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Candobetter.net Editor: This timely comment has been republished as an article, here: "Diversionary tactics, smokescreens and the Electoral Funding and Disclosure Bill 2017". ........................ My first glimpse of the political gravy train (game of mates) in Australia was back in 1992 prior to Jeff sacking Victoria’s councils. As a bastard from the bush in the State seat of Rodney I’d joined the National Party who at the time was doing some good work for the farming community. The local branch had called an open meeting for all members and prospective members to attend to hear from speakers Noel Maughan (MLA for Rodney) and Bill Baxter (MLC for North East Province) regarding the forthcoming election. The spectre of Council Amalgamations was in the wind and at the meeting we were informed by Bill Baxter with great emphasis that the National Party would not tolerate Council Amalgamations in any shape or form whatsoever. Within 2 years Council Amalgamations were rammed through parliament with the National Party’s blessing. At a subsequent meeting of the local branch of the Nashos when it was put to Bill Baxter regarding the obvious about-face, flip, sell-out, he refuted (lied) that he had ever given the aforesaid commitment. The meeting degenerated into a farce with Bill being ushered out the back door and many members including yours truly resigning their membership in disgust! I came to realise over the ensuing years that all of the major political parties carried political baggage similar to that of the National Party. The (once) Liberal Party had morphed into a conservative organisation taking the nashos with them (or Vicky Verca), the Labour Party sold out the workers, both parties adopted neoliberal principles and the Democrats were on a hiding to nothing trying to keep the bastards honest. The neoliberal mantra under the Hawke/Keating Federal Government and the Kennett State Government redefined the political landscape dramatically during this time. Today the landscape has only changed in the fact that the Demos have gone and have been replaced by the “Greens” who are also neoliberal despite somewhat honourable beginnings. Politically Australia has become a backwater of neoliberalism similar to North America and most of Europe and is suffering under the yoke of American hegemony, Chinese influence, neo-classical economics, overpopulation driven climate change and political indecision on all facets of the home front. Much of what passes for legislation at federal level today is aimed at putting out spot fires or shoring-up community/electoral support for the Turnbull Government. Similar to the State Governments of both Baillieu and Napthine, the Abbott and Turnbull Federal Governments have been do nothing ministries. There has been no significant legislation that these Premiers/Prime Ministers could or can hang their hats on, nothing, nought, zip, zilch!! They have gone from proposing the ludicrous to the unworkable, shoring-up their support as they go! As spot fires break out around them their time and energy is consumed putting them out. In an effort to achieve this, diversionary tactics or smoke screens are often employed to take the community’s/electorate’s eye off the ball. The classic here was the “Same Sex Marriage” bill which was always going to get up, being taken to a (“referendum”) postal vote. This took some of the heat off the Feds for 6 months wasting time and money. In the meantime, Australia, as a nation, just drifted along with the Yanks pulling us one direction and the Chinese the other. I read with interest the excepts from Clive Hamilton’s book “Silent Invasion” in Saturday’s Age and am currently reading Robert Macklin’s “Dragon & Kangaroo” and I’m beginning to understand an aspect of Australia’s history they I hadn’t grasped previously. Unfortunately, there is not much to like in what I’ve read so far and combined with our colonial sycophancy and our current obsequiousness to the good old USofA, we are sadly lacking especially when it comes to leadership of the nation. To me the “Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017” is more of the same – putting out a spot fire/diversionary tactic. The bill may be aimed at so-called charities that provide political advocacy while at the same time accommodating such advocacy through the back door, the bill may claim some smaller fry that are, to the government, collateral damage. Instead of addressing political donations head-on, we pathetically tinker around at the edges. As the dust settles the sharks that were dominating the pond are still there while the sardines have been thinned out! However, I do believe that any bid to curb the right of individuals to collectively provide alms and benevolence or to protest by either the Federal or State Governments to be an infringement of our civil liberties. This where the Australian constitution is an absolute dodo. Similar to the constitution not recognising First Australians, it doesn’t recognise the civil liberties of all Australians. As the constitution continues to fail all Australians and it will increasingly do so in the future, the more ordinary Australians and groups of Ozzies including charities will come under the spotlight. These individuals and groups will then be put under the microscope while those with money, power and political clout will able to evade this bandaid legislation and carry on as if nothing has happened. Meanwhile the yawning gap between the haves and the have nots widens appreciably. As the middle class become trapped by the zombie neo-classical economics, climate change tightens its noose, environmental degradation continues unabated, resources become depleted, civil unrest mounts as people go hungry, fresh water diminishes and spills over into war and mass migration. This is the leaderless society that is being thrust upon us. Overpopulation is a killer!! John Bentley

#CCE3F1">I #comment-3775348121">posted the following in response to the article Syria, Turkey, Russia and the Kurds: the struggle for Afrin (25/2/18) | The Duran by Alexander Mercouris:

As the article shows, an all-out invasion by Turkey would be a mortal threat to the Syrian government.

Even if Sultan Erdogan now claims to be hostile to the United States government, how can we assume that the United States would disapprove of the Turkish Army's efforts to achieve what the United States' terrorist proxies have failed to do since March 2011?

Possibly the only way that lasting peace can be achieved in Syria is for the regime change to occur in Turkey (and elsewhere).

But, by helping Erdogan defeat the attempted coup of July 2016, supposedly orchestrated by the United States, and by its endorsement of the rigged constitutional referendum of April 2017 which gave President Erdogan more power at the expense of the elected Turkish Parliament, the Russian government helped further entrench Erdogan in power.

Sheila, your post is an eloquent, beautiful and heart-wrenching piece of writing. Thank you for expressing what so many of us feel, and yet which somehow does not enter the consciousness of many highly educated, intelligent professionals who still think it is ok to feed the growth megamachine, using the justificatory tools of economics in particular. I also loved the video which was part of your post -- really outstanding. By the way, does the candobetter site have a facility to share via FB and to Tweet your posts? It would make it easier to get the message out.

Don't forget Foran and Poldi's Future Dilemmas: Options to 2050 for Australia's population, technology, resources and environment, 2002. http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/33785/20030616-0000/www.cse.csiro.au/research/program5/futuredilemmas/index.htm Commissioned by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigeneous Affairs(DIMA), it predicted all our problems, and the government ignored it.

Just with reference to Peter Cook's recommendation that "The Australian Government should fund the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to publish projections of the likely impact of varying rates of population growth on the built and natural environment. This analysis could form part of the CSIRO’s National Outlook publication. The release of this analysis should be synchronised with the release of the Australian Government’s Intergenerational Report," I wanted to remind people that the CSIRO provided such a report just before it was largely privatised. Economists actually distorted the expression of the scientific conclusions in their editing, which was largely forced on the scientists. The report, by Barney Foran and Franzi Poldi, was called, Future Dilemmas: Options to 2050 for Australia's population, technology, resources and environment, 2002.

About the Report
What impact will the size of Australia's future population have on the environment, the physical economy, the national infrastructure and our quality of life?

To gain insights into what the future might hold for Australia, researchers at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems have developed new tools and approaches to modelling Australia's dynamic physical economy.

Future Dilemmas is a technical report that encapsulates the results of this research, which was commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA).

It explores the future effect of three population/immigration scenarios on infrastructure, resources and the environment out to the year 2050.

The first scenario considers what would happen if the net immigration rate was zero persons a year (described as the low scenario in the report).
The second considers what happens if the rate was 70 000 a year (the current policy setting, and described as the medium scenario).
The third examines the consequences of an immigration rate set at two thirds of one percent (0.67%) of the current population per year (described here as the high scenario).
The low scenario (zero immigration) represents the policy position of some environment groups. Based on current population growth, it would see a domestic population of 20 million by 2050. The medium scenario gives a population of 25 million by 2050. The high scenario (0.67% growth pa) is a position advocated by many business interests. It gives us 32 million people by 2050.

Future Dilemmas explores the consequences of these three scenarios for people, urban infrastructure, the natural environment, energy, water and a broad range of other issues.

Future Dilemmas: options to 2050 for Australia's population, technology, resources and environment was officially launched on Thursday 7 November 2002 by the Hon Philip Ruddock, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs.

So the Greens are not even prepared to enter into debate or discussion on this issue - they threaten you with expulsion for raising 'heretical' ideas? There would be no need to 'license' the having of children in Australia, as the birth rate is about replacement rate of deaths. And the reason for this is precisely because WE DO control women's bodies - via 'The Pill'. Matt

The early settlers of Melbourne came in many cases from London. They were as greedy as people are today, but they were appalled at the squalid and cramped living conditions of London and were determined not to recreate this. Thus Melbourne was designed with wide streets, vast park lands, and good public transport. In these respects Melbourne was a Utopia. Now all that is being dismantled, and Melbourne is being replaced with the worst of 18th Century 'London'.

The following are excerpts from Orthodox Christmas in Southern Serbia, Oaks and Casual Cruelties (9/1/18) by Dr. Binoy Kampmark | Global Research. As well as this terrible instance of neglect and cruelty to animals, this article is about the threat of ethnic strife and renewed war between Muslims, Serbs and other ethic groups in the Serbia Town of Bujanovac.

The man, gristle and all ... was spotting a particularly agitated dog, udders swollen and heavy, with disdain. The word was that he had hit that same animal the previous day. The memory stung; the dog, barking with helpless fury, wanted a revenge it could never have, a dish it could never savour.

As the barking continued with increasing agitation, a set of strangled yelps were released, followed by a sequence of piercing howls. The man had deployed his stick once more, having gotten off his perch and metamorphosed into a mobile being. No longer still statue, clothes animated and moving with the corporeal form, this mass was now directing his stick with committed viciousness. The dog, beaten, fled again, its cries weaving through the pot-filled streets of Bujanovac like lengthy stretches of pain.

The scene of casual cruelties in the town of Bujanovac alight along the potted road to the village church in neighbouring Rakovac, a village of Serbs in an area also replete with Albanians and the sound of mosques in prayer.

A puppy blackish and brown, its pygmy presence barely a few weeks old has been abandoned, its doomed cries as it vainly struggles in the damp grass defrosted from the night, bruising to the heart. Some pass by without a glance at this blur of colour, the animal struggling to find his bearings, legs giving way; others register a sorrowful regret at not being able to take the animal home. There are priorities, and the dog as pet is less valued as the dog as guard, soldier and functional protector. Animals shelters where these creatures can be saved are not thought of; the grim reaper shall have his feed tonight.

...

I would like to believe that, if I had been a resident of Bujanovic, amidst the cold, lacking food, firewood and fearing a further outbreak of ethnic strife and war that has been endemic to the region since NATO destroyed Yugoslavia in 1999,that I would have still rescued that dog or at least given it some food and and water and taken the time to show it a little kindness.

"We feel we are making every effort towards a better, more vibrant, more diverse, society. We are having some successes and some failures but all the while making progress as people speak out." Yes, thanks Barbarella. Such changes are allowed, anything that doesn't threaten the powers of the elite. By allowing these changes, and on such scant evidence, the narrative of 'progress' and 'life getting better' can be continued, as the world burns. Matt

Also James, consider what has become of the Trotskyist movement under any of its names - and of just about every communist or socialist organisation today. The elites learned their lesson from a near miss and they simply infiltrated the entire movement, with paid organisers who recruit youth and then teach them to go round in circles, until they grow up figuring that revolt is not possible. One thing I don't understand is how the 'cell' concept failed to prevent this. Any ideas?

Ah, yes, the AIM network .. cough cough.. :-) (which, sadly, is full of defenders of Soros which presumably means they are financed by him). I'm glad you got some comments. So, there is obviously nothing wrong with your idea. People have to choose to dedicate themselves to it. When I think of the number of organisations I am mixed up with and how hard it is to get anyone to actually look after them. It needs publicity and something for people who don't read, such as a youtube rundown. I looked on youtube and there was nothing like it. Please try to continue to promote this. It is the best idea I have heard.

Thanks Sheila - yes you did support that idea when I published it.

There were a few comments here.

I don't think change can come from the system that benefits from the status quo - the Catholic church is perhaps a good example here - change from outside - from a grass roots movement started by mainly one man who tapped in to popular sentiment and people felt strongly enough about the issue to risk being killed (often by burning).

Thus I feel a similar process will eventually happen now in relation to our current power system - only much worse, as we are now dependent on the system for all our food and other needs, whereas once this power was much more decentralised and democratically distributed.

As an intermediate approach I have proposed the following:

An alternative planning approach

But I think it will be too late soon, if not already. Not too late for change, but too late to avoid massive suffering.

Do you have any ideas on how to make change happen? Not being able to make change happen could be described as not knowing what is wrong or what to do about it, too. It all reminds me of the problems ordinary people have in trying to get our Flora and fauna guarantee act enforced; we do not have 'standing'. We do not have 'standing' in our own country to be represented. Citizens do not have standing here. They do not have standing even to say how many members the citizenry here should have. It's like being dictated to by the Catholic Church in the Middle ages.

See:

Out of the Wreckage

There are links forward and back to causes and solutions. At least he is trying. But reality seems to be that no matter how many books are written on the causes, problems and possible solutions, not much seems to change. The sticking point seems not be knowing what is wrong, or what to do about it, but rather making any change happen.

This is just the latest symptom of a system that is fundamentally unsustainable. And I would argue, almost unrecoverable. Our reliance on fossil fuels is the root of all this (and switching to batteries will not help). Fossil fuels underlie the sprawling separation of work and home, allowing services to be centralised and concentrating us around city centres. Fossil fuels allow our unsustainable food and transportation systems, which will persist even in the face of global warming, as more energy is bought to bear, until a horrible climax is reached. What is the solution? Not something that anyone, or any government is likely to do. That is to move back to localised systems, wean ourselves off fossil fuels. This would require a massive, carefully orchestrated effort by everyone. And much sacrifice by all. An effort akin to that put into preparing and winning a world war would be needed, and is needed. But a rallying of the troops for this war is a very unlikely event. Most people are either oblivious to the problem, or prefer to pretend it doesn't exist. But more and more people will become marginal participants in the system as their poverty increases.

It's 2 minutes to midnight. This is not a matter of "investigating" or "working with the owners", it's a case of emergency food drops required immediately!

Simon. please post your email. That is a very generous offer of yours to return to Croatia. If I could return to my ancestral origins and if I thought it would help i would too. Please consider though that as an apparent advocate for Australia's native fauna, it is probably better that you stay!

If the 1955 commuters walked in a straight line from the top of Collins Street they would have found themselves at what was then Spencer Street Station, but if they came from the top of Collins Street and turned left at Swanston, they would have found themselves facing Flinders Street Station as they would now! Walking in Collins Street doesn't mean they weren't headed for Flinders Street Station! They could also have been headed for Spencer Street but it was more for country and interstate travel.

I posted this comment beneath the YouTube video which was embedded below. Those who read this and who have already read previous comments will find that much of what is in this commen has already been posted above.

The talk appears to have omitted the underlying cause of the conflict between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK aka 'North Korea') and the United States.

North Korea was devastated in the war of 1950-1953. US Air Force General Curtis Le May perversely boasted how 25% of the population of North Korea was killed by his B29 bombers and how no building more than one storey high was left standing. The DPRK suffered this bombardment because they refused to surrender to the United States and its local proxies who had been imposed upon the southern half of Korea in 1945.

In 1945, the new US President Harry S. Truman turned on the Soviet Union and many of the United States' other war-time allies including the ELAS partisans in Greece, the communist partisans in Italy, the Viet Minh in Vietnam, the Chinese communists and the DPRK in Korea.

In the southern half of Korea the United States' occupation forces put into power a government largely composed of Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese occupiers. This government was named the "Republic of Korea" (ROK aka 'South Korea'). The US Army and its local ROK puppets savagely repressed supporters of the DPRK in the south and DPRK supporters resisted this repression. This civil war became a conventional war on 25 June 1950. Had the United States and its allies not massively increased the size of their intervention, the army of the DPRK could have easily beaten the army of the hated ROK. The subsequent invasion of the North was stopped, but at a terrible cost to the DPRK and to its Chinese allies. Peace was never signed in 1953. Officially that war continues. The DPRK leaders know that any one of the annual joint military exercises of the US and ROK, which resemble practice invasions of the North, could easily turn into a real invasion should the US be able to manufacture a pretext. Accordngly, the DPRK has repeatedly asked at the United Nations that these exercises cease.

THe DPRK leadres saw that they had no choice but to create weapons which could deter the United States should it ever again attempt to do what it failed to do in 1953.

Kim Jong-Un shamed Trump (Ruslan Ostako)

I posted the comment below to a discussion beneath the article Pentagon: US Forces To Stay In Syria “As Long As We Need To” (5/12/2017) | South Front.

Starlight, whilst I continue to be appalled by the scale of the overt and covert crimes of Israel against the Arab peoples and the rest of humanity, it is wrong to imply that every jewish person is complicit. I beleive that this sort of language only helps Israel and the United States' government.

President Vladimir Putin made Russia a sovereign country again after almost nine years of misrule by his drunken predecessor Boris Yeltsin. In Syria, Russian military intervention almost certainly saved the government of the popular and democratically elected Presdident Bashar al-Assad which was facing an invasion by hordes of terrorst mercenaries from all corners of the world.

President Putin should rightly be viewed alogside the likes of United States' Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and John F Kennedy and President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt.

Nevertheless, I think President Putin has shown surprisingly poor judgement in a number of critical conflicts. Even the Syrian conflict has been dragged out needlessly because of Putin's wish to reach a compromise with some of the 'rebels', instead of acting in concert with Syria, Iran and Hezbollah to finish off the terrorists altogether. (How many of the estimated 400,000 dead Syrians, including 80,000 soldiers, would be still be alive today had President Putin acted more decisively?)

Whilst Vladimir Putin was off attending the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics from 7 to 23 Feb 2014, the CIA and their local neo-Nazi Svoboda footsoldiers overthrew the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych. Had Russian government acted more proactively, I beleive there is a good chance that the coup could have been prevented. Unless this coup is reversed, how is NATO to be prevented from eventually placing conventional weapons and even nuclear weapons right on Russia's border?

President Putin's bizarre reconcilatory tone towards the American hegemonists is reflected in much of the reporting and discussion on its RT news service, which is surprisingly tame, given the scale of the criminality of the American government in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine and elsewhere. At least tens of thousands have died in each of these conflicts and the total number of dead is several millions. Why should the tone of RT be any less strident in its presentation of the truth than that of the lying corporate newmedia?

Nowithstanding this critique of RT, RT's Crosstalk discussion "Distrusting the News" (6/12/2017, 27:13 minutes) at https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/412064-media-journalistic-standards-deal/ is well worth a watch.

From the PressTV article 400 US Marines to leave Syria after Raqqah operation: Coalition (1/12/17):

The US-led coalition, which has purportedly been fighting Daesh, says it is to pull more than 400 American Marines out of Syria, where they helped Kurdish militants capture the northern city of Raqqah from the Takfiri terror group.

"With the city liberated and ISIS (Daesh) on the run, the unit has been ordered home. Its replacements have been called off," the coalition said in a statement.

"We’re drawing down combat forces where it makes sense, but still continuing our efforts to help Syrian and Iraqi partners maintain security," Brigadier General Jonathan Braga, the director of operations for the coalition, said in the statement.

Last month, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Damascus militant group backed by the United States, took control of Raqqah, which had served as Daesh’s main stronghold in Syria since 2014.

The Syrian government, however, rejected claims by the SDF and its foreign sponsors that Raqqah has been "liberated."

Information Minister Mohammad Ramez Tardjaman said in late October that no land is considered liberated in the country unless national army forces regain control of it and raise the Syrian flag atop its buildings.

The statement further said, "Our remaining forces will continue to work by, with, and through partner forces to defeat remaining ISIS, prevent a re-emergence of ISIS, and set conditions for international governments and NGOs to help local citizens recover from the horrors of ISIS' short-lived rule."

... Read more

From the start, the brutal barbaric crimes of ISIS/Daesh as well as being part of the United States' proxy war against the Syrian people, also served as a cover story to allow US forces to enter Syria, ostensibly to fight ISIS/Daesh, but, in reality, to help overthrow the popularly elected government of Syria which, unlike most other countries in the region, refused to become subservient to the US.

As of 12:54pm, I have learnt that my post which was 'under moderation' is no longer there. Presumably, it has been deleted!

This begs the question: "What have the editors of Russia Insider to fear from the above post? If I am wrong, then surely they or somebody else can show other readers where I am wrong? If they cannot show where I am wrong, then quite posssibly what I have written is correct. So, how does the stifling of dissenting opinions, which appear to be backed up by evidence and logic, help Russia Insider fight against Washington's plans for global hegemony agenda in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ukraine, the Black Sea, Eastern Europe, the Baltic Sea, the Arctic Ocean, Afghanistan, Korea, the South China Sea and elsewhere?

Whilst, as I have said before, Russia Insider is informative on many critical issues - Ukraine, Syria, Crimea, Flight MH17, ... - being seen to be covering up up for one of the worst tyrants in history, whilst, bizarrely, condemning Lenin and the Russian Revolution that Stalin claimed to uphold - The Bolshevik Revolution - a Russian Tragedy, Examining the Rotten Roots of Russian Redstalgia, Famous Syphilitic Psychopath Vladimir Lenin Celebrated at St. Petersburg Conference, Why Didn't the British King Save His Russian Cousin, Nicholas II After the Revolution?, The Real Lenin: Traitor, Parasite, Failure and 'Russians Are Sh*theads!' - Grandpa Lenin in His Own Words - can only undermine the global movement against the lying corporate newsmwdia and war.

On reading the description in this article on the tragedy of Nauru, I could not help seeing the population of Nauru being re-located in Nauru House in Melbourne and being told that not only was this compensation for what happened to their island but that they were now better off than they ever were (surrounded by all those shops). But what happens to their new "island home" (Australia) when all its resources have been mined, its forests raised and it has a population double or triple what it is now all along the Eastern seaboard? Is the largest Island on the globe immune to ecological collapse? Has the process already started?