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Frankston Music Festival

Frankston Beach Association is sponsoring the Peninsula Folk Club’s performance at the Frankston Music Festival on Sunday 28th April. FBA would love to see you at their event. Book online here
Details:

Fantastic performances by Green Fieldz, Harmonics, Just for Fun plus much more
Sunday 28th April
1 pm Life Saving Club
1 Long Island Drive Frankston

Cost $10 Please book online here.

While you are there, take in the exhibition of Marine life photographer Freddie Leong’s spectacular work.

Freddie is well known for his artistic and dramatic underwater images from Port Phillip Bay and many other locations. Some of his work is held by the National Library of Australia. It is well worth the visit to see Freddie’s amazing images. See more of his images here.

(For more information on FBA’s event contact Eva Welch [email protected] 0407 323282)

I posted this comment in respose to Syrian War Report – March 21, 2019: ISIS Influence Is Still Strong In US-controlled Part Of Syria (21/3/19) | South Front. At the memoment it has been 'marked as spam' and not published. In my past experience, other posts in which I have included links have also been marked as spam. Hopefully this will be shortly fixed by the South Front administrators.

This is yet another article which fails to reconcile the different explanations of ISIS and the illegal United States' intervention in Syria.

For most of the Syrian conflict since March 2011, it seemed to me that ISIS/Al Quaeda/Al Nusra Front/Syrian 'Democratic' Front (SDF)/... were allies [1] of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia against the popular elected President of Syria (Syria's press conference the United Nations doesn't want you to see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnFQd4wBXnk). This criminal war, mostly done by proxies of the U.S. has cost (by one outdated estimate) the lives of 400,000 Syrians, including 80,000 Syrian soldiers.

Now we find that the U.S. is, in fact, (illegally) in Syria to fight against the same terrorists they I thought they had previously supported!?

So, is the United States now is a force for GOOD in Syria? So, why aren't they cooperating with the Syrian government (and Russia, Iran and Hezbollah) against the terrorists? Any reporting of the Syrian conflict which fails to at least acknowledge these apparent contradictions is deficient in my view.

Footnote[s]

[1] Part of the cover story for Western support of those terrorists was that, as bad as they were, they were not as brutal as the 'regime' of President Bashar al-Assad, so clearly Syrians would be better off if Western aid to ISIS resulted in their victory.

The author, a schoolteacher, writes:

“as an adult who has tried to stop over-population, over-development and habitat destruction in this city and this country, I know that the government and the press are entirely capable of ignoring indignation on the steps of parliament from multiple residents' action groups.”

From this he argues that today's march in the city was a waste of time:

“Our schools should not be marching in the city. ”

Instead, they should be marching to their local councils to demand that they act:

“marching, if we are going to march, to our respective local councils, with carefully thought out lists of demands.”

He argues that all the problems that today's student marchers wanted our state and federal governments to fix, could, instead, be fixed by local governments, schools, teachers and local communities.

Whilst, of course, we cannot hope to fix the environment without action by individuals, grass roots action and local councils, no amount of work on this front can hope to overcome the effects of state and federal governments acting to serve the interests of corporations against the interests of ordinary people and the environment. In particular, how can just local governments and local grassroots action hope to counteract the effects of high immigration encouraged by our state governments and our federal government?

Furthermore, how can only such local grass-roots action hope to stop our Federal Government from siding with the U.S. Empire against the people of Venezuela, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen and the even worse environmental destruction, not to mention human suffering, that that has caused?

Those, who harm our environment, can be held to account at elections …

Whilst we still live in a formal democracy, can vote and even stand for office, I think it is still possible to hold to account at election time those politicians who have served us so poorly. If done effectively, a good many, who had previously voted for them will be looking for other candidates to vote for.

Of all other candidates other candidates seeking our vote, they must be must be asked what they plan to do for the environment if they win office. In this way the profile of such candidates could be raised to the point where they should gain, at the very least, a good first preference vote. With effective grass-roots political campaigning we should even be able to hope to get such candidates elected to parliament.

… and replaced with elected members who serve us and look after the environment

The profile of such standing members of parliament would certainly make the local grass-roots action advocated above more effective. From this we can hope to move forward to them being able to form governments that properly represent us.

If this seems overly ambitious, this has already happened on at least two past occasions in Australia : the Federal Labor Government of Gough Whitlam from 1972 until 1975 and the South Australian State Labor Governemnt of Don Dunstan from 1970 until 1979.

If it has already happened in Australia, why can't we hope again to get such governments elected to power, but, next time, make sure that they remain in office?

But, again, I don't see how we can hope to achieve this though just grass-roots action at the local level.

ABC claims higher immigration = more jobs?

Yesterday morning on RN Breakfast Fran Kelly repeatedly claimed, during an interview (can’t remember with whom) that a reduction in immigration would result in reduction of new jobs (this is in response to Morrison’s claim to be creating million or more new jobs).

This morning (Wed 30 January), ABC economic reporter Jane Norman made exactly the same claim in an interview on ABC News radio at about 6:25 am.

The claim is that higher immigration = more jobs.

I would have thought it is more complicated than this? For example there is the matter of absolute increase in total number employed (which may well occur if total population is increased) and relative changes in rate of unemployment? What about effects on wages? Basic laws of supply and demand for labour?

By Missy Ryan
December 19 at 9:11 AM

The Trump administration has decided to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria, a defense official said on Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that has not yet been announced, said the decision would include the entire force of more than 2,000 U.S. service members. It was made on Tuesday, the official said.
President Trump has long promised to conclude the campaign against the Islamic State and has questioned the value of costly and dangerous military missions overseas.

The decision comes as tensions increase with NATO ally Turkey, which has promised to launch a military offensive against Syrian Kurdish forces, which are partnered with the United States against the Islamic State, in U.S.-controlled territory in Syria.

The withdrawal is expected to occur as quickly as possible, the official said.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Wednesday that U.S. troops would be withdrawn from northeast Syria.

Read more here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-plans-to-pull-us-troops-from-syria-immediately-defense-official-says/2018/12/19/4fcf188e-0397-11e9-b5df-5d3874f1ac36_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.72efa398f3bd

John, thanks for your comment. We have to be very careful to get details from people close to what is happening with regard to the fires, not believe the corporate and state press. They are hopeless reporters on fires and forests.

I have heard from someone affected that the rainforest belt stopped the bushfires, at least those along the Kings Bore track in Kaloola National Park, where there is a big belt of rainforest. He is a bushwalker and environmentalist with local government knowledge, who was informed by a fire fighter.

That is what you would expect and I would also expect to be misinformed by the corporate press, who all want to clear land by pretending rainforests are flammable like the rest. I heard what you heard, that the rainforest was burning, and that was really alarming, but I would need much better info than we get from the state or corporate press.

Maybe some other readers can give us more info.

There were of course many other fires. One was in the Tinninburra State Forest, which is full of [highly flammable] pines, not natural forest. Apparently it has also has a high rate of housing inside, leaving it both cleared, flammable and at risk of loss of infrastructure and human life - which are not big risks in rainforests.

There is another factor that must be considered with regard to disaster reporting. From the 1980s insurance companies have been predicting higher and higher financial and human costs from natural disasters. Not because they expected more natural disasters, but because humans were now building in high risk areas and populating them very densely. An example of this in Australia was the Brisbane Floods, where the PM and the Lord Mayor had allowed and encourage building on floodplains. This is widespread practice by our dollar crazy elites.

With regard to climate change and rates of natural disasters, independent of settlement patterns, I think that science has to show caution. Time will reveal the role of climate change.

Obviously if we build in high risk areas, on coasts and in river beds, if we clear rainforest barriers to fire, if we plant forests of pine with no barriers of rainforest, if we clear the land and increase the Albedo effect, and build heat islands everywhere, there will be local climate change to add to the effects of global climate change.

I agree with you that we don't have much time, but permaculture is a way of surviving as we go down. The Yellow Jacket manifesto would also be a good basis for encouraging localisation.

Crispin Hull has written a perceptive article about too high immigration and the Scanlon Foundation's immigration propaganda:

A SURVEY on immigration published this week seems to fly in the face of all other indications showing that more Australians are objecting to high immigration.

This week’s survey reports that 52 per cent of respondents think Australia’s immigration intake is about right or too low. That seems to run counter to other polls and broader political concern that immigration is too high, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying that he had heard “loud and clear” that “Australians in our biggest cities are concerned about population. Read more/

Tim says that "Expressions of support, under this post in my facebook comments section, are welcome. I will try to have them published. Reject political #Censorship. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdk-ejNiWkhvtN8xVn3ZZTZNLThn9XiLXnbOI0oQ6LR8XPErA/viewform

The following was posted beneath US military trying to catch up with Russian hypersonic weapons (26/11/18) | The Duran by Seraphim Hanisch

A century ago, the leaders of Russia understood that, unless the criminal rulers who had caused the First World War were removed from power, another even more terrible war was inevitable. In spite of Russian efforts, the rulers of the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Japan and Italy were not removed. As a consequence, just as Lenin and Trotsky - so vilified even by most of today's alternate newsmedia - had warned, the world endured another terrible war from 1937 until 1945 in which 60 million died.

Assuming that Vladimir Putin understands that an endless conventional and nuclear arms race cannot possibly preserve a worthwhile peace, does he have any other proposal to remove from the world, once and for all, the threat of war?

On Saturday night, I had to sit through the nauseating spectacle of watching, on ABC television, so many Labor Party apparatchiks and their underlings congratulating themselves for their massive election victory.

On Saturday, in the voting booth, I again put the Liberals last on my voting form, as I have always done, but almost immediately regretted having done so. Still, I naively looked forward to seeing the Andrews government get deservedly trounced on the ABC television voting count coverage that night. Even if, as Sally has shown, the Victorian Liberals are no better than Labor, I think the rejection of the Andrews government would have been preferable to what occurred.

Instead, that night Daniel Andrews was rewarded for policies which can only lead to greater traffic congestion, increased housing costs, the degradation of our natural envIronment and the continuing decline in our quality of life.

So, thank you, Sally for explaining to me what this election outcome actually meant.

For the time being, the true effects of these policies are being masked by apparent economic prosperity for the many Victorians who are now employed in housing construction and in the construction and management of all the additional infrastructure necessary to cope with population growth. However, none of the 'products' of this economic activity - housing, high rises, tollways, railway and bus infrastructure - can be exported. Unless they are all built only from components made within Australia, all of these 'products' will only add to Australia's current account deficit.

I have one minor concern with the article, however. You wrote, "They both have to deal with massive population growth ..." when both the Liberals and Labor are so clearly the cause of population growth they are now 'dealing' with. This is clearly illustrated by their notorious Victorian government web site site Live in Melbourne. The Andrews government is clearly a principle cause of the massive population growth they now have to deal with.

The following was posted as a comment to Nigel Farage lashes out at Angela Merkel, as Chancellor attends EU Parliament debate (Video) (13/11/18) by Alex Christoforou | The Duran :.
Unfortunately, many other otherwise informative web-sites take the supposed high moral ground on refugee and immigrant rights that Nigel Farage has so conclusively demolished (I would have appreciated knowing that Nigel Farage's speech began 3:59 minutes into the video). Explicitly or implicitly they condemn those who try to defend national borders, including Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, Marine le Pen and the German AfD.
These web-sites include the Iranian http://presstv.com/ and the Venezuelan https://www.telesurenglish.net/
In turn those media and countries which own those media are vilified by some of those listed above, notably President Trump, when, in reality (as argued recently by Paul Craig Roberts) they could be Donald Trump's allies.

You are right, Quark. It is so obvious that we need demographers to tell us not to believe our eyes. Liz is paid to tell us nonsense; she should be ashamed of herself. Rather refreshingly, the NSW treasurer, Dominic Perottet, has written truthfully about immigration today in the Australian (p.12) "There's room to grow, but we need breathing space." Despite the title it paints a truthful picture of the costs, although it does not mention the horrendous sacrifice of native animals and wild spaces to the god of population growth:

"[...] We can't pretend that high immigration comes without a cost, and we believe growth should not impose an unfair burden on those already here. Excessively rapid growth puts downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on housing prices, both of which have sorely stung workers and aspiring home-owners in Sydney and other parts of NSW for a decade.

It also means more people on trains, more cars, more students in our schools and more patients at hospitals. And it's the NSW government, not the federal government, that is responsible for providing the necessary support for the surging population.

When you look at the numbers, it's no surprise communities in Sydney are feeling the pressure. In 2006 annual net overseas migration to Australia increased to roughly double its average pace across the preceding 25 years. After the mining boom, the bulk of those migrants have come to NSW, as our annual share of national immigration rose from 25 per cent in June 2012 to 38 per cent. [...] Even if the NSW population stayed at today's level it would take time to complete the work so that our communities could be more livable [sic] [...] Instead, extraordinarily high rates of immigration risk pushing those outcomes beyond our grasp. "

Dominic Perottet goes on to state, incorrectly, that this is "a problem state governments are powerless to solve on their own because we have no say in the national immigration rate."

That is not true; state governments have been egging on the immigration rate, visibly, with their state immigration portals, constantly advertising for more people to come and live in their cities and states. This is the first time that the NSW government has stood on its hind legs and said, "Enough."

Unfortunately, in Victoria, the government is really just another form of the property development lobby, and they never say enough. We should say, "Enough," to them.

The following was posted beneath America Doesn't Need a 'Fort Trump' in Poland (30/10/18) by Doug Bandow | Russia Insider.

That so many Poles seem willing to allow their country in 2018 to be used as a staging post for NATO's planned war against Russia and other independent nations may, in part, be a consequence of the shameful treatment of Poland since the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939 and the Red Army attacking Poland from the east on 17 September 1939 as Poland was resisting the Nazi invasion from the West.

Subsequently many Polish officers, captured by the Red Army, were executed on Stalin's orders at Katyn Wood.

After the Warsaw Uprising began on 1 August 1944, until the insurgency was crushed on 2 October the Red Army sat on the west bank of the Vistula River in the Praga division of Warsaw. They gave no support to the insurgency - no artillery support, no aerial bombardment and no supplies. The Red Army even obstructed attempts by Britain and the United States to fly in resources from Italy.

After the insurgency was crushed the Red Army continued to sit on its hands as the Nazis razed Warsaw to the ground.

Paradoxically, even Red Army soldiers - as well as Russia in 2018 - were victims of Stalin's betrayal of Warsaw. How many tens of thousands - or hundreds of thousands - fewer Red Army soldiers would have had to have been sacrificed to defeat Nazi Germany had the Warsaw Uprising triumphed instead of being crushed?

On 1 September 1944 George Orwell wrote critically of much of the British left for pushing of Stalin's excuses and Stalin's smears of the Warsaw insurgents. His article was published in the left-wing Tribune.

I am sure that if George Orwell were around today, he would be no less opposed to Poland's membership of NATO than he was for the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.

For more information, read "Rising '44" (2003) by Norman Davies 637 pages or 776 pages including preface, appendices, notes, index, etc. (http://normandavies.com/books/rising-44/?lang=en)