Conspiracy theory discussion to the sandpits, please.Every so often John Quiggin sets up a 'sandpit' in which discussion about topics, not deemed by him to be worthy of more prominent parts of his website, may be permitted. The most recent 'sandpit' is dated 28 June 2016. It appears to have been set up in response to my posts and the responses of others. The 'sandpit' prior to that is dated 9 May 2016. As well as supposed 'conspiracy theories', material which can only possibly be discussed in the 'sandpit' most likely includes all the current geopolitical conflicts – Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Yemen, Ukraine, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Palestine and Israel. Nowhere on the the front page of JohnQuiggin is there any mention of these conflicts. Presumably, if he was administering a blog, or its technological equivalent, in the 1930's discussion about the following topics (also listed above) would also be confined to the 'sandpit', if not banned outright: The Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Spanish Civil War, the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, Menzies' export of Australian pig iron to Japan, the 1938 sellout of Czechoslovakia, the Hitler/Stalin pact of September 1939, Hitler's invasion of Poland, etc., etc. One minor exception is the constrained and biased discussion against allegend Brexit 'tribalism' to which the above comment was posted.
Comments
Censorship on Australian blog site
Evidence uncovered in 2000: European Union was a CIA initiative
The post below is part of a #comment-270581">discussion about Brexit on JohnQuiggin.com:
Ernestine #comment-270538">wrote on June 27th, 2016 at 09:16:
"[Paul Craig Roberts] asserts the EU has been set up by the CIA and is controlled by the USA. ...
This is what Paul Craig Roberts said (times from start of the above video included):
(8:37) The EU is a CIA initiative. This was discovered about the year 2000 by by [Joshua Paul, a researcher at Georgetown University in Washington]. He was mucking around in the United States' national archives and found some recently released documents. There was CIA documents that established that the EU was a CIA initiative and it was done so that Washington could more easily control Europe.
(9:09) It's too difficult for Washington to control all these separate governments. This one would play off against that one. This one would have to have this special thing, this special concession and so on, like the EU gave Britain to get hooked into the EU. And so the CIA decided: "Look, if there's an EU there's only one government to deal with and it is much easier for us to control."
(9:34) So, this was discovered in the year 2000. It was reported in the British newspapers at the time. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the Telegraph reported this. I cited it and I think I gave the URL - the reference to it#pcrFn1" id="pcrTxt1"> 1 and a recent column#pcrFn2" id="pcrTxt2"> 2 on my site. You can use Google. You can find it. You can find the report from
the [Georgetown University] professor who reported on the documents he found. All this is publicly available the documents are available. They're in the National Archive. So this is not a conspiracy theory. This is simply the facts reported even in the British newspapers.
Footnotes
#pcrFn1" id="pcrFn1">1.#pcrTxt1"> ↑ Euro-federalists financed by US spy chiefs (19/9/2000) by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | The Telegraph.
#pcrFn2" id="pcrFn2">2.#pcrTxt2"> ↑ Somnolent Europe, Russia, and China (5/5/16) by Paul Craig Roberts | PaulCraigRoberts.org.
How to get out from Google monitoring
ABC documents overpopulation chaos but NO mention of immigration
Congrats
Burn in Hell, Globalisation!
Also affects Shopping Centres
Google ads are based on history
Browsers now spreading intimidatory political messages
On Google and Mozilla I encountered a message designed to frighten people from exercising their right to seek political information. It happened to me when I went to the French National Front home page. We think it is placed there the way ads target users. I don't usually use Chrome because of its privacy invasion, but I did use it recently due to problems with flashplayer on Mozilla. I suspect that it is Chrome that has infected my browsing with these ads. Now, as a journalist and researcher, I can justify visiting any site that provides journalism on public events, but a lot of Australians and people from other countries are frightened by this kind of intimidation, which is a function of elite wedge politics.
Wedge politics try to frighten people from personally investigating outside a narrow political spectrum. In Australia, for instance, the ALP use wedge politics so that ALP sympathisers are reluctant to go to Liberal events or sites; Libs discourage their members from going to ALP sources; both the 'majors' and the Greens carry implicit threats to any of their members looking at any but their own policies. Ex PM Tony Abbott was so worried that Pauline Hanson might win a seat that he got her sent to prison - on charges later reversed. Other nasty guns are the Socialist Alliance and spinoffs like "AntiFa' which attend rallies about national sovereignty, or immigration or Halal or population numbers, as professionally managed intimidators.
The ad I encountered against the National Front was probably financed by big money and could have been a post Brexit initiative from the US or the EU. It made me wait for 30 seconds before going to the National Front site, with the following highly questionable and one-sided message. The message makes no mention of the Western elites' role in financing war and economic disintegration that produces refugees, against the wishes of citizens in the east and the west. The message suggests that people have no right to prioritise citizenship and border control. Brexit was, of course, a reaction to this kind of elite propaganda and top-down messaging. We must not be afraid to examine all arguments. It is our duty to defy being herded along the lines that the elite prefer. It is our duty to check out the designated enemy. It is the duty of the press to interview all sides.
"Your attention please,
You are going to visit the website of a french political party which will try to make you believe that country borders and citizenship must define your priorities when talking about humanity or compassion.
The rejection of the other, the mix between secularism and patriotism and racism, discrimination of refugee populations in France and hatred of foreigners or their traditions, are the real tools and values of the members of this party.
Redirection to the official web site in 23 seconds, please wait."
By the way, Marine Le Pen's speech about Brexit was very good. She is a gifted speaker and makes many intelligent points as usual - more than the power elites do.
Dis-economies of scale
Brexit from Obama-Merkel control of EU
Britain’s will undercut America's ally in Europe
and a side effect
So it is a BREXIT!!
52% Vote for a Brexit against the 48% who wanted to stay on.
Europe is collapsing due its own crimes in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, as the wars that they wage, the Refugees that they create across the Middle-East, West Asia and Africa, finally head to Europe in desperation from the countries ruined by the US-EU-Nato imperialists.
Even as the EU will collapse and with it the Western Bloc, the new world powers are rising from the East, the Bloc of Russia, China, India and the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation & the BRICS. The future is here in the East, in the region, and the Indian Ruling Elite had better understand that, instead of running after the US, Israel and the Western European nations.
Now Putin's vision of an Eur-Asian Union will emerge & will lead to the defeat of the Atlantic Integrationists led by the Medvedists in Moscow.
Even as the EU will grow weaker, many of the countries of from Eastern Europe will start gravitating towards Russia, such as Hungary, Rumania, Serbia, Macedonia and others, who are being treated as second-rate nations within the EU by Germany and France.
The Russian-Chinese, One Belt One Road, all the way from China, via Russia to Portugal, covering and linking the land mass of East Asia to the far reaches of Western Europe, will ensure the economic and thus the political reality of the EurAsian Union & the realisation of Putin's vision.
AJP population policy - vague
Propping up the housing growth scheme using local schools
Animal Justice Party on population
Australian Progressives want more fluoridation!
Beware - Rise Up Australia Party wants a big population
The European Union and European economies
Brexit and more...
John Howard's comment
2016 Campaign Analysis
Election Policies
The deceit of the claimed benefits of High Density living
The true cost of urban sprawl – Why infill development is Perth’
Voters are looking for alternatives
Neoliberalism & Climate Change
Warmongering Hilllary Clinton accuses Donald Trump of madness
The following was #comment-270141">posted to the abovementioned #comment-270141">discussion about Donald Trump on JohnQuiggin.com.
Warmongering Clinton Accuses Trump of Madness (4/6/16) by Finian Cunningham | Sputnik International
The above article confirms what I wrote previously in posts #comment-270002">#8, #11, #15, #20, #22, #25 and #27 about Hillary Clinton. Finian Cunningham doesn't personally like Donald Trump[1] or even Bernie Sanders:
Admittedly, if Sanders or Trump were to get elected, the prospect for America becoming a law-abiding peaceful nation is not much brighter, such is the endemic criminality of US foreign policy.
Finian Cunningham continues:
However, if Hillary Clinton makes it to the White House, the outlook for the world is a whole lot worse. If she can start so many wars as a diplomat, one shudders to think of what she will be capable of as Commander-in-Grief?
Footnote[s]
[1] Most likely Finian Cunningham's objection to Donald Trump arises from Trump's outspoken opposition to immigration from Mexico and his view about Muslims. Whilst Trump's apparent prejuice against Muslims seems unjustified, the working conditions of United States' workers can only get worse if high high immigration from Mexico is not stopped. On that Trump is right where so many otherwise progresive anti-imperialsts get it wrong.
How come there is such a 'Party' in 21st century Australia?
The Revolution May As Well Start Here
Why We Must Not Replace One Dogma With Another.
Why I re-post forum discussion from elsewhere to candobetter.net
The following has been #comment-270111">posted to the forum discussion mentioned #comment-182585">above on JohnQuiggin.com :
#comment-270110">Tim,
It's perfectly fine by me if you choose not to post further comments in response to mine. Whilst I welcome proper debate with others who show themselves willing to address my evidence and logic, I am not that bothered when people don't and less so, when they stop posting altogether. It's not as if I have nothing else to do with my time.
Tim complained:
"... I know that you're in the habit of copying comments such as the ones I've made above and posting them on your own web site, ... "
I sometimes post some of the discussion from here to my own web-site for a number of reasons, including;.
1. I consider my web-site, candobetter.net, to be a record of Australian and world history since 2006. Much of that history would otherwise have been forgotten. I consider the debate here to also be about a critical issue of world history for reasons I have stated above. That is why I have posted copies of most, but not all, of the discussion to my web-site.
2. As I have repeatedly stated, only one link per comment is permitted here on unmoderated posts. If I want to include more links or allow people to see other related material, that is only possible if I post copies to candobetter.net .
Tim continued:
"... and then making further comments, and in some cases accusations, on your own web site, against the people who have made the comments."
The only 'further comments' I could find in all of that page containing the article Review: Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices - the Syria chapter (27/4/14), were:
"This posted to a discussion about the United States' Presidential elections on JohnQuiggin.com, Trump and Tribalism:" (twice); and
"The following was posted to the same forum discussion mentioned above on JohnQuiggin.com :" (three times)
Tim wrote:
"So if you want me to engage in this discussion further, I want you to undertake not to copy my comments on this blog to your own web site, ..."
All the comments of yours, which I have copied, from here to my own web-site, are as follows:
"I don't think the risk of large-scale global conflict is particularly high, ..."
... all of 12 words. Tim continued:
"... to make any of your own commentary on it over there, and particularly not to make any accusations against me or to characterise me in negative or potentially defamatory ways simply because I happen to disagree with you."
As I have said before, all the 'accusations' and 'negative and potentially defamatory' characterisations are listed above. Other than that I have posted nothing to candobetter.net that I haven't also posted here.
Should you want to claim copyright on the comments you post here, then I think I am still allowed to copy a small portion of them, or to paraphrase those words. In any case, I hardly see the copying of 12 words as a breach of copyright.
Number of people killed by Russia relatively insignificant
The following has been #comment-270109">posted to the forum discussion mentioned #comment-182584">above on JohnQuiggin.com :
#comment-270108">Tim,
I have shown that the United States and its allies have killed hundreds of thousands of people in illegal wars in recent decades. Close to zero have died as a result of Russian military action in recent years. Feel free to show me specific examples of where the Russian army has killed anyone, if you don't agree.
Claimed fears of Russia by the United States' allies in Eastern Europe are no more than a fabrication designed to justify their own vassalage to the United States and preparations for a new Operation Barbarossa. In a number of those Eastern European countries, the past record of those who collaborated with the Nazi occupiers is openly celebrated and former Nazi collaborators still parade proudly in their uniforms.
Also, feel welcome to cite from Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the United States’ Treasury, and former editor of the Wall Street Journal, in order to show why you don't regard him as "a particularly reliable authority."
Given Iraq, Libya, Syria,... Russia right to fear NATO expansion
The following has been #comment-270106">posted to the forum discussion mentioned above on JohnQuiggin.com :
#comment-270104">Tim,
I have personally been very worried about global warming since no later than 2007 as the 'about' page on our web-site shows. Clearly, Donald Trump's dismissal of the concerns of scientists about global warming is a serious concern. However, I think the efforts required from humanity to defeat global warming would be considerably less than the efforts necessary to clean up the consequences of war if the likes of Hillary Clinton and her backers get their way.
Tim Macknay #comment-270104">wrote:
"I don't think the risk of large-scale global conflict is particularly high, ..."
As is clear clear to me and Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the United States' Treasury, and former editor of the Wall Street Journal, the United States and its allies intend to either turn Russia into its colony again as it was in the time of Boris Yeltsin or to launch war against Russia.
How else do you explain the expansion of NATO to include Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and Romania, and the building of missile bases in those countries against promises made by President Reagan to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev not to expand NATO beyond Germany? How else do you explain the collaboration with NATO by Sweden, Finland and Georgia and their efforts to join?
Given what the United States and its allies have done to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Ukraine, the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan in recent decades, I think Russian President Vladimir Putin is clearly justified in his opposition to the expansion of NATO.
Good analysis.
Given first past-the-post voting, not voting for Trump is folly
The following was #comment-270099">posted to the same forum discussion mentioned above on JohnQuiggin.com :
#comment-270094">Tim,
I share most of your concerns about Donald Trump, but I can't agree that Donald Trump is just as likely to start a war as is Hillary Clinton. Given Hillary Clinton's past record, some of which I have mentioned above, it's a practical certainty that Hillary Clinton would start a war if she were to become President.
A critical point, which seems to be lost on most who write about the US Presidential elections, is that voting is not preferential. It is, most unfortunately, first past the post. That means that voters, who are opposed to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have to understand that a large vote for any of the other candidates, who may have policies which are significantly better than both those of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, could lead to Hillary Clinton becoming the next President of the United States.
Unless they feel certain that Donald Trump is every bit as awful as Hillary Clinton, they should vote for Donald Trump and not for their most preferred candidate.
In spite of his pronouncements against Iran, "bombing the hell out of ISIS" in Syria, and apparent support for Israel, there are reasons to hope that Donald Trump, unlike the case with Hillary Clinton, does not intend to start a war with Iran. Clearly his pronouncements against Iran are inconsistent with his support for cooperation with Russia and his praise of Russian action against the Islamic State terrorists in Syria. Iranian troops are also fighting against the Islamic State in Syria and a number have lost their lives.
Donald Trump's pronouncements can possibly be explained by the political context. The defeat of Democrats candidate Adlai Stevenson in the 1956 Presidential election convinced the then Senator John F. Kennedy (JFK) that a "peace candidate" could never win.
Consequently JFK concocted the story that the United States was under threat because then President Dwight Eisenhower and then Vice President Richard Nixon had allowed the Soviet Union to get ahead of the United States in the nuclear arms race.
That ploy succeeded in allowing JFK to just win in 1960. After he won, he refused, on three occasions, to allow the Joint Chiefs of Staff to launch a first strike nuclear attack against the Soviet Union (see "JFK and the Unspeakable - Why he died and why it matters"(2008) by James W. Douglass). At least many tens of millions of lives, and possibly humanity itself, were thus saved as a result of JFK's seemingly Machiavellian ploy in 1960.
Given what Donald Trump has said about JFK it seem seems likely that he is aware of this.
Demand: Oz pop growth to align down with OECD average of 0.63%
No China City
Spin meant that the population question was slipped past
Australia 1st candidate Sue Jakobi "No China City in Werribee"
Press Release
Susan Jakobi To Contest ‘Lalor’ In Federal Election For
Australia First Party
May 28
________________________________________________________
The Australia First Party has nominated Susan Jakobi for the seat of Lalor in
the Federal poll.
The party sees the issue of the China city set for Werribee as the core issue
for all Australians in the electorate. It is an issue that embraces every
aspect Australia’s mad rush to globalisation with its free trade, cheap
labour and inevitable Chinese takeover.
Susan said:
“I regard the planned Educity at Werribee as a case of ‘educate your
masters’. When the (mainly) Chinese students graduate, many will become
immigrants and become an ethnic slice of Australia’s managerial elite. The
city will be a vast parasite upon the Australian landscape. This $30bn
Chinese-backed plan for a hi-tech city of 80,000 residents will drain
resources away into the so-called global economy. I believe it will be linked
to an upgraded Avalon Airport and a new rail system that will link it to
other Chinese acquisitions. This is a type of colonisation.”
The China city is just another day in globo-land and it is being pushed upon
Victoria by the wealthy and well connected from local government to building
companies, from politicians to the multinationals and international banks.
Susan added:
“Will the Labor connected unions green ban it or black ban it? Will they
fight for jobs? Will the Education Union oppose it? We doubt all that.
Rather a union like the CFMEU will still be arguing with Australia First
Party as to whether the Eureka Flag is a symbol of the multicultural cuckoo
land or the flag of Australianism and our working people!
Susan Jakobi, 47, is a mother of three and a vineyards worker. She is an
organizer for Australia First in Victoria. Although she no longer lives in
the electorate, in view of issues involved, she says “this is of scant account.”
Susan concluded:
“In saying No China City in Werribee. I am standing up for an Australia where
the wealth and the resources, where the political power and the heritage of
the land is in the hands of the Australian People alone. That’s why I joined
Australia First.”
The party’s campaign is underway.
National Contact Line: 02 8587 0014
Susan: 0408 670 239
Forum discussion: Peace may be possible if Clinton is stopped
The following was #comment-270070">posted to the same forum discussion mentioned #comment-182555">above on JohnQuiggin.com :
#comment-270063">tony,
Thank you for my appreciation of my previous two posts (#comment-270002">#8 and #comment-270040">#11). I have since, on Sat 28 May, published another post #comment-270053">#15 in response to J-D's post #comment-270046">#14. That post is still awaiting moderation, because I had mistakenly linked to a second video concerning Libya as well as the video concerning Iran. That comment has also been #comment-182563">posted to my own web site should you wish to look at it there before it is approved here.
The number of people killed in wars that Hillary Clinton helped to start since 1990 is barely an order of magnitude less than the 60 million that died in that terrible global conflagration which ended 71 years ago in 1945. According to Ramsey Clark, who served as Attorney General under President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), as many as 1,500,000 may have died in Iraq alone as a result of war, starvation and disease since 1990. Certainly many hundreds of thousands died in Iraq. Given Clinton's record, our history from 1939 until 1945 may be about to repeat itself, only on a larger and more terrible scale, should she win the presidential election this year.
Captured animals pay for our negligence
Older people and political change
Syrians never stopped showing strong support for Bashar al-Assad
This was posted as a comment in response to the article Syria and the facade of partition (5/2/16) by Alex Ray | Between Deserts. It is currently awaiting moderation.
Supporters of Syria seem to have forgotten at least two elections in which Syrians demonstrated overwhelming support for the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad:
1. The most recent was the parliamentary elections of 13 April 2016 (see Syria Elections 2016: US-NATO’s Failed Attempt to Deny the Will of the Syrian People (14/4/16) by Vanessa Beeley | Global Research); and, before that,
2. the Presidential election of 3 June 2014. After that election the Syrian Mission to the United Nations held a press conference on 19 June 2014 at the United Nations offices in New York and testified that the elections were conducted fairly. See http://www.globalresearch.ca/syrias-press-conference-the-united-nations-doesnt-want-you-to-see , and its republication above with the embedded YouTube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnFQd4wBXnk .
If the elections were a facade, as Kerry and the msm have claimed, then why didn't anyone from those media outlets show up to that press conference? If the election was truly rigged or even if it was not possible to verify that the election had been carried out fairly, then surely those observers would have been torn to shreds under their scrutiny?
Either all the agents of the msm were astonishingly incompetent for not being there or there is another explanation: They knew that if they attempted to challenge what the Syrian Mission to the United Nations were going to say, by putting the same lying narrative about Syria that they had been publishing, then the whole world would have seen them for the liars that they are.
Gripping video on EU sanctions against Syria
I just watched this video and thought about putting it on the front page, but decided to draw attention to it in this comment. The video is in the text of the article above, but maybe more people will watch it like this:
The simplistic illogic of neoliberalism belies its insincerity
The 'self-sacrificing' Western Economic system
Capitalism spreading prosperity
High real estate values
With this record, how can Hillary Clinton be trusted?
The comment below has been #comment-270053">posted as part of the discussion in response to #comment-270053">Trump and Tribalism on johnquiggin.com .
J-D #comment-270046">wrote:
There isn't enough context for the Gaddafi clip for me to be sure what's going on there, ...
Then perhaps you could look at the other videos linked to from that page: "Clinton emails reveal the Golden reason she ousted Gaddafi" (6:17min), "Hillary Clinton lying for 13 minutes straight" (12:57), "Rand Paul Destroys Hillary Clinton Over Benghazi-Gate During Capitol Hill Press" (6:13), "Update 9/05/2015: Edward Snowden Speaks Out: "The Hillary", The Donald, & ...", etc.
J-D continued:
but I can tell what's going on in the other clip: Hillary Clinton clearly thinks that James Baker (sitting next to her) is a reckless buffoon, but she doesn't feel that she can come right out and say that. Her laughter hints at the contempt for him that she cannot otherwise express. (I feel some sympathy for anybody who holds James Baker in contempt.) , ...
I have to confess that Hillary Clinton's clever dig at James Baker went right over my head. As far as I could tell, it also went right over the heads of everyone else who posted a comment to that YouTube page:
"She has no soul...what would you expect. She represents everything that is wrong in this world.", "She's a disgusting warmonger", "I still can't believe she's running for president. Evil Is 100% REAL", "So that's how a real psychopath looks like.", "'The best thing that could happen to us is be attacked by somebody because it would unify us and legitimize the regime ... We're going to provoke an attack because then we will be in power for as long as anyone can imagine'. It's both amazing and chilling to finally hear some truth from Hillary.", "Hillary can not wait to invade another country. The people that vote for this psychopath will have blood on their hands. I wish people would wake up and realize what a sick individual this is.", "She's laughing like she's at a backyard barbecue.", "Baker is a complete lunatic as well. Of course Rose and the other mainstream media wimps say nothing. They never challenge these monsters.", "How repulsive, Hillary's loud laughing! War is NO joking matter. USA has killed hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 500,000 Iraqi in a fabricated war for profit and oil. No more war.", ... etc.
I was not able to find one post from anyone else who also appreciated that Hillary Clinton thought James Baker was a reckless buffoon and did not really think that war against Libya was great idea.
J-D continued:
For myself, what I mostly base my conclusions on is not any sort of individual comparison of Clinton and Trump, but rather a broader comparison of the past political record (all of it, but mostly the recent part) of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
I have failed to notice much difference between previous Democratic Party Presidents and Republican Party Presidents, at least since the time of Jimmy Carter. Please feel welcome to provide "a broader comparison of [their] past political record."
High immigration designed to conceal absence of innovation, ...
Not one SMH reader's comment supports high immigration!
All nineteen comments posted so far oppose high immigration. It seems that those in the Liberals, the Nationals, Labor and the Greens, who so stridently support high immigration, lose the courage of their convictions when faced with clear argument backed up by evidence.
The reason that not one post favours high immigration is not that opposition to high immigration amongst Australians is unanimous, even if it is overwhelming. Rather, it is because those Australians who support high immigration know that any attempt, on their part, to put their 'case' before such a forum, would only serve, through the course of debate, to further confirm to anyone reading the posts how harmful high immigration is to our best interests.
William Bourke's fab population editorial in the Age - pls write
Please consider commenting at the Age site.
Fairfax (Sydney Morning Herald)
online opinion piece
Today Fairfax published William Bourke's (Sustainable Australia Party)
opinion piece addressing the confusion between refugees and our
broader permanent immigration program.
Refugees
aren't the only immigration issue
Bourke writes: CLICK HERE
I believe that the
public needs a clearer understanding of the difference between
refugees and the broader immigration program, and that our current
politicians have failed us in this regard.
I make the suggestion that the starting point to ending the
confusion and properly educating the public is to remove the
jurisdiction of Australia's humanitarian intake (refugees and asylum
seekers) from the Immigration Minister.
Fairfax is asking for comments below the article. Please also
consider sharing this article with your network.
Kind regards
William Bourke
NSW Senate
Candidate
Sustainable Australia
http://www.votesustainable.
We have much more to fear from Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump
This #comment-270002">posted to a discussion about the United States' Presidential elections on JohnQuiggin.com, Trump and Tribalism:
I think that this discussion about the United States Presidential election needs to focus more on the policies put by the different candidates. The issues raised by Donald Trump include:
1. Effective border control, to stop the influx of immigrants from south of the border further eroding the wages and conditions of United States' workers; and
2. Ending ongoing wars and the threat of even bigger wars.
Given Hillary Clinton's record towards Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran (see video below), Libya, Syria and Haiti, I think much of Europe, including Marine Le Pen is right to fear a victory by Hillary Clinton far more than a victory by anyone else.
Post about Syria DELETED from supposed open discussion web-site
Professor John Quiggin, who posts to and maintains JohnQuiggin.com web-site, is a Social Democrat and avowed opponent of economic neoliberalism.
As with with every Australian blog of which I am aware, articles about overseas conflicts such as Syria, Yemen, Libya, Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc, in which thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands have died are never published on JohnQuiggin.com
This is in spite of John Quiggin's labeling his web-site as "Commentary on Australian and world events from a social-democratic perspective". (my emphasis)
Nevertheless, on pages labeled "Monday Message" and "Sandpit", I and other site users have, from time to time, published comments and engaged in debate about these conflicts.
This happened until on 20 Dec 2015, when, without warning, John Quiggin deleted a comment I posted about Syria with the #comment-266011">message:
Please, nothing more in support of Assad. I don't intend to debate this topic. Anything further will lead to a permanent ban – JQ
So, contrary to what is stated at the top of "Monday Message Boards", that visitors can "post comments on any topic", John Quiggin from that day on, forbade discussion about the Syrian conflict where possibly as many as 250,000 Syrians including 80,000 members of the Syrian armed forces have died since March 2011. This is no better than censorship. To advise site users that they can "post comments on any topic" is clearly misleading.
Fortunately, the comment I posted was previously posted #comment-181023">above on candobetter.net, so it has not been lost.
What you can do: Could I suggest that if you share my concerns about this instance of censorship, that you post your objection to JohnQuiggin.com and elsewhere on the web. Be sure also to post copies of your comments here.
My apologies for this 5 month delay in advising other candobetter users of my above concerns.
Candobetter.net and the ABC
ABC funding - meet the candidates night May 26 Malvern
History of US intervention in Latin America
Fear for well- being of dairy cattle
Globalisation means open-slather cruelty: cows and humans
The BBC repeats Amnesty's smear of the Yemeni resistance
Amnesty International's smear of Yemen's Houthi rebels, referred to above, has since also been cited uncritically by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) in Yemen conflict: Houthis 'carry out wave of detentions' (18/5/16).
The BBC 'report' states:
Amnesty's report documented what it described as a "chilling campaign to quash dissent" in areas of Yemen under the control of the Houthis and allied security forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh since December 2014.
Those held had frequently been tortured and denied access to a lawyer or their family, with some detentions lasting for up to 18 months, it said.
Many had been kept in secret, makeshift detention centres, including private homes, and then transferred multiple times between locations, it added.
In the vast majority of cases no reason for arrests were given.
Eighteen individuals featured in the report are still being held, including 21-year-old student Abdul Ilah Saylan, who was arrested outside a Sanaa cafe last August.
Members of his family told Amnesty how members of the security forces had tortured him in front of them when they visited him in detention in February.
"The guard began to beat him. Three other guards joined in and we watched... as the four guards beat him viciously," one relative was quoted as saying.
"They dragged him back inside when he fainted and told us to go home."
This report does briefly acknowledge that "the UN said in March that the [Saudi Arabia-led] coalition was responsible for twice as many civilian casualties as any other party to the conflict."
The last sentence appears to give a small amount of balance to an otherwise misleading story that can only cause more harm to the suffering Yemeni people. Yemen has, since March 2015, been fighting an invasion by forces from the neighbouring dictatorship of Saudi Arabia and assorted mercenaries from other parts of the globe. The invaders have been supplied with weapons including illegal cluster bombs. They have been supplied by Britain amongst others.
The BBC report concludes:
"Instead of incarcerating opponents for weeks or months on end, the Houthi armed group should release anyone who has been arbitrarily detained, implement safeguards to ensure detainees are treated humanely, and issue clear instructions that anyone under their command committing abuses will be held accountable," said Amnesty's Middle East deputy director James Lynch.
A people fighting for their survival cannot be expected to treat with tender care those within Yemen, who are siding with the invaders.
(I have not been able to find other corroborating evidence for Amnesty's claims about the Houthis anywhere else on the Internet. Should any reader find such evidence, please feel post any information, including a links to the sites in a comment.)
Demand-driven house prices
The Syria Big Lie, AGAIN, this time from the Huffington Post
In Russia Can End The War In Syria – Here's why you should care (12/5/16) | The Huffington Post, Ranya Alkadamani, "an Australian of Syrian origin," writes:
Where does ISIS sit? 1.3 percent of deaths. ...
The "well-respected" "Syrian Network of Human Rights" aka the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" has long since been shown up to be operated by one man "Rami Abdul Rahman out of his house in England's countryside".#fnCommentSubj1" id="txtCommentSubj1"> 1
Ranya Alkadamani continues:
... Where does ISIS sit? 1.3 percent of deaths.
So, the atrocities that ISIS has committed on a monstrous scale, filmed and boasted about across the Internet for more than 12 months now, represent only a small fraction of the deaths in Syria in that time? If ISIS is such a monster that the United States and its allies feel compelled to bomb them, then how much more monstrous must be the 'regime' of President Bashar al-Assad?
She continues:
More than 11,000 barrel bombs made of scrap metal and high explosives have been rolled out of regime helicopters onto hospitals, homes and schools since the UN banned them. These aerial attacks are the biggest killer of civilians. They drive extremism. According to NGOs working on documentation, casualties from aerial strikes, ground shelling and explosions count for over 50 percent of total documented deaths in 2014, a substantial part of which are caused by barrel bombs.
Assad wants you to think he is fighting terrorists. But he let ISIS metastasize so we would think he is the safer option. I hate to call it, but most of the international community has been played.
Syria not an Ally of Russia?
Ranya Alkadamani claims, "Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov stated bluntly, 'is not an ally of Russia'"
This is contrary to everything else I had previously understood about the relationship between Syria and Russia. Many times before, President Vladimir Putin and other Russian government spokespeople have repeatedly stated that they fear the consequences for Russia from extremists within Russia's own Islamic communities should the terrorists succeed in Syria.
My search of the Internet only found one source of this alleged quote from Sergei Lavrov, that is, A diplomatic breakthrough is a long way off in Syria’s deadly war (12/5/16) an opinion piece by Fawaz Gerges of The Guardian. The Guardian is infamous for its biased and misleading portrayal of the Syrian conflict. This article has since been reprinted by ElBadad and The Frontier Post.
Ranya Alkadamani ends with an appeal:
Before you go back to the rest of your day and the boring election campaign, do something that matters. Make your voice heard.
The link is to the so-called "Syria Campaign", the front page of which, also repeats the lying mainstream narrative that "The regime of Bashar al-Assad ... has killed more than 300,000 and driven 12 million from their homes."
If you truly want to help the people of Syria avoid the same fate that the peoples of Iraq and Libya endured at the hands of the governments of Australia, the United States and their allies since 1990, then ask of each candidate seeking your vote in the 'boring' forthcoming Australian federal election, if he/she will act to end diplomatic sanctions against Syria and restore diplomatic relations, should he/she win office on 2 July.
Footnote[s]
#fnCommentSubj1" id="fnCommentSubj1">1. #txtCommentSubj1">⇑ See "Pro-Democracy Terrorism": The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is a Propaganda Front funded by the EU (12/4/16) by Tony Cartalucci | Global Research.
Sustainable Australia not Sustainable Population Australia
Sustainable Australia Party
Martin Bryant
Crown land must be returned to the Crown, and the community
Comment about Shamnesty should replace their press release
Hillary Clinton: 'If I'm President, We Will Attack Iran...
Hillary Clinton: 'If I'm President, We Will Attack Iran . . . to Totally Obliterate Them.'
Article by Stephen Lendman.
Originally published on May 15, 2016 by Global Research at http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-if-im-president-we-will-attack-iran/5460484 these statements by Hilary Clinton have extreme relevance to the US election campaign.
On July 3, 2015, presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton addressed a hand-picked audience at a Dartmouth College campaign event. She lied calling Iran an 'existential threat to Israel . . I hope we are able to get a deal next week that puts a lid on (its) nuclear weapons program.'
[...]
The United States stands with Israel now and forever. We have shared interests. . .shared ideals . . .common values. I have a bedrock commitment to Israel's security.
She backs 'massive retaliation' if Iran attacks Israel, saying at the time:
'I want the Iranians to know that if I'm president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.'
She endorses using cluster bombs, toxic agents and nuclear weapons in US war theaters. She calls them deterrents that 'keep the peace'. She was one of only six Democrat senators opposed to blocking deployment of untested missile defense systems - first-strike weapons entirely for offense.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.
Response to Geoff Taylor's complaint re Amnesty International
Shamnesty claim: Syrian government war crimes worse than rebels'
This comment has been adapted to become the article above. The original article has been included as an #shamnestyAppendix">Appendix. - Ed
An evil and maliged new Australian custom
Older people blamed!
Environmentalist seniors and ageism
A.C.T. Roo Slaughter announced: starts Monday 16 May 2016
The Conversation(less)
How are bandicoots meant to adapt?
Lazy economics and
It costs to be part of this intellectual elite
HItler WW2 - ignore this comment
The comment below has been moved from here, because I consider that it disrupts the discussion on that page - Ed (13/5/16)
Just what sort of time warp is Candobetter living in.?
War kills humans. War is good.
Selling uranium to India increases the chance of a nuclear war between India and China. That might (at best) kill 500-mil from each side, a total of 1-billion.
Ummmm -- that will give Planet Earth a spell for lets see -- 12 years.??????
Ohhhhhh.
We need something more than nuclear war to stablise, then reduce, the human plague.
Natural disasters? Cyclone Yasi - biggest for decades - killed one person. (That dope was burning a kero heater in a sealed room and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. We're better off without him).
Only viruses can do it.
HIV is pathetic - down to lower than 8-million kills a year. While global growth is still 80-million. While village idiot Bill Gates spends millions trying to "cure" tropical diseases like malaria and cholera.
Candobetter Ed:
Publication of this comment was delayed while we wondered what to do about it. We don't want to be seen to condone recommendations of violence, but Zero isn't saying that he plans to unleash viruses or wars. We also don't want to be seen to censor anything not actually illegal. I know the author and his ironic sense of humour plus his deep despair about overpopulation, so I am going to publish it. But the reader is asked to be aware that candobetter does not advocate violence and does not rejoice in mayhem or natural disaster.
On the other hand, the lack of empathy displayed in the comment about the 'dope' burning the kero heater who perished during cyclone Yasi, could cause the relatives of that person distress - and for no good reason. Zero's comment would have been just as effective if he had written that 'one person died, not from the cyclone, but through misadventure.' We would have had no problem with that statement.
And the comments about HIV would be read by many people as callous and even psychopathically devoid of empathy. They might also be interpreted as racist by people who perceive HIV as a disease primarily affecting third world countries with non-European populations (overlooking Russia and the USA). Others might see such comments as styled for shock-value, therefore ironically effective in dramatising nature's apparent lack of defense against human overpopulation.
Zero's message that selling uranium to India increases the chances of war between India and China is a perceptive warning, even though it is couched in sarcasm. In addition, he dramatises the fact that Earth's human population growth would catch up with a billion deficit in only ten years.
So, here is your comment, Zero, finally published with these editorial comments. Now I'm going on to your next one. Thanks for reading candobetter.
Historian claims Soviet Union alone could have defeated Hitler
Following the recent 71st anniversary of VE day, Russia Insider, which is otherwise informative, insightful and an indispensable alternative to the lying mainstream media, posted to YouTube an excerpt (embedded below) from an RT interview of 9 May 2011. That was the day after the 66th anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) Day, 8 May 1945.
In this interview, Professor Geoffrey Roberts claimed that the Soviet Union could have, on its own, defeated Nazi Germany, without the help of its Western Allies.
Whilst Professor Roberts is right to remind people of the heroism and terrible sacrifice of the Soviet people, I can't share his certainty that the Soviet Union, alone, could have defeated Nazi Germny. In all probability, it seems to me that, without Great Britain defying Hitler after the fall of France in 1940, and without the ongoing fighting of Britain in the Balkans, [1] North Africa and the Atlantic Ocean, the subsequent entry of United States into the war and the aerial bombardment of Germany's industry, the Soviet Union would have almost certainly lost that war.
The reason I think that the Soviet Union could not have won without help from the Western allies, is that it seems that there must be a limit to how much sacrifice any country can endure. I doubt for the Soviet Union that that limit could have been much more than the 27 million and without help from America and the British Commonwealth and other allies, many more Soviets would have certainly died.
In fact, that terrible 27 million death toll is much higher than it need have been and was only made necessary by Stalin's criminal misleadership of the Soviet Union.
Had Stalin heeded the warnings from Britain, America, his own spies and German army deserters, that Germany was going to invade, many of the military defeats and much of the terrible loss of life which followed after 22 June could have been avoided. Had Stalin not destroyed much of the Red Army Officer corps in the great purges of 1937, Nazi Germany could well have defeated at a cost of well under the 400,000 lives lost by the United States in that war instead of 27 million.
I posted to that YouTube page and to Twitter, the following comment:
27 million Soviets died in the Second World War thanks to Stalin's 'leadership'. How many more lost lives do you think the USSR could have sustained?
No-one has responded to that comment.
Footnote[s]
[1] This is notwithstanding Churchill's crimes against the Greek resistance after October 1944.
Are you sick of The Conversation's mealy mouthed 'research'?
Australia First Party
Outscale permafrost fires in NE China close Russian border
Protest report on Moreland Mayor's 'sod-turning ceremony'
Opportunities though..
Mainstream media Syria narrative restated and editor's response
failure to question popular authority is our downfall
Roos
Kangaroo disapproval
Betrayal of Greece by Churchill and Stalin glossed over
In today's (9/5/16) otherwise informative episode of RT's SophieCo, Roosevelt eager to open 2nd front, but Churchill resisted, fearing defeat – WWII historian presenter Sophie Shevardnadze and her guest Professor Geoffrey Roberts, discuss the notorious "percentages agreement", made between Churchill and Stalin in Moscow in October 1944:
Sophie Shevardnadze: Now, during the war, Churchill came to Moscow on several occasions to meet with Stalin tet-a-tete. In one of those meetings, the spheres of influence on Balkans were agreed with the British Prime Minister just scribbling some figures on the piece on paper during the dinner, getting Stalin's approval on what is now called a "percentages deal". So, were a lot of decisions of the Big Three fateful to whole countries, reached in such an informal and personal manner?
Professor Geoffrey Roberts: The percentage agreement was actually quite an exceptional episode. It has got a lot of attention because Churchill kind of overdramatized the episode in his memoirs after the war. Actually, the percentages agreement didn't mean very much. The only thing that really mattered in practice was the Stalin agreed not to interfere with the British in Greece, but then, Soviets already decided that Greece was part of the British sphere of influence anyway and so they weren't going to interfere. That wasn't much of a concession. ...
In fact, the Soviets did interfere in Greece. They interfered in October 1944 to help the British Army to trick the Greek ELAS partisans, who had liberated much of Greece from the Germans and Italians, into disarming. The British were able to do so with the help of the Central Committee of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) to whom most of the Kapetanios leaders of the partisans were loyal ('Kapetanios' can denote both the singular and the plural). In turn the Central Committee of the KKE blindly followed Stalin's orders.
Those Greeks who had collaborated with the Nazis, supposedly under arrest, were protected by the British from vengeful Greek crowds and re-armed in order to again fight, this time for the British, against their fellow Greeks.
Some partisans and some Kapetanios found ways to surreptitiously avoid obeying the order to disarm.
When fighting broke out again the British were so threatened by ELAS on a number of occasions that they considered getting reinforcements from Italy or from those resiting the German winter counter-offensive at the Ardennes in Belgium.
However, sadly the British and their Greek allies eventually defeated the Resistance.
Two years later, in 1946, the Greeks rose up, again, against the corrupt Government that thee British had inflicted upon them. In 1949, after three years the Greek resistance was again crushed. In both instances a key factor in the defeat of the Greek partisans was the misleadership of the KKE Central leadership, who, unlike Josip Broz Tito in neighbouring Yugoslavia, failed to stand up to Stalin's treachery.
Intergenerational organisation
A postcript on power
Thanks for the feedback Matthew
Sheila's comments
News that the West learns collective responsiblity overstated
Hi Matthew,
I know you worked hard on this piece but it runs so counter to much of what we support on candobetter.net that I feel constrained to make these comments.
MATTHEW wrote: The West is learning about Collective Responsibility: We are starting to realise that all the little decisions we make about what to do, or what not to do really matter. We are learning that throwing our plastic bag (or our used coffee cups, or our cigarette buts) into the street, does matter - because collectively all this rubbish is having an impact on our environment and especially our wildlife.
SHEILA: Who is this 'we'? The situation seems to be becoming worse, not better. We are losing environmental protection laws; consumption continually rises. New generations grow up with very little understanding or interest in wildlife or habitat loss. In the 1970s people were more aware and had more traction. Then NGOs were seduced into cooperating with corporations and receiving government grants. They were easily infiltrated and gutted.
MATTHEW wrote: We are learning that things we once thought of as insignificant are in fact significant and often have far reaching effects. In Australia we have learned that longer showers affect our water supplies, that our small individual actions are impacting our water storages as well as the flow down our rivers, and consequently the water available for farming and other purposes.
SHEILA: Water has been commodified to take advantage of forced population growth. Farmers have been ruined by having their water diverted to intensive irrigators and pig farmers. Steve Bracks was a major propagandist for mass immigration and 'saving our water for future generations' and he was behind the water grab in the Mallee Wimmera that Pipe Right Inc tried to fight and lost. see "Government interference in Wimmera Mallee Water - some recent history" Consider the $3b at stake in the Wonthaggi Desalinisation Plant and consider how strong a protest this drew and how the judiciary silenced this protest by bankrupting the NGO. Water is a focus of massive corruption in this country and globally. The outsourcing of its management has brought billions to the 1% and has taken our power to control its use away. Furthermore the business model is totally unsustainable, See, "Critique of Environment Victoria's 'Six Steps to Water Leadership' workshop"
MATTHEW wrote: What an awakening! Who would he guessed that city dwellers, so removed from nature and so supplied with apparent excesses of everything from water to electricity to coffee (and a wide variety of palm oil products) would start to become aware of the plight of coffee growers (and of deforestation) in distant lands, and to change their habits based on this knowledge!
SHEILA: They only change their habits based on growthist propaganda, which subsumes all independent voices, fooling the uncritical. And it works on guilt (which seems to be the message you are faithfully relaying here, although probably without any focused benefit). I haven't noticed the growthists pushing against palm oil. It is everywhere. In soap, in washing powder, in shampoo...
MATTHEW wrote: We are coming to realise that there is such a thing as collective responsibility - that we cannot disassociate ourselves from the society we live in and its impacts locally and globally. It is becoming increasingly difficult for Westerners to say about foreign wars that they personally have nothing to with them. All a protaganist must do is ask, well do you drive a car? Then you use oil and in one way or another are contributing to problems in the middle east. Do you use a computer, mobile phone or iPad - then how can you say that you and your actions play no part in the conflicts in Africa over the scarce resources used to make these devices? Do you buy manufactured goods from China? Does your country sell them the coal used to power those factories? Then how can you say that Chinese pollution not - even if in only some tiny way - your fault? One challenged by such a statement may retort: "I have no choice but to drive a car, that is how most westerners live" or "I have no choice but to buy Chinese goods, as these goods are not produced here". But they used to be - why are they not made here now?
SHEILA: Because, against the wishes of the population, globalism broke down trade protection (A terrible policy amongst many better of Whitlam's) and put an end to a swathe of small businesses. Those that survived have since been decimated by the cost of land, rent, power, water which makes production costs too expensive, reduced profit margin and makes Australia uncompetitive with most other countries which have much lower land-costs. See "Land and Rent Costs to Business make Australia uncompetitive"
MATTHEW wrote: This raises the second thing we are learning - consequences accumulate not only over space but over time. The purchasing choices of recent decades, and the constant search to save a little here and there has had far-reaching effects. Our choices have supported companies that seek to produce things as cheaply as possible, and punished those that payed good wages and provided good conditions, Thus we as a nation have shed industries, and jobs, that it seems will never be regained. And now many of us really have no choice but to buy the cheapest, as our job market shrinks and the pressures we bought to bear on overseas countries are now brought to bear on us? And it is mostly the younger generation who struggle to find work and who are paying exorbitant prices for things that were - until fairly recently - relatively affordable eg: housing and basic utilities.
SHEILA: Once again a consequence of destroying local production and encouraging massive imports from poorer countries, paid for by credit cards marketed by the 1% who profit from all this.
MATTHEW wrote: So - slightly older Australians might say - this is not my doing, others allowed this offshoring of our industry, others allowed the highly profitable (for packaging companies) disposable plastic bottle industry to supplant the previous, much more sustainable, refundable bottle system (remember the glass bottles, which you would get 20c for if you returned - back when 20c was the cost of playing an arcade video game?) But it was our doing - collectively. Who else can be held responsible for the paths our society has taken?
SHEILA: The power elite who have allowed the public messaging stick to be captured in the form of the duopoly press who also control the political elite here. Australians have been disorganised in a big way and have been led to believe that what the mass media and the ABC pretend is public opinion really is, so they feel alone and invalidated. See Taking back the talking stick (Which is why the alternative media like candobetter.net should validate them, not just repeat the brainwashing of the mass media and government which blames us all or says we wanted this. People fought all of this as much as they could. They lost to traitors like Keating and Hawke profiting from Reagan Thatcher economics post oil shock - but there was a completely different way of behaving, which was the tack taken by Europe.)
MATTHEW wrote: Who? People in other countries? Which such people had such control over us? Our tiny elite - our 1%? Do 1% of people really have so much sway over the other 99%?
SHEILA: Absolutely! Haven't you read anything about the Property Council of Australia or the Multicultural Foundation of Australia? (see "Australia - Standing room only when 80% of Australians do not want a big Australia." Look at the political theory of focused benefits and diffuse costs in a democracy.
Haven't you noticed how mass media and government continually make up stories about why we are at war, which they market repetitively to less and less well-educated generations? Generations who have not even learned clear thinking, let alone history or geography. The anti-war movement has been completely subsumed to the pro-refugee movement, which is carried by the mainstream media because it benefits their war industries by drowning out the fact that refugees are created by wars.
MATTHEW wrote: Are we really that powerless? Or is the truth that the 99% - or least a large proportion of them - were in some way complicit? Is it true that evil men only succeed where good men stay silent? So where were the good men? Where were the 99% of good men, and women, who could have stood up and stopped any of these things - if they really wanted to? Or were the 99% happy to go along and allow, for example, the introduction of negative gearing?
SHEILA: Negative gearing as the major cause of housing unaffordability is another furphy. It's just a form of investment with logical tax deductibility. (See "Are the Greens on the right track with respect to negative gearing? - Article by Sally Pepper." It is part of the fuel of massive over-reliance on property development in our economy, fueled by mass immigration and constant population movement in search of jobs, divorce, etc. There are many ways to counter the overimportance of the real-estate sector of the economy, but manipulating negative gearing so that it only applies to new constructions accelerates the property development juggernaut and habitat destruction. As well, it pits home owners against non-home owners when the two should be in solidarity about the right to shelter. There is never any real focus on the property industry that benefits disproportionately from negative gearing - it is instead held up as a growth industry that gives people 'jobs' [which they would not be so reliant on if they were not all in debt].
MATTHEW wrote: To not stand up against something so obviously unjust and unfair? Perhaps it didn't seem important, just like many of these things; the growing use of plastics, the growing dependence on cars, and the subsequent relative degradation of public transport infrastructure. So what we are now learning is that these small things do matter - and in the long run they matter a lot! So what is to be done now? It is clear that now we must change our old indolent ways - we must start to stand-up for what is right, big things of course, but also we must take responsibility for our small decisions too. Why buy a disposable coffee-cup (another piece of land-fill, if it doesn't end up in the bay)? Why buy $1 milk when you know farmers are struggling, for goodness sake we can nearly all afford to pay a fair price for milk!
SHEILA: People might start out by trying not to use throw away cups and by trying to buy less-exploitative milk, but given the increasing rates of debt and precarity, many people make cuts even to the smallest expenses. Most people do not use throwaway cups in their homes, but hospitals and corporate cafeterias and many cafes now do. Why? I would like to know. They seem to prefer it to investing in dishwashing machinery.
MATTHEW wrote: So I suggest we all do take personal responsibility for the collective actions of our society - we are part of it, and we cannot disassociate ourselves from it or its effects. We cannot say that homelessness, unemployment, unprofitable farming etc, are not our fault - because in some way these things are only the way they are because we allow them to be. Deep down we know this - the next step is to honestly acknowledge it. White Australians know that collectively they carry the responsibility to amend past mis-deeds. We know it matters for a white Australian Prime-Minister to apologise to the Indigenous people of this land. It is effectively a collective apology.
SHEILA: Apologies are cheaper than land-tenure. Australia didn't give back their land and successive PM's are trying to free-title indigenous land - to make it another brick in the yellow brick road of the 1% who benefit from real-estate speculation in a growing population. No treaty has been negotiated. Cheap, these apologies. I find them shamefully superficial.
MATTHEW wrote: Some may deny they have any responsibility for the past and for the on-going situation of Aborigines in this country - but they do. As long as we do not have a treaty with the Aborigines we are letting them down.
SHEILA: That's right, but do you think the governments and press intend to allow the idea of a treaty to reach serious debate? Of course not.
MATTHEW wrote: Who else's responsibility is it to fix past wrongs? Is it just the job of a few politicians?
SHEILA: A 'few' politicians? A mass of overpaid, commercially well-connected stooges in internationally affiliated parties with globalist agendas. They should represent us on this, but they represent the banks, the land-bankers and the press moguls. That is why there are such attempts to get new political parties going, but since they are rarely covered in the mainstream media, it is difficult to get them known - because we do not have any other state or national media besides the ABC and Murdoch/Fairfax. Furthermore it is clear that the vast bulk of our politicians do not respect or fear the public - and why should they? The state pays and controls the police, the army, and the law-makers.
MATTHEW wrote: Or some social welfare workers? Or is the responsibility of everyone of us to ensure that everyone else in our country is treated justly; treated fairly; treated humanely?
SHEILA: Bureaucracy has that effect. Once you might have gone next door and taken a child out of a dangerous situation, but these days you fear prosecution because it is 'not your job'. So you ring the police or child welfare. Our societies are segmented into roles that divide us and disempower us which are regulated from top down and people don't know each other due to population movement (moving house, migration, commuting) and we have little presence or power at local and neighborhood level.
MATTHEW wrote: Again the question arises - if it is not up to you - then who is it up to? The person next to you? Why them and not you? Thus we must start to take responsibility for our actions - including our past mistakes. We must have sufficient humility to do this, and also sufficient selflessness to not worry about how our own personal situation may be detrimentally effected by doing the right thing - that is if we want to live in the country where the right thing is done. Because if we do not, then we keep going right on ignoring all problems we are collectively creating by putting our heads in the sand, seeking the cheapest bargains where-ever we can, and allowing ourselves to be more and more driven to the level of animals by the selfish, individualistic, competitive nightmare we are currently experiencing.
SHEILA: This message is what we hear all the time from the mass media and the churches. The meek shall inherit the earth, but in the mean-time, shut up and look to your own sins. It is all 'our fault', but we have so little power and talk so little with each other. We have been diversified, not just by mass immigration, but by our jobs, our new classes, our educations, debt and overwork, that it is very hard for us to find common values. Candobetter.net tries to bring these matters to the foreground and create awareness and promote organisation to take back the talking stick; we are not into telling the masses that they are guilty of creating the problems from which the one per cent all benefit. with the mass media there is a resemblance to the organised church, which conveyed from the pulpit what it deemed the public needed to know, and urged them to consult it about any problems instead of their taking power for themselves.
MATTHEW wrote: So let all Australians - new to the country or old - take responsibility for the lack of a treaty with the decendants of the original inhabitants of this land. And let the older Australians apologise to the younger generations for the mess they have left them to deal with. Then let us hope that the Indigenous and the young can forgive and then we can all get on with fixing this mess, recreating a truly human, civilised, society in which both people and planet are cared for. The alternative is now obvious - it leads to oblivion of all that is good, leaving a bunch of increasingly selfish people fighting over the decaying scraps of a dying planet.
SHEILA: An indigenous treaty without an end to mass immigration would be laughable. So let's make that part of the treaty. That would also benefit everyone else born or resident in this country - except the 1%.
Academics skirt around the problem
Brisbane Koalas face extinction, 80% decline in parts of Qld
from Qld koala population at risk (8/5/16) | Sky News:
The future of South East Queensland's koala population hangs in the balance after a report revealed populations in some areas had declined by as much as 80 per cent. The University of Queensland report that claimed koalas living in and around Brisbane were at risk of extinction.
John Quiggin paradigm