the law of the monotonicity we can say the consumer is always willing to have more and more and more. Then what is the end? Either it is possible that the consumer is going to attain more and more without any cut in the real life, we know that this is not possible because if consumer is have many and many wishes then there are the limited resources. So these are the limited resources that provide the limit to these utility preferences or the wishes. So now we want to assess that from the available bundles which bundle is going to provide the maximum utility to the consumer with the available resources that he is having on his hand. So from the graph we can see that here we have plotted 3 indifference curves and these indifference curves they are in the order of preferring that this indifference curve is having this is if I will say this with the 3 that it is the highest level this indifference curve 2 is less than 3 but it is having more commodity or the more rank that the indifference curve 1. So these are the available indifference curve and consumer will be willing to have either this either this or either this but mostly he will prefer the more. Now the consumer has to decide for the bundle of the goods with the highest indifference curve that the consumer will prefer. So in the diagram we can see that we have drawn this line that is the budget line and at this point we see that this point of equilibrium has been attained when the consumer is having the commodity X1 on the expected and with this much amount of the X2. If we see the consumer if coming to the higher level of the indifference curve he may have this point or at the same time if we draw the lowest he may have this point. So if I draw these points so point A, point B and the C but out of these indifference curves the consumer is going to select the bundle B because this bundle B is not only available on his indifference curve but because it is also within the affordable range of the consumer. So this affordability that is the constraint provided by the budget constraint so for utility maximization consumer will prefer that bundle that will give the maximum utility to him if it is available within his resources. So for this we can say now that at this point this is the indifference curve and we can have what is its slope and this budget line it also has its slope. So when the slope of these two curves it will become tangent to each other so we can say the slope of indifference curve is equal to the slope of budget line. This will give us the total point of tangency and this will provide the consumer with the maximum utility. If we look at it in the situations of real life then the consumer has a lot of requirements but if we look at which thing I have to buy then he will always assess that the things or the bundles of its price and market that comes in the range of its income and its budget so when we will assess its maximum utility for that time then we will have to see that the affordability of its budget will be present in its utility for that time and its maximum utility will be given. Now because we are dealing with it in real life so we have to first make some parameters here so that we can see that the bundles available to him we have to do our focus for the measurement only to him number two we have to see what the market price is at that time and only counting the prices of that time we have to draw the budget line and number three we have to draw the slope for these two things and when we attain the highest level of indifference curve then we have to stop for the purchase that now the maximum level has been attained. But only the graphical representation it is not possible to have the solution of the various thing in the economics we may have not only the graphical but we have to draw the utility maximum point with respect to the mathematical derivation and here we see that there is a one bundle and for this we can say that commodity x1 and the commodity x2 and our objective function is to maximize this utility and here the subject or the constraint that is having that is the two commodities pricing and with their available commodities quantities and it is the budget line provided by this so now there is the possibility that we can draw this by the two methods one by the substitution method and the other through the Lagrange multiplier so when we utilize the constraint method from the budget constraint we can draw the value of x2 and from their same we can draw the value of the x1 by substituting the value of x1 and x2 in our utility bundle we can find out the value that is going to provide the maximum utility to the consumer and according to this if we are going to utilize the Lagrange method we can utilize again the method by this that it is our objective function and this is our subject of the budget but here we will not utilize the values of the x1 or the x2 for the substitution rather we will derive a Lagrange and that Lagrange we can say that by this method we are going to draw now that we have to maximize this Lagrange L where this is our objective function and this is our subjective function with this lambda and for this we can now take the marginal utilities of the function mean marginal utility of the Lagrange one with respect to the price of with respect to x1 and the second with respect to x2 and so we can assess by this method that what will be the level for this change in Lagrange with respect to change in x1 change in Lagrange with respect to x2 and then change in Lagrange with respect to lambda so with respect to these three variables we will take the first derivative of our Lagrange equation and after this now we can equate all these three equations in a way that we get the value of lambda on one side so when we will have the value of lambda then we can equate one equation with the another and here now we can get the ratio of these commodities with their prices so we say that price of one and price of two when multiplied by their respective commodities it becomes the expenditure on that commodity so in this manner we can say that we will attain a point where the expenditure on the good one will be equal to the expenditure on the other commodity and here we see by this function that the expenditure on good two is the double than the commodity one it means that we are spending more on the commodity two by substituting the values in equation three now we get the amount of the x2 or we can say that this was our optimal level of the commodity x2 that we can have and from this equation again we can calculate the by substituting the amount of x1 so we can say by rearranging these equations through the Lagrange we can assess that what was the amount of the income or what was the amount or the portion of the budget that the consumer is going to spend on each commodity and this amount that we can have from one to the other we assess that how the marginal utility of the commodity vary with the change in the commodity's consumption


Ni kutubuwe matakumia wad temika nilekiwa kua muna misiana uigula? Ni mtya kutubuwe maikini na kia misiana nilekiwa kua mifetini uswacha ni haza wad, isu napuhuwe matata. Mwada kwa. Namua ini iubiliwa mkutubu, hwiyia kta nao, kutubuwe matakunia na kutubuwe matila. 7uikesu maikini, kutubuwe mkutubuwe, nulaka mwarapuwe. Vyei nau ni jitendu wakali. Mwaha mwaha mwada. Ntia, kwa mubila. Nuna siwa nae. If you can lay your head on your pillow and say I might not have gotten everything but I did my best, that's great. Number two, be ready to adapt to different situations, times, places, things. I mean if by let's say 2020, everybody was like okay, sasa the in thing is TikTok for example, but now there is threads and we don't know what's going to come up by January. So maybe now Ellen Marks, Pia Takas Rika, Anzisha Kitungine. So just be ready to adapt when time comes, but while you're adapting number three, remain true to who you are, always.  Let's know these things, let them not change you, you can adapt but still remain who you are.  Thank you. Here with the media personality, Willis Raburus. Do you come up with media personality? Wa bebe. Wa bebe. Media lasima. Tuko bado. Mampoi ko aje. After social media, ni media. By the way. Yes sir, yes sir. How are you doing, how are you feeling tonight? I'm great, I'm happy, I'm excited for Dana Seder, for other podcasts, for content creation general in Kenya. I'm very excited. We have our very own platform right now. How does that make you feel, especially someone who has been into podcasting? Yes, I think it's amazing because the greatest thing globally is that Africans are not telling their stories.  Kenya it gets even worse. So I think now it's good because now we have a platform where noise on gear. You can tell authentic stories and on different topics.  I know a lot of people, Willis, who really want to get into podcasting. But their question is always, what about monetization? When am I going to make money? What should you like to tell them? Well it could be either way. It could be that you're just lucky you actually talk about something. Maybe you started three episodes and it's actually something that then becomes current and a need. And then you get immediate money. Or you could take some time. Like Adele said, she took about 50 episodes in before she started making money. But the thing is just to be consistent. And I think as platforms like Wazogro because the way Wazogro has been created is you can go to the platform. Then you can book an ad for a specific podcast if you're a client that is. So then I think with things like this coming up, it makes it easier now. You don't have to wait so long for monetization. And then also to pitch. Once you get some episodes in, you're consistent. Instead of waiting for them to come, you can go to them. Yeah. End of coincides. Yes. So now being at the Royal Media Services for more than a decade, you must have gotten so many lessons. Yes. Tafadali to pay 32 that we can take home. Yes. Number one, excellence is not an event. It's a way of life. And that goes to what we're talking about being consistent. Every single day, wake up, show up, do your best. That's all anybody ever ask of you. Just do your best. I want you done with that by the time it's time to sleep. If you can lay your head on your pillow and say, I might not have gotten everything, but I did my best. That's great. Number two, be ready to adapt to different situations, times, places, things. I mean, if by, let's say, 2020, everybody was like, OK, sasa the main thing is TikTok, for example. But now there is threads. And we don't know what's going to come up by January. Maybe now Ellen Marks, Pia Takasrika, Anzisha Kitungina. So just be ready to adapt when time comes. But while you're adapting, number three, remain true to who you are always.  Let's know these things, let them not change you. You can adapt, but still remain who you are. The fundamental things that make you, you don't change that just because you want to fit in a place. Because the world needs the authentic you. Yes. One thing that people misunderstand about you, Willis. Well, people think that I am very brave. Oh, really? Not really brave, but I think people, for example, I can come into a room like this. I'm very shy because people know my persona as being loud, happy to see. So if I can avoid it, I avoid crumbs in places. But I'm learning. But most people, nobody ever says hi to me. Sasa, Willis, uko aje. I'm like, any aje bazu. Yeah. And sometimes me ne mututu wa kuwana Netflix, nani chill. Yeah, that's one big conception. Yeah. Three traits if an individual has or rather they possess, they cannot be your friend. They cannot be my friend.  Number two, if they look down on people, if they are proud and conceited. And number three, if what? Yeah, those two are my top two. But number three, if they disrespect my family, they cannot be my friend. Okay. Yes. Okay, talk to me about that one. All right, Willis, last, last question. Please encourage or rather just give a few tips to someone who's out there and they are looking forward to starting a podcast. Right. First thing is start. Number one is you have a story. So you have to tell it. Number two is just start. You don't have to wait for the sophisticated equipment these days. Put a phone in front of you, get some good lighting and start talking. Then number three, now you can talk to some of walks, water podcast and all these people so that they can help you. And then you can come up with an agreement. But start be consistent.  But your thing is so small. But I mean they are podcasts about features of phones. They are podcasts about health. They are podcasts about sports.  They are podcasts about how to get a job. They are podcasts about sports of course. Any field, health, education. So look at all these fields and just start. Put it out there. Don't overthink it. Just start and then now be consistent. And learn. Because it's a learning thing. And as you learn, take your listener's journey. Let them also see your growth. If you make a mistake, come back and say, are they Eliniramba? And if you do something positive and do works, share it. That way we all grow. Willis, I also have to ask you this. How is the future looking like? The near future looking like for Willis Raburu because we don't know what we are expecting from you. Well the future is looking great. I can tell you that. It's looking amazing. It's looking impactful.  It's full of surprises. Actually that's the thing.  So we wait for surprises from you? Oh yes. Yes, yes. Alright guys. Yeah, coming soon. Watch this space. Alright Willis, thank you so much. Thank you so much.


All right, good afternoon. And thank you all very much for coming along tonight. I want to begin by thanking the Australia Institute for agreeing to publish this report. And I'm delighted to see another think tank stepping into the space of national security and defense policy. Certainly, as my dear friend and colleague, he white was said, it's very much an area that we need extra support. We need extra ideas. And I think the Australia Institute's success over the last few years is really an example of the power of good ideas that a small, dedicated team can have a large impact if the ideas are strong and the messaging is clear. Can I also thank my dear colleague and friend Hugh White, a one-man think tank who has forced a lot of Australia's politicians to consider a lot of issues that they probably prefer to leave to other people? So tonight, I want to argue with you that Australia's politicians need to argue more. Now, I'm pausing because I'm expecting somebody who might want to walk out at this point. But you're still here. So that's what I take as a very encouraging sign. Because having arguments and being divided about the right way that our society should think about the big issues, about the big problems, as well as how to actually address them, is a very important part of a healthy and functioning democratic society. Yet many now question whether the arguments are worth it. Polling shows that only about 60% of Australia democracy is preferable to all other kinds of democratic system, of government system. And those numbers are even lower when you look at people my age or younger. When asked to think about democracy, many of us no doubt think of question time. A blustering, buffoonish show full of tribalism, forgettable zingers, and rarely concerned with the actual issues. Or you might consider Donald Trump, a man for whom every previous adjective in the previous sentence would singularly apply. But tonight, and yet the paradox is this. As a system of government, democracy has not only succeeded, but flourished. There are 123 countries which claim some form of electoral democracy around the world. And only 36% of the earth's population live in countries which do not provide at least some measure of political, economic, and personal freedom. Humans have never been better off than those of us fortunate to live in Western democratic nations. And for all the talk of challenges, the record of democratic states in the issues of peace and war is a remarkable story of the 20th century, particularly when we look at the record of countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Our own Australia has endured for 117 years as a culturally isolated country with a small population trying to maintain a fragile grasp on a vast landmass. We have just the 52nd largest population, and yet played an important role in our early years in the Treaty of Versailles after World War I in the establishment of the United Nations after World War II. We have supported Indonesia's independence and helped birth Timor-Leste. We have provided peacekeepers to Cambodia and settled non-proliferation treaties in the Hague. Yet our world is changing once again. The three C's top the list, China, culture, and climate. All three present substantial issues. And like many of you, I'm not confident that we're doing enough and responding properly to some of these challenges. Tackling problems of this size is not just a question of the right policy, but asking hard questions about how we think about debate and decide our policies. So tonight and the time I have available, I want to talk to you about how Australia should approach our changing world. And I want to argue to you that open, public, and partisan arguments are the right way and the best way for us to think about the problems we face. Arguments, not only by our elected representatives, but by, for, and from all of us, are integral to our long-term prosperity and security. I should note at the outset that I make these criticisms from a position of goodwill. I do not believe that Australia's politicians are ignorant, greedy, or corrupt. I do not believe that some of them are conspiring to bring harm to this country or too lazy to care. I have heard from too many people that when our politicians sit around the cabinet table and discuss how to send and whether to send our young men and women into harm's way, they take their responsibilities for the nation's security very seriously. My critique instead is that they have fallen under the sway of a problematic habit of bipartisanship. Well, seemingly an innocuous idea that our two major parties should seek to cooperate and agree in a spirit of unity, the reality today is far more corrosive. The desire for bipartisanship, as I hope to persuade you tonight, is a real cost to the quality, creativity, and accountability of the nation's policy. It saps public unity and ultimately harms those who wear our uniform and represent us overseas. Whatever its common sense logic, bipartisanship goes against mounting centuries of evidence and insights about how large society stink through the problems of war and peace. I therefore argue that it is urgent that our political class fulfill their responsibility to openly debate what principles this country stands for, how we will act, and what costs we are willing to pay to protect other states and ourselves. By rejecting even the potential to disagree about the right way forward in these uncertain times, the demand for bipartisanship leaves us all less secure. So what is bipartisanship? And how did it come to determine Australia's foreign and defence policies? I think one of the most remarkable features of Australia's current political environment is how little our politicians talk about defence and security issues. While they never miss an opportunity to claim that their economic principles are stronger, or that they have more effective social policies, the issues of defence and security tend to achieve a demeaning silence. Instead of our leaders telling us how they would have stressed today's threats or why they have the superior strategy to their opponents, they stress their cooperation, their agreement. Indeed, many of our politicians even like to highlight their willingness to defer to the bureaucracy on these issues in a way they never would for any other national policy area. For example, on the morning of February 2016, the Australian government released its latest defence white paper. A few hours later, the then shadow defence minister, Stephen Conroy stepped up to a media conference to declare that although he had only just received the 186 page document, quote, labor is committed to a bipartisan approach to national security and defence matters. As such, the party would approach the issue in the spirit of bipartisanship. Whether Australia's opposition in the 44th parliament agreed with the actual content, that alone whether they had even read it by the time they were talking about it, seemed far less important to them than showing that the right spirit was being taken. Defence's judgments about our changing world and the equipment necessary to respond to it were seemingly taken at face value. Conroy's replacement as shadow minister, Richard Miles, has continued to insist on a bipartisan approach. In a major recent address, Miles stated that given the grave security challenges facing Australia, including uncertainty over US President Donald J. Trump, and bitter sovereignty disputes along our key trade routes, any partisan debate would be an indulgence. Instead, quote, politicians of all persuasions need to come together on a nonpartisan basis and try to think about this in a deep, historic and contemporary way. Even that is too much talk for some. In 2015, former Liberal MP, Andrew Nicolik, stated in parliament that politicians should effectively be silent. Quote, why partisanship must continue. The nature of our new security order is so critical as to make redundant the all too familiar and orthodox war of words. Bipartisanship is a fundamental part of how Australia approaches and develops its national security policymaking. It is not only something the politicians themselves believe in, but it is also something that those of us in academia, the media and wider commentators on national security tend to reinforce. In a major speech on future security challenges for Australia, Professor Roy Medcalf of the National Security College here at ANU argued that we need a maximum of political consensus on these issues. And he went on to celebrate that thankfully a large measure of consensus and bipartisanship exists. Peter Jennings, the head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has similarly argued that for defence to manage itself better would require politicians to maintain quote, a large measure of political bipartisanship. Such views are also common in the Australian Defence Force and in the wider defence industry. As one former ADF submarine commander told the media, playing politics with a major part of Australia's strategic defence policy should not occur, have an informed debate, but by all means keep the politics out of it. Australia's current approach to foreign and defence policy and the bipartisan nature of it can be traced to the turmoil of the 1960s and the 1970s. During those years, we saw bitter and sustained debates about how Australia would achieve its place in the world, debates between our two major political parties. The issues they were debating were much like our own today. How to engage a United States that is seemingly disinterested in our part of the world and oblivious to our moral concerns. How to relate to an Asia which has shifting power balances. How to assist regional partners who have to deal with a violent ideological insurgency that we are desperate to see not spread to our shores. In the face of these questions in the 1960s and 70s Australia's democratic system thrashed its way to a new consensus. Over the next 30 years, our major political parties held the rough same set of ideas. The alliance was reaffirmed, Asia was embraced for trade and migration and greater independence was sought for national character. Tactics may have changed at times and at elections we saw some instances of product differentiation but the substance of Australia's approach to international affairs has remained in place. This political consensus served Australia very well. Yet as the very foundation of these views has been shaken in recent years with China's rise and America's relative decline, our politics has become ever more rigid in demanding continuity. Bipartisanship on how Australia approaches the world is no longer the outcome of debate but is instead a process that shapes and preempts debate. Rather than seek consensus for the best policies, consensus itself has become the goal. Surveying the new collective wisdom that Australia should spend 2% of its gross domestic product on defense, Professor Mark Beeson has noted that, quote, perhaps the most remarkable feature of the defense debate is that there isn't one. Despite the eye-watering sums involved, there's been next to no discussion of the actual necessity or circumstances in which the planes, subs, and other assets might actually be used. What happens to politicians who might challenge this consensus? We'll take the case of Andrew Hastie, the member for Canning in Western Australia. In September 2015, Andrew Hastie ran as a Liberal candidate for office. He was a decorated former SAS officer who had served in Afghanistan. During the campaign, Hastie often drew on his defense experience and he explained in one day when criticizing the defense policy of the Labor government and drawing on his own expertise and experience in Afghanistan, he said, quote, I didn't think that Labor had our backs and he argued to the media and the people of WA that it was this experience that had led him to run for office and want to join the nation's parliament to be involved in getting the policy settings right. Yet over the next few days, Hastie was subject to a wide range of criticism from the media that described him as having led an extraordinary attack and abandoning the usual bipartisan consensus on defense issues. The leader of the Labor Party didn't try to refute his arguments but rather declared that he was offended by the claims, describing them as very unwise and going on to say that when it comes up, comes to backing up our men and women in uniform, both parties have always maintained bipartisanship. Since, despite Hastie's status as former member of the Australian Defense Force who was speaking about his experience serving overseas and as a registered candidate for office, he's still faced heavy criticism for having contravened the norm of bipartisanship. Such was the strength of the response. Andrew Hastie later said he felt the experience had been an attempt to gag him. Party leaders faced similar pressure to conform. As part of developing this report, the Australia Institute was thankfully enough put polling into the field to give us a sense of how the public actually think about these issues. And the report can be found at the end of this document. Quite remarkably, we found that 69% of Australians think that the parliament works better when you have bipartisanship. And 61% believe that it is a good for foreign policy. So whether our politicians believe in bipartisanship or not, they know they're expected to believe in it. Now advocates of the current approach put forward three arguments for the requirements of bipartisanship. First, they say it creates good policy. Second, that it is necessary for national unity. And third, that it protects the troops, our men and women serving overseas. I wanna suggest to you tonight that all three of these claims are questionable. The policy argument for bipartisanship is based on an assumption that political parties always put their own interests ahead of national concerns. That policies are viewed not in terms of their capacity for problem solving, but vote winning. Advocates of bipartisanship often worry that the public is neither well informed enough or engaged enough to be able to assist in developing national policy. As the American writer Walter Littman, one of the foremost advocates of bipartisanship during the early Cold War years, once famously argued, public opinion has been, quote, destructively wrong at critical junctures. Too little, with too late, or too long, with too much. Too pacifist in peace, and too bellicose in war. Good policy creation in this view therefore requires listening to the public, but leaving the final judgments to the elites to negotiate. Yet bipartisanship, I'd argue, has its own significant costs. It impedes the central mechanism of democratic societies to produce policy, open, competitive debate, and it replaces it with a much more centralized method. It also reduces public engagement and exacerbates public ignorance of international affairs. Finally, it reduces accountability and thereby restricts the learning process. When politicians say that they will support anything which makes our country safer, we can hardly believe that rigorous scrutiny will be the order of the day. Since the start of the war on terror, we have seen repeated cycles of bills rushed through the parliament on issues such as counter-terrorism. The Howard government put up new anti-terror legislation on average about every 6.7 weeks from 2001 onwards with almost all bills passing with the strong support of the Labour Party. As one of Australia's leading legal scholars has noted, this has produced legislation that can be unnecessary and even counterproductive. He goes on to note that some of the bills are so poorly drafted and conceived as to be effectively unworkable. The inevitable result of this bipartisanship is therefore poor policy. Defense issues are similarly rushed through the parliament or sometimes not even addressed. The ADF was fighting in Afghanistan for eight years before the Australian parliament committed to regular updates and discussions. It took a minor party, the Australian Greens, to force the first major political debate about the Afghan war in 2010. The parliamentary committee system designed for the review and assessment of legislation is similarly founded or hounded by bipartisanship. As one study found, quote, consensus, rather than dissent and rigorous questioning is the normal modus operandi. As a result, difficult questions about the rights and wrongs of certain foreign policies are not always asked. Not only are the politicians not debating, but the focus on consensus limits many of our other institutions and civil society. Alan Gingel, former head of the Office of National Assessment and the Lowy Institute has noted that the Australian think tank sector has not driven policy renewal in the security portfolio in the same way that it has for social and economic policy. Part of the explanation he says is bipartisanship. These costs to good policy are increasingly obvious as well to the general public. And through the polling by the Australia Institute, we've been able to find that Australians give failing grades to many of the key issues that have bipartisan support amongst our political elites. While the government is seen as competent at responding to natural disasters and terrorism, many of the long-term challenges such as China's rise, cyber security and stability in the South Pacific are all given failing grades. The fundamental assumption behind bipartisanship is effectively that elites are better at making these decisions than the general public and that they can do so without politics interfering in their decision making. However, I don't think this stands up. We in the West no longer believe in master economic planners. We recognize that there are simply too many factors in our domestic economy for one person to understand or organize. So why do we still wanna put our faith in master strategists who not only need to coordinate foreign and defense policies, but integrate economics, technology, sociology and geography as well? And if public ignorance really is the reason that we need a bipartisan approach, then bipartisanship is actually counterproductive to trying to address this. Thanks to the silence that this approach generates, security issues receive a lot less media and political and academic attention than many other policy areas. Indeed, 69% of Australian people feel that they receive too little information about the behavior of their defense force and about the fence issues in general. Indeed, even when there is plenty of goodwill as in relation to the defense force, the public often feel excluded from an understanding of those who serve in their name. I think a significant implication of this is that there is great potential for divergences to emerge from between the public and the political elites without clear mechanisms for resolving these. It's also a mistake, I'd argue, to assume the public need in depth and technical understanding in order to play a role in our international affairs. We accept that the public can shape and guide policies on taxation or healthcare without being economists or doctors. I would argue they can do the same in foreign policy. Academic studies have suggested that when brought into the democratic process, political opinion on foreign policy is best thought about like a thermostat. It helps to adjust and fine tune the policy settings. When grappling with today's big questions, how should we think about Chinese primacy in Asia? How do we enmesh with Southeast Asia? And what can we offer those suffering from climate change? It is political and moral judgments as much as anything technical which must strive our policy response. Allowing the public to say is sometimes dismissed by advocates of bipartisanship as a threat to policy continuity. But the ability of democratic societies to shift quickly to accommodate changing circumstances was recognized as far back as the 16th century. Indeed, it was Niccolò Machiavelli himself who argued that republics and democracies would have greater ability to quickly change through changes in warfare and thus likely to have greater vitality and more enduring success than authoritarian or monarchical regimes. No one decision-making can, nor can decision-making ever be free from politics. Studies of authoritarian societies have conclusively shown that even when leaders don't need to face re-election or worry about domestic polls, they still factor in domestic politics to their strategic policy decision-making. For this reason, the cause to keep politics out of it cannot be treated as either achievable or desirable. Bipartisanship does not keep politics out. It simply hides it from the public. The second argument for bipartisanship is the need for unity to implement policy. The politicians should put aside their divisions and focus on the greater good. Re-occurring Cold War fears of a fifth column embody this concern with internal disunity. While political disagreement over how to deal with health or education policies is not presumed to exacerbate the problems themselves, for some reason it is widely believed that squabbles or policy variety or variability within democracies places them in a disadvantage compared to the monolithic approaches of a Soviet Union or a modern day Russia or People's Republic of China. We sometimes hear the argument that bipartisanship is necessary so that politics will stop at the water's edge. That is, we can debate internally, but we must present a united front to outsiders. That might have been viable in 1812 when advocated by the US statesman Daniel Webster, but it makes little sense today in a world of instant global media communication. Today, governments in Moscow or Beijing now have access to the exact same news sources and social media that Australians in Melbourne and Brisbane have. The notion of politics stopping at the water's edge is therefore a relic of history at best. It is also not one that has been very faithfully advocated in many ways. As Dean Aschison, the US Secretary of State under President Truman, famously complained, quote, you cannot run this damn country under the Constitution any other way except by fixing the whole organization so it doesn't work the way it's supposed to work. Now, the way to do that is to say politics stops at the seaboard.  He goes on to say, now if people will swallow that, then you're off to the races. Bipartisanship will not fool the leadership of China into believing that Australia has a clear idea about how to proceed in the South China Sea. But it is already restricting the ability of our political leaders to devise, develop, and debate an approach that could sustain broad public support. Nor can we expect our political parties to compel the necessary support. While in the 20th century our major political parties were mass movements, today the combined membership of the Australian Labor Party, the Liberal Party, and the Nationals is less than 1% of the Australian population. The effect of bipartisanship's hollow promises of unity are therefore clear to see. Australia's longest military effort, Operation Slipper in Afghanistan, ran from 2001 to 2014. Despite consistent bipartisan support during this period, public opinion turned against the conflict after seven years of fighting and has remained negative. As scholars in Australia and the United States have shown, public support in wartime is tied to confidence in the strategy pursued rather than the casualties or length of the conflict. And since policy is likely to be less well thought through in a bipartisan environment, we are setting ourselves up for failure. Rather than earning public unity through explaining and advocating national policy, bipartisanship as it currently operates in Australia simply takes that unity for granted. The final argument for bipartisanship is that elite cooperation is required to protect those in uniform. The folkloric image of the Vietnam War of unwilling diggers overseas and angry crowds at home has left a deep fear of division and debate in the minds of many in our political and military establishments. As Labor's shadow foreign minister in 2012 said during the debate over the Iraq War, Labor is committed to the objective of bipartisanship on Iraq. In saying that, Labor is acutely conscious of the interests of our men and women in uniform and the searing, scarring experience of the Vietnam War. Yet though the Australian Defence Force is one of the institution's most concerned about the lack of bipartisanship, I would argue it has also been one of the institution's most clearly harmed by it. As the former SAS officer, Andrew Hastie complained, the biggest thing that was missing for six years under Labor was serious intellectual engagement with the soldiers on the ground about how best to prosecute the war in Afghanistan. Now, Hastie's motive here may be partisan, but there's enough truth in the line for it to sting. Even if public support is good, good strategy requires constantly evaluating the tasks and resources provided to our forces and regular public explanations for their sacrifices. As the former Chief of Army, Peter Lay, has put it, without an informed public debate, we are unlikely to adjust the way that we are fighting the war. This is a bad strategy. Yet as another soldier has shown at length, there have been more political and public attention on commemorating wars for 100 years ago than those the ADF is currently serving in. About the only time our nation's representatives pay sustained attention to the personnel in Afghanistan was when there were deaths. 41 Australians have died in Afghanistan overall. Each one received a condolence motion in the parliament and saw the Prime Minister and other senior politicians descend on their funerals. Like the kids of old, the ADF experienced during the Afghanistan War was of being seen, main criticised for their behaviour or as casualties of war, but not heard. Bipartisanship promises steady oversight and support, but this is not eventuated either. Kevin Rudd's 2009 Defence White Paper outlined significant new resources for the Department of Defence and the Australian Defence Force. Just 10 days later, it was scrapped. The Gillard government did the reverse. It made significant multi-billion dollar cuts to the Department of Defence in its first years before being forced to the opposition to peg defence spending to 2% of gross domestic product. The coalition's record here is only a little better. Now, it promoted this 2% target for GDP spending, but it has never provided any strategic rationale or connection to the cost of military equipment for this neat round number. Australia is now on to our 11th Defence Minister since the Howard government took office in 1996. There have been just five treasurers in that time. And while the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has had greater stability in its minister, it has also had to work within a budget that has halved effectively as a share of GDP since 1998. Australia's diplomatic budget has started to recover in recent years, yet it remains among the smallest in the OECD. It's also notable that the only political leaders who get to choose their portfolio, the deputy party leaders, have all studiously avoided defence and security portfolios. Keating, Costello and Swan all served as treasurer. Gillard, Howe and Albanese stayed with domestic portfolios. Only the current deputy of the Liberal Party, Ms. Julie Bishop, has seemingly bucked this trend. Though we must remember her first choice was treasurer. Putting all this together, a troubling picture emerges.  The widespread demand for bipartisanship is actively impeding our ability to respond. Stringent bipartisanship weakens the very mechanisms that enable democracies to understand and improve their policy choices. It keeps decisions and information hidden from the public, reducing their willingness to pay the costs that security sometimes requires. In turn, without the right tools in hand or genuine domestic support at their back, bipartisan silence can never be the foundation those in uniform need to do their jobs and risk their lives on our behalf. This would be troubling at the best of times, but like Dickens, it may be the worst of times ahead. The next decade is likely to produce some of the most difficult and demanding strategic questions Australia has ever faced. So is there another way? No, I'm not against all bipartisanship. Indeed, I'm even wearing my bipartisan tie today. But bipartisanship must be the outcome of debates, not a process that prevents and preempts them. A return to partisan arguments has its obvious cost. At times, political parties will put their own interests before the nations. Politicians will champion for defence industry to be built in their electorate. Explicit debates over the merits and failures of our allies and partners could hurt important diplomatic relationships. But I would argue we already have many of these downsides, but with none of the benefits of using our parliament to articulate genuine differences and seek accountability about policy effectiveness. Indeed, I would argue these costs are actually preferable to our current unstudied silence and the occasional product differentiation that we get at election time. While partisan debate about defence policy is rare, two examples show that it can actually lead to better policy outcomes. In 2012-13, the Liberal Party made criticisms of cuts to the defence budget, complete with hyperbolic comparisons to the eve of World War II. Yet this led to the first real discussions that we had seen for defence spending in more than a decade, and a commitment by both parties to increase the overall levels of defence spending. In 2014-15, similarly, partisan arguments by the Labor Party and demands to build a future submarine fleet here in Australia, actually enabled a short public debate about the costs we were willing to pay and the benefits or costs of offshore purchases and what kind of submarines Australia actually needed. Indeed, even internal pressure by marginal seat holders within the coalition has led to an improved tender process for these submarines, one that gave Australia the leverage and forced international bidders to compete and offer better value for money. Now, not every partisan debate helps, but I think these examples show that it does not automatically make policy worse. If they did, democracies would not have survived as long or as successfully as they have. Yet the history of the 20th century is inexplicable, unless we shift from thinking of democratic debate as being an impediment to national security and recognising it as a necessity. The divided, argumentative nature of democracies tests policy ideas for their weaknesses before they are implemented. Similarly, when mistakes are inevitably made, partisan debate helps to identify these errors and hold accountable and seek change. Leaders who don't adjust can be removed and replace the elections rather than continuing ineffective strategies. Democracies can therefore weed out unfounded, mendacious or self-serving foreign policy arguments in ways that insular or restrictive systems struggle to. In the absence of political debate, the Australian national security community has even been forced to create its own mechanisms to test and debate ideas. In 2001, the Howard government set up the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in order to provide contestable advice and another dialogue partner in the defence field. In 2015, the Department of Defence agreed to the recommendation of the first principle review to set up a contestability unit. There is also a growing use of war games, scenarios, simulations and red teaming by the military and public service in recognition of the need to corroborate and test advice to government. This satisfaction with how Australia pursues its security in the 21st century has led to numerous suggestions for major structural reform to our system of government. These include giving parliament authorization over the use of force, creating vast new security bureaucracies, national security legislation monitors and greater judicial oversight for intelligence operations. All of these ideas have some logic to them but before we take potentially radical steps to overhaul how and reform how our system works, I think it is worthwhile first allowing our adversarial and democratic structures to operate as they were designed to. Indeed, many of these proposals, such as giving parliament more power, simply won't work while the requirements for bipartisanship enforce discipline. Rather than having officials with a formal title of leader of the opposition declare that keeping our people safe is above politics, it is precisely more politics that we need. In conclusion, Australia's world changed on 11, 9, 2001. It may have changed again on 9, 11, 2016. The election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States threatens many longstanding assumptions about American leadership, values and reliability. While I think there are strong arguments for retaining the alliance, this is precisely the moment for Australia's leaders to publicly discuss why and how the alliance matters and to persuade the public to their case. There is a pressing need for us to think through exactly what kind of alliance is valuable to us and what ways Australia is valuable to the United States and what alternatives we could turn to if part or all of the alliance framework is changed. Closer to home and along with a growing list of challenges from territorial disputes to unstable states and terrorism, the strategic and political order of our region is shifting. Finding an enduring and secure place for Australia will require laying out and testing our core assumptions about how we achieve the nation's security and influence. It also requires rebuilding the foundations of public unity around the role that we as a country can and should play in Asia's new order. Reflexive, unquestioning bipartisanship cannot do this. Only agreement as an outcome of genuine national debate can provide the mix of firmness and flexibility that we need in the future. Ironically, therefore, the hardest step for Australia's security may be to encourage what seems most natural to our politicians. Let them argue, let them debate. Let them take sides and differ. Make them test their assumptions and engage the public. We in the media, the public, and academia have a responsibility, too, to accept disagreement as natural and, indeed, helpful for dealing with these uncertain times. Only through a return to a fundamentally democratic approach to our security can we have the confidence that we as a country have the best possible ideas and practices for navigating the challenges and changes of this turbulent century. As T.B. Miller, the founder of the Strategic and Defense Study Center, concluded in his 1965 classic work, Australia's Defense, let us not be frightened to have a public discussion on defense. It is the public, after all, that needs to be defended. So, I'm here for an argument, and I hope you now are, too. Thank you very much.


Hello. Yeah, so these instruments here, these are all used in the dairy industry. Dairy industry. Okay. This here goes in the calf's nose to stop them from circling from their mother so we can steal the milk from them. This cow here behind me has got the nose ring with the spikes on there that I was when I was doing outreach, telling people about this spiked nose ring.  How horrific is that? Basically stops them from exhibiting natural behaviors, maternal child bond. So they put this in the calf's nose, stops the baby from going to the mom. What do you think of that? Not good? Because we want to steal the milk for us, the calf, the baby's not allowed to have the milk. So the baby cannot drink the milk from the mother for the dairy. Yeah, they put this here so the baby cow cannot go to the mother to take the milk. They put these medieval spikes in their nose to stop them from drinking from their own mother. How horrible. Do you know what this is? Baby calf, baby cow. They stop her from drinking the milk. So we can steal the milk, stop them from drinking the milk from their mom. Goes this way. Swim milk, almond milk, almond, beautiful. No suffering, no suffering. Rice milk, coconut milk, you tried coconut milk? No, but I will. You will? Good man, good man.  See this on the horns here? They put some of this caustic powder to stop the the horns from growing. And sometimes the horns can grow inside instead of growing out. So it's not very effective, but they put it on the calf's horns, stops the horns from growing. Sometimes the acids can leak out into their eyes and blind them. This here to tag the cows. All these cows are numbered, they're branded, they are treated as property. Their life doesn't belong to them. So they're just a number. It's like enslavement, yeah? So these medieval pliers are used for clipping piglet's teeth and tails. What do you think this is for? This is for piglet's teeth. So they clip the teeth or the tails, snip it off or testicles. They do this without anesthetic.  They do this without anesth... So no pain relief. Standard. This is standard. Something out of a torture chamber. This is basically to inject antibiotics into the animals. They use the same needle for each animal so they can pass diseases on to the animals like this. They use the same needle so they can spread disease like that.  They hold them down in a rack so they cannot move because they don't want this to happen to them. To hold the cervix. And then after harvesting the semen from a male bull, and we know how they harvest semen from bulls, they sexually violate the animal. This is violating the animal. This is violation because there is no consent. Stick a tube of semen into the cow. This is how they forcibly impregnate the cow. What do you think about that? Do you know what this is for? Up the cow. This here. Forcible impregnation. This hand goes in her backside. So they hold the cervix. What did you say? It's like rape. Yeah yeah well it is. There's no difference. Animals cannot tell you they want you to do this to them. If anything they don't want you to do this to them. I've got no words to explain that. This is a meat hook. Well they hang flesh on. It's a meat hook. Hang pieces of bodies on. If we were using these instruments on human beings, something out of a horror movie. You're doing some outreach today. Can you explain your story to me? Well I know these implements pretty well because when I was 12 I worked in a dairy farm for a few days. I saw people use this for real. The thing that made me go vegan. I saw a cow with two broken legs that a truck came to her to take her to the meat industry to slaughter and they just electrocuted her with this. And this here is an electrical prod. So the animals don't want to to go to death. They force them down the kill line.  And now you're out here doing outreach and teaching people about it. Yeah because I saw that she's being that have feelings that is feeling pain and is really really scared and is worth me speaking out. Thank you so much. But anyway this is what they do to animals so we can use their bodies use them as products. Do you think it's okay or do you think it's okay? All these instruments are so we can have some meat, cheese, milk. Humans are predators. Humans are dangerous. Predators. Predators. That's a good thing. They prey on the innocent. We advocate for a lifestyle, plant-based, vegan. We don't harm any animals in the process. We don't subject animals to any of this torture and we just think it's unnecessary and they're innocent beings. Yeah we are becoming vegetarians. Vegetarians? Yeah we're starting to be vegetarian because we think it's very against the dairy industry. No well it's not against the dairy industry it's against the way they treat animals. Yeah yeah so these are all. If it's done like she mainly? Yeah. It's okay. Do you think it's okay? What if the farmer looked after the animal a little bit better would that make it okay? What do you think? Every cheese does every dairy cow organic free range the backyard they're all they're all forcibly impregnated. They all have their children taken from them all of them across the board. They're all killed at the end of there when they're of no use to the farmer or they're ready for meat. The conditions in here look pretty horrific but do you think there's a humane way to do this? It's a funny joke. Yeah it's a joke. To funny you know human rape. There is no thing like this. All animals happy animals are all killed.  That's what I would ask you. So cheese forbidden. We are just educating people to make different choices. We have our vegan cheese made of nuts and these animals have done nothing wrong to anyone and we pray on them as if they've done something wrong. We treat them as if they are criminals and all they were they were just born as another species as a cow or a pig.  Anytime you're drinking milk you're taking that from a baby. Another thing I thought to myself is I'm a full-grown adult. Why am I still breastfeeding? As a child one two years old maybe three sometimes four years old. We wean off of our mother's breast milk. We're all lactose intolerance. The cheese and chocolate yogurt. Cheese. Why are we full-grown adults and still breastfeeding and now that I've woken up to that it's amazing. I'm like what was I doing? All the supermarkets have vegan cheese so none of this torture in the cheese or the milk you can get about 10 different plant-based milks and choose one that you like. All of these devices something out of a medieval torture chamber and we use them on innocent beings too.  You do it on Facebook and do a little vegan challenge.


This is stock number 9821. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Your new and used heavy-duty truck headquarters. Today we are taking a look at this super clean 2014 Ram 2500 crew cab short box. This truck has the 6.7 liter Cummins diesel. From this HD video you will be able to tell that this truck is extremely clean all the way around. Bright white is the color. We shoot all of our videos in 1080p So if you have HD capabilities on your computer tablet or smartphone device turn them on right now because it's like you're right here looking at the truck with me. Factory chrome step bars comes with the steel rims with the chrome covers and firestone Transforce LT27570 R18 tires. These tires are brand new on the front here So we put those on in our safety inspection. You can see it has a little bit of a leveling kit right there I think probably about a two and a half inch Front bumper is absolutely perfect. No dents. No dings No scuffs. No scrapes Passenger side fender is absolutely perfect as well. This rim is in nice shape And as you go down this side of the truck you can see just how clean the body is How reflective and mirror like that paint is We take these HD videos so if you are far away Or even if you're close by just cannot make the trip down. You can still see the truck You can still hear the truck and you have you can have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking in Before you even get here Very cleaned on this side lower rockers all look really good Back rim is a nice shape Back tires are brand new as well Frame and underbody on this truck pretty nice shape all the way down here. It's like that all the way underneath So it does have straight piped exhaust DEF deleted. I'm not going to say it's a quiet truck So you come around to the rear bumper Pretty nice condition does that backup sensors Full towing package which includes a receiver itch four pin and seven pin wiring Tailgate is in nice shape as well. No denser dings than that as a spray and bed liner and Fifth wheel bed rail rails Pretty nice condition couple little dings and stuff. Nothing major has an access soft tonneau cover Didn't see any rips or tears on that and as we come around To the passenger side very clean as well for full disclosure that back tire is brand new as well and it has That room is in nice condition, too Didn't see any denser dings on these doors these years they fold out The tow mirrors and they also go in like that. They are heated and power Inside the tradesman package gives you the gray cloth interior. There are no rips. There are no tears on the seats They're in really nice shape comes with factory floor mats throughout power windows power locks and power mirrors has auto headlamps And as we hop inside the truck here See if we can get the Audometer to come up here. All right, there we go 48,000 889 miles on this truck has the digital speedometer has the compass outside temperature display This one also has a programmer on it Looks like a MM3 programmer Has Bluetooth audio controls on the left and information center controls and cruise controls on the right This one has the 5.0 touchscreen radio AM FM and Sirius XM radio capabilities has the six-speed automatic transmission turned-out four-wheel drive keyless entry and factory brake controller Has stability controlled tow haul factory exhaust brake backup sensors and this one does have the alternate trailer height to it so you can for different trailers you can set up your rear airbags to Accommodate for that passenger seats very clean as well. No rips or tears on that Headliner is exceptionally clean And you do get map lights up there side-current airbags, we'll take a quick look at those Take a quick look at those backup or the rear I Guess they're kind of like shocks, but they're like air shocks We can get in here without Disturbing the phone too much So you can see those shocks If we go over here So that adjusts Those shocks for different trailers Pretty cool system And as We come to the back seats just as clean as the front seats no rips or tears back here It does have that latch child safety system for your car seats you see do fold up for extra storage underneath and Back carpeting is in really nice condition. There is storage containers back here You can put drinks and ice and stuff in there and then these come out for easy cleaning We'll take a quick look under the hood and we'll Wrap up the video here personally. I'd like to thank you for checking out the video Hopefully from this HD video you will have been able to tell just how clean this truck is all the way around inside and out Underneath here definitely not stock Got a SMB cold air intake But NGB is very clean runs very smooth This truck has been fully safe to and inspected by our service shop as a fresh oil and filter change All the fluid tab been checked and topped off and this truck is 100% ready to go See more pictures of this truck or one of our other 450 new and used cars trucks SUVs minivans Wranglers half tons we quarter tons one tons you name it We got it go to our website www.summodauto.com Full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle on our lot videos of every single used vehicle that we have all at Summodauto.com if you want to check out more HD videos of trucks, you can go to youtube.com Summodauto remember to like subscribe and share on this video and all the videos that you see there In fact in a second you'll see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left It links more heavy-duty truck videos like this one on your right And if you have not been to our website on the bottom a link to this vehicle on our website click those check us out We really look forward to help you with this super clean We have 2014 Ram 2500 crew cab short box. Thanks again