Maryland Wilson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, announced today (June 30, 2015) that Queensland LNP Senator Barry O’Sullivan will have a singular focus when he spearheads an Australian government trade delegation to China to try to seal the deal on kangaroo meat exports. #kangaroo #exploitation. The Trans Pacific Partnership agreements, if they go through, would worsen the already terrible situation of many Australian native animals and could provoke species extinctions.

Calling to friends of wildlife, and drawing attention to the plight of kangaroos as particularly urgent, President Wilson said:

"This is a huge issue now.

We could lose our independence as a nation with global trade agreements

Kangaroos will be global 'asset', not just our native wildlife, protected as they are,

With more than 1.3 billion people in China, with an appetite for kangaroo meat, it's unsustainable. Nobody really knows how many kangaroos in Australia, and numbers have plummeted in NSW. They are hated because they cause "grazing pressure" (they eat grass!) and the government wants every blade for livestock - despite the drought over Queensland."

Donate to the AWPC to help Maryland's entirely volunteer non-profit organisation continue its great service to Australian wildlife. AWPC is a tiny organisation that punches above its weight, made up largely of hands-on activists. Download the AWPC Donation form.

This short article around a letter from Bob Couch, records how the ABC spontaneously contacted a candidate for an alternative political party to tell him that the ABC would not give him any time to talk about his policies. The candidate had not approached the ABC, they approached him. Candobetter.net has run a few articles about how the ABC excludes candidates outside the major parties and we are running this story because the issue is so important. The ABC should be informing Australians of all the political alternatives out there so that we can really choose people who will represent us on issues of concern. See also and http://candobetter.net/node/1159.

The decision by the ABC to allow Zaky Mallah to appear on Q and A has attracted much criticism (Advertiser 25/6 and 26/6)). This has been defended by the ABC on the grounds it needs to represent a diversity of views.

I ran as a candidate for the Stop Population Growth Now Party in the SA Legislative Council general election last year. Barely had nominations closed , and before I had approached any media, I received a letter from the ABC informing me that I would not be granted any time on the ABC to explain our party policies.

I am a law abiding, loyal citizen who has lived in Australia all my life.
I have no criminal record. I was nominated by a legally registered political party (with over 300 members) to contest the Fisher by election.
I paid the $8000 expenses (nomination fee $3000, corflutes , how to vote cards etc $5000) out of my own pocket, as our party was low on funds.
Surely I deserved some consideration.

Yet the ABC sees fit to give national exposure to Mallah, who served two and a half years in jail for buying a gun, and threatening to kill ASIO officers.

I am forced to conclude that the ABC is not even handed, and does not properly represent diverse opinions.

Bob Couch
Marino,SA

If you were an African-American, who would you trust? Would you trust your local trigger-happy police? Would you trust the haters who demand that the Confederate flag, clearly used by them as a symbol of racism, be flown over your state capitol? According at a recent civil rights report published in China, "Cops killing African-Americans is practically a norm in the US". And then also add no jobs, sub-par schools and extensive social ostracization to that toxic mix. Trust results from all this? Highly unlikely.

For Fathers Day, I wanted to take my son to see "Inside Out," a new animated movie by Pixar, but he ended up seeing "The Wolfpack" instead -- a film about a whole different style of fathering altogether.

But I still wanna go see "Inside Out". Its main plot revolves around meeting some of the various emotions that live inside of our brains, such as "Anger" and "Sadness".

But according to a book I'm currently reading by anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, one of our most important human emotions is trust. I wish that Pixar had introduced us to "Trust" as well. "If a small baby doesn't feel that it can trust, specifically that it can trust having some modicum of control over its own situation, then it might even die," to paraphrase Bateson. Along with the ability to learn to walk and talk and develop teeth, apparently babies also need to learn to develop trust too -- and if they don't, life can become unbearable for them. And we adults also need to learn to meet "Trust" as well.

But how in the world do we actually go about meeting this actual "Trust" person ourselves? We do it by putting ourselves into trusting situations and then taking careful notes on who passes our trust tests -- and who fails.

For instance, would you ever trust a mother who, like that bizarre mom in "Game of Thrones," stood by and watched her own daughter getting burned at the stake -- only protesting when it was obviously Too Late?

And would you ever trust a government that continually sells out "We the people" to Wall Street and War Street at every chance that it gets? When it comes to trusting our government's current warriors and cavaliers in DC, I would much sooner trust Lebron James and Seth Curry. http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/30876-focus-climate-change-is-a-crisis-we-can-only-solve-togethe

If you were an African-American, who would you trust? Would you trust your local trigger-happy police? Would you trust the haters who demand that the Confederate flag, clearly used by them as a symbol of racism, be flown over your state capitol? http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349 According at a recent civil rights report published in China, "Cops killing African-Americans is practically a norm in the US". And then also add no jobs, sub-par schools and extensive social ostracization to that toxic mix. Trust results from all this? Highly unlikely.

Will Americans ever again be able trust our mainstream media to tell the truth after WikiLeaks just exposed that Saudi Arabia has been slipping them payola for years now in order to get the MSM to leave the House of Saud's name out of the news, including but not limited to its major role in such events as 9-11, the war on Iraq and creating ISIS -- as well as the celebration of its 100th beheading this year? https://wikileaks.org/saudi-cables/press

Would you ever be able to trust Congress and Obama again after they worked so hard to shove that horrendous TTP trade agreement down our throats like some porn movie featurette -- just to make corporate billionaires get even richer than they are right now? http://www.thenation.com/article/206409/damage

How can we possibly trust Monsanto after it has blatantly chosen profits from GMO-bred Frankenstein plants and animals over us -- like we were some orphan step-child they are forced to put up with?

And how can we even think about ever trusting Israel, our government's major ally in the Middle East, when all that the neo-colonialists who run Israel with an iron hand want to do is to stir up trouble in the region so that we taxpayers can come to their rescue? I was in Sweida, in Syria, last year and, trust me, the Syrians trust President Assad a lot more than they trust ISIS's BFF Israel. http://www.globalresearch.ca/syrian-druze-fighting-israeli-backed-al-qaeda/5455651

And what about our very own Supreme Court? Anton Scalia? We are supposed to actually trust this man? Hardly. Not after he gleefully sold out American voters in favor of huge corporations with regard to Citizens United. Seth and Lebron have much better judgment than Scalia does. Heck, even Curry's two-year-old daughter would have better judgment than that.

Trusting that climate change isn't really real, are we? Good luck with that one. With American war hawks all practically wetting their pants at a chance to attack Russia through Ukraine, and with Turkey, the Saudis, Israel and the US neo-colonialists just dying to do to Syria and Yemen what they did to Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq, then there is only one thing we can truly trust in here -- that "war" is gonna release so much carbon dioxide that it's gonna cause climate change on steroids. And that we're soon gonna meet a whole new kind of "I can't breathe." http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2015/06/22/nato-russia-collision-ahead/

And can we even trust the Rule of Law here in America? Or the FBI or the IRS or even the freaking building codes after that balcony in a relatively new building here in Berkeley just fell down?

Modern American government has no transparency these days. No one knows where our money goes. The CIA is a black hole and so is the Pentagon, NSA, NATO, Congress, etc. And who even knows what the White House is up to, let alone the Federal Reserve. Countries that have no transparency are clearly on the road to dictatorship -- and who the freak can trust dictators? Talk about your lack of control!

The moral here? That Americans also need to develop trust in their government if we are ever going to grow up and "meet Trust" in ourselves. And our government needs to start acting a hecka lot more trustworthy too.

PS: And speaking of books, I'd like to recommend one. Along with all the usual murder mysteries that I love such as Last of the Independents and As the Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, my summer reading also includes a book called Chief Complaint: A Country Doctor's Tales of Life in Galilee.

"Chief Complaint" is a wonderful compilation of what small-town life was like in Palestine both before and after Israeli neo-colonialists killed off thousands of Palestinians, forced a million of them off their land, seized their property and lost their trust. It's a delightful read, a true anthropology of what village life was and is like for Palestinians in Galilee -- with all its warts and merits included. http://justworldbooks.com/chief-complaint/

Photo is of me and Ghost back in 1963, back when I still had a little bit of trust left (as much trust as a Beatnik could have that is -- after Hiroshima, HUAC and the beginnings of Vietnam where my neighbor's son was an "adviser" even back then.)

Originally published on Jane Stillwater's blog

See Video, text and article inside. Candobetter.net Editor: The treatment of the citizens of Greece has set the tone for globalised government degraded by banksters and fraudsters. Australia is not immune. That is why Australians should care about the very recent Delphi Declaration: "More than ever we are in urgent need of a radical restructuring of European debt, of serious measures to control the activities of the financial sector, of a “Marshal Plan” for the European periphery, of a courageous rethinking and re-launching of a European project which, in its present form, has proven unsustainable. We need to find now the courage to do this, if we want to leave a better Europe to our children, not a Europe in ruins, in continuous financial and even open military conflicts among its nations." (Excerpt from Delphi Conference declaration, 27 June 2015, Delphi, Greece). Text and article first published on Global Research at http://www.globalresearch.ca/greece-the-delphi-declaration/5458742

Peter Koenig – on behalf of The Delphi Initiative

During the weekend of 20 and 21 June 2015 a forum of international scholars, scientists, economists, sociologists, political analysts – met in Delphi Greece to discuss Greece and Europe. The organizers were the so-called “Delphi Initiative”, sponsored by the Lyssarides Foundation in Cyprus, the Greek Institute for Research on Political Strategies, the Russian Institute for Globalization and Social Movements, and the Forum Mondial des Alternatives, France.

The forum ended with a Media Conference on Monday 22 June https://youtu.be/AEALxsSWRC4 and with the issuance of The Delphi Declaration – see below.

The world must realize that the so-called troika – IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission, is literally blackmailing Greece and subjecting her to outright economic torture.

During the past days, Mr. Tsipras, Greece’s Prime Minister, has made considerable concessions to the creditors in Brussels and Washington – but none were good enough. Instead they, the notorious troika, have presented Greece with an austerity package which is simply unacceptable for the Government – and for the people.

Pensions have already been cut by close to 50% to an unlivable level especially for the poor – the troika requires more cuts.Already now most of public services and assets have been privatized, hospitals and schools closed – they want more. The public administration has already been reduced to a minimum, causing huge unemployment – they want more. They also want additional taxes which further affect the poor.

In short, they want to cause a political upheaval in Greece, creating chaos – what the Brussels / Washington gang knows best and is famous for – and, as usual – the end goal is “Regime Change”. How dare the Greek people voting for a socialist government in an otherwise fully neoliberal Europe, western world? They must be punished.

But Regime Change shall not happen. I have just published an article – Greece – The Way Out -  that offers other solutions, solutions that will allow Greece to find back to her bearings and her economic recovery.

Thank you for your solidarity.

THE DELPHI DECLARATION

On Greece and Europe

European governments, European institutions and the IMF, acting in close alliance with, if not under direct control of, big international banks and other financial institutions, are now exercising a maximum of pressure, including open threats, blackmailing and a slander and terror communication campaign against the recently elected Greek government and against the Greek people.

They are asking the elected government of Greece to continue the “bail-out” program and the supposed “reforms” imposed on this country in May 2010, in theory to “help” and “save” it.

As a result of this program, Greece has experienced by far the biggest economic, social and political catastrophe in the history of Western Europe since 1945. It has lost 27% of its GDP, more than the material losses of France or Germany during the First World War. The living standards have fallen sharply. The social welfare system is all but destroyed. Greeks have seen social rights won during one century of struggles taken back. Whole social strata are completely destroyed, more and more Greeks are falling from their balconies to end a life of misery and desperation, every talented person who can leaves from the country. Democracy, under the rule of a “Troika” acting as collective economic assassin, a kind of Kafka’s “Court”, has been transformed into a sheer formality in the very country where it was born! Greeks are experiencing now the same feeling of insecurity about all basic conditions of life, that the French experienced in 1940, Germans in 1945, Soviets in 1991. At the same time, the two problems which this program was supposed to address, Greek sovereign debt and the competitiveness of the Greek economy have sharply deteriorated.

Now, European institutions and governments are refusing even the most reasonable, elementary, minor concession to the Athens government, they refuse even the slightest face-saving formula there might be. They want a total surrender of SYRIZA, they want its humiliation, its destruction. By denying to the Greek people any peaceful and democratic way out of its social and national tragedy, they are pushing Greece into chaos, if not civil war. Indeed,  even now, an undeclared social civil war of “low intensity” is being waged inside this country, especially against the unprotected, the ill, the young and the very old, the weaker and the unlucky. Is this the Europe we want our children to live in?

We want to express our total, unconditional solidarity with the struggle of the Greek people for their dignity, their national and social salvation, for their liberation from the unacceptable neocolonial rule the “Troika” is trying to impose on this European country. We denounce the illegal and unacceptable agreements successive Greek governments have been obliged, under threat and blackmail, to sign, in violation of all European treaties, of the Charter of UN and of the Greek constitution. We call on European governments and institutions to stop their irresponsible and/or criminal policy towards Greece immediately and adopt  a generous emergency program of support to redress the Greek economic situation and face the humanitarian disaster already unfolding in this country.

We also appeal  to all European peoples to realize that what is at stake in Greece it is not only Greek salaries and pensions, Greek schools and hospitals or even the fate even of this historic nation where the very notion of “Europe” was born. What is at stake in Greece are also Spanish, Italian, even the German salaries, pensions, welfare, the very fate of the European welfare state, of European democracy, of Europe as such. Stop believing your media, who tell you the facts, only to distort their meaning, check independently what your politicians and your media are saying. They try to create, and they have created an illusion of stability. You may live in Lisbon or in Paris, in Frankfurt or in Stockholm, you may think that you are living in relative security. Do not keep such illusions. You should look to Greece, to see there the future your elites are preparing for you, for all of us and for our children. It is much easier and intelligent to stop them now, than it will be later. Not only Greeks, but all of us and our children will pay an enormous price, if we permit to our governments to complete the social slaughter of a whole European nation.

We appeal in particular to the German people. We do not belong to those who are always reminding the Germans of the past in order to keep them in an “inferior”, second-class position, or in order to use the “guilt factor” for their dubious ends. We appreciate the organizational and technological skills of the German people, their proven democratic and especially ecological and peace sensitivities. We want and we need the German people to be the main champions in the building of another Europe, of a prosperous, independent, democratic Europe, of a multipolar world.

Germans know better than anybody else in Europe, where blind obedience to irresponsible leaders can lead and has indeed led in the past. It is not up to us to teach them any such lesson. They know better than anybody else how easy is to begin a campaign with triumphalist rhetoric, only to end up with ruins everywhere around you. We do not invite them to follow our opinion. We demand simply from them to think thoroughly the opinion of such distinguished leaders of them like Helmut Schmitt for instance, we demand them to hear the voice of the greatest among modern German poet, of Günter Grass, the terrible prophecy he has emitted about Greece and Europe some years before his death.

We call upon you, the German people, to stop such a Faustian alliance between German political elites and international finance. We call upon the German people not to permit to their government to continue doing to the Greeks exactly what the Allies did to Germans after their victory in the  First World War. Do not let your elites and leaders to transform the entire continent, ultimately  including Germany, into a dominion of Finance.

More than ever we are in urgent need of a radical restructuring of European debt, of serious measures to control the activities of the financial sector, of a “Marshal Plan” for the European periphery, of a courageous rethinking and re-launching  of a European project which, in its present form, has proven unsustainable. We need to find now the courage to do this, if we want to leave a better Europe to our children, not a Europe in ruins, in continuous financial and even open  military conflicts among its nations.

Delphi, 21 June 2015 

The above declaration was adopted by nearly all participants in the Delphi conference on the crisis, on alternatives to euroliberalism and EU/Russia relations, held at Delphi, Greece on 20-21st of June. It is also supported by some people who were not able to be present. The list of people who signed it follows. In it there are not only citizens of EU countries, but also of Switzerland, USA, Russia and India.

Many distinguished American scholars seem to be more sensitive as regard the European crisis, than the … political leaders of EU themselves! As for Russians, it is only normal and natural to bear a great interest for what is going on in EU, as EU citizens bear also an interest for what is going on in Russia. All participants in the Delphi conference share the strong conviction that Russia is an integral part of Europe, that there is a strong interconnection between what happens in EU and in Russia. They are categorically opposed to anti-Russia hysteria, which in fact is nothing less than the preparation of a new, even more dangerous cold, if not hot war.

Altvater Elmar, Germany

Member of scientific community of A?TAC. Retired Professor of Political Science, Free  University of Berlin.

Amin Samir, Egypt/France

Economist, President of the Forum Mondial des Alternatives 

Ayala Iván H., Spain

Researcher, Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales

Arsenis Gerasimos, Greece 

economist, ex-minister of Economy, of Finance, of National Defense and of Education, ex-UN official and ex-director of UNCTAD

Artini Massimo, Italy

Member of Parliament 

Bellantis Dimitris, Greece

Lawyer, PHD in Constitutional Law, Member of the Central Committee of SYRIZA 

Black William, USA

Professor of Economics, University of Missouri (Kansas City)

Cassen Bernard, France

Professor Emeritus, Université Paris 8, secretary general of ”Mémoire des luttes”

Chiesa Giulietto, Italy

Politician, journalist and author, ex MEP, president of the “Alternativa” association

Freeman Alan, Canada/UK

Geopolitical Economy Research Group, Business School, Director

Gabriel Leo, Austria

Director of the Institute for Intercultural Research and Cooperation (IIIC), Vienna, Member of the International Council of the World Social Forum, Coordinator of the NGO Committee for Sustainable Development of the United Nations

George Susan, France

Political and social scientist, writer, President of the Transnational Institute

Georgopoulos Dimosthenis, Greece

Economist, sociologist, political scientist, Secretariat on Industrial Policy, SYRIZA

German Lindsey, UK

Convenor, Stop the War Coalition

Graeber David, U?

Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics. Author of “Debt: The First 5,000 Years”

Hudson Michael, USA

Professor of economics, University of Missouri (Kansas City), UMKC. President, Institute for the Study of Long-term Economic Trends (ISLET)

Irazabalbeitia Inaki, Spain

Former MEP / responsible for International Relationships for the party ARALAR, Basque Country

Jennar Raoul Marc, France

Dr. in political sciences, specialist on European law and on WTO regulations, writer of twenty books, among them “Europe, la trahison des élites”

Kagarlitsky Boris, Russia

Director of the Institute for globalization studies and social movements (IGSO)

Kalloniatis Costas , Greece

Phd on macroeconomics, adviser to the Ministry of Labour, researcher in the Labor Institute of the General Confederation  of  Workers of Greece

Kasimatis Giorgos, Greece

Prof. Emeritus of Constitutional Law, University of Athens. Founder and Honorary President of the International Association of Constitutional Law, ex-advisor to PM Andreas Papandreou.

Koenig Peter, Switzerland

?conomist / geopolitical analyst

Koltashov Vasiliy, Russia

Head of the economic research unit of the Institute for Globalisation and Social Movements

Konstantakopoulos Dimitris, Greece

 Journalist, Writer, Coordinator of the Delphi Initiative

Koutsou Nikos, Cyprus

Member of Parliament from Famagusta

Kreisel Wilfried, Germany

Former Executive Director, World Health Organization

Mavros Giannis, Greece

Member of the National Council for the Claiming of Germany’s Debts to Greece

Mityaev Dmitry A. , Russia

Deputy Chairman of the Council for Study of Productive Forces of the Ministry of Economic Development and the Russian Academy of Sciences on Development Issues

Ochkina Anna, Russia

Head of Department of social theory at Penza State University

Pantelides Panagiotis, Greece

Economist, senior researcher, European Institute of Cyprus

Petras James, USA

Bartle Professor Emeritus , Binghamton University

Ex-Director of the Center for Mediterranean Studies (Athens), ex-adviser to the Landless Rural Workers  Movement of Brasil and the Unemployed Workers Movement in Argentina

Pinasco Luca, Italy

National coordinator of Proudhon Circles-Editor for foreign policy of the journal “L’intellettuale dissidente”.

Radika Desai, USA

Professor, Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba

Rees John, UK

Co-founder, Stop the War Coalition

Roberts Paul Craig, USA

Former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy, Associate Editor, Wall Street Journal, Senior Research Fellow, Stanford University, William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Sideratos Aggelos, Greece

Publisher

Sommers Jeffrey, USA

Senior Fellow, Institute of World Affairs, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

St Clair Jeffrey, USA

Editor, CounterPunch, author, Born Under a Bad Sky

Stierle Steffen, Germany

?conomist, ATTAC Germany 

Syomin Konstantin, Russia

Author, TV host at All-Russia State Television (VGTRK.com) 

Tombazos Stavros, Greece

Professor of Political Economy, University of Cyprus, member of the international “Committee of Truth on Greek Sovereign Debt” (debt auditing committee) created by the Greek parliament

Vanaik Achin, India

Retired Professor of International Relations and Global Politics, University of Delhi

Xydakis Nikos, Greece

Minister of Culture

Zachariev Zachari, Bulgaria

President of the Slaviani Foundation

Zdanoka Tatjana, Latvia

Member of European Parliament

Aléxis Tsípras,
Prime Minister
of Greece

"The Greek people are sovereign to decide," Tsipras said, emphasizing, "With national unity and composure we will take the decisions that we deserve."

Greece's troika of international lenders - the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - offered a €12-billion ($13.4-billion) extension of the current bailout deal to Athens on Friday on the condition that the cash-strapped country accepts the list of austerity reforms under a new agreement between the two sides.

The five-month extension to the bailout would be the third since last December. The creditors want Tsipras' government to accept key reforms on pensions and value-added tax (VAT).

"These proposals, which clearly violate the European rules and the basic rights to work, equality and dignity show that the purpose of some of the partners and institutions was not a viable agreement for all parties, but possibly the humiliation of an entire people," Tsipras said in his speech.

The creditors will also disburse the first €1.8 billion ($2 billion) in aid to help Greece avoid defaulting on its debt to the IMF if the country's lawmakers approve the reforms required by the lenders.

Greece received two bailout packages in 2010 and 2012 worth a total of €240 billion ($272 billion) from its creditors following its 2009 economic crisis, in return for implementing harsh austerity measures.

According to the terms of the bailout deal, Greece should make a €1.6-billion ($1.79 billion) payment to the IMF at the end of this month.

There are concerns that Greece may go bankrupt and have to leave the eurozone if a deal is not clinched by the end of June.

Appendix 1: Greece to hold nationwide referendum on the country's future on July 5 (26/6/15) | RT

Appendix 2: Other media reports

Alternate media: Stifling Growth in Greece: The Austerity Regime Continues (24/6/15) | Global Research, Greek Journalists "Trained by the IMF" in Washington to Spin Stories in Favor of the IMF and the European Commission (27/6/15) | Global Research, Syriza: Plunder, Pillage and Prostration: How the 'Hard Left' Embraces the Policies of the Hard Righ (27/6/15) | Global Research, European Leaders Dictate Terms for Greece (27/6/15) | , 'This road of austerity is spiral of death' – Greek minister (27/6/15) | RT - Op-Edge, What Greece's Creditors Should Know (27/6/15) | Global Research.

Mainstream media: Greece crisis live: shock referendum throws bail-out future into chaos ahead of crunch Brussels meeting (27/6/15) | The Telegraph, Greece's bailout referendum risks exit from euro (26/6/15) | CNN, The seven stages of Greece's debt tragedy (26/6/15) | The Guardian,Greece Divided on Bailout Referendum (27/6/15) | WSJ (behind paywall), Europe strikes back: It seems to be trying to push Greece out of the euro (25/6/15) | Washington Post, Germany says surprise Greek referendum plan shuts door on negotiations (27/6/15) | The Star, Greece is doomed (27/6/15) | Vox, Greece Debt Crisis: Lines Form at ATMs as PM Seeks Referendum on Bailout (27/6/15) | NBC, Greek debt crisis: ECB faces monumental decisions (27/6/15) | BBC, Greece's Tsipras summons cabinet as debt deadline nears (27/6/15) | Reuters.

Saturday 4 July 2015, First Annual General Meeting: Guest Speaker is Professor Michael Buxton of the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University is a leading urban planning expert and will speak on “Melbourne Towards Eight Million: Are Skyscrapers the answer?”

Time:
1.45pm for a 2.00pm start. Stay for afternoon tea after meeting scheduled to close around 4.00pm.
Venue:
Flemington Community Centre, 25 Mt. Alexander Road, Flemington. Centre on Debneys Park.
Transport:
Tram along Flemington Road and Mt. Alexander Road;
Train station - Upfield Line - nearby; Capital City Trail
for cyclists next to Centre; carparking at front door
of Centre (drive in from Mt. Alexander Road.) Mel-
ways Map Reference 29 B12.

The June 7 parliamentary election in Turkey could have a huge impact on the conflict in Syria. The invincible image of President Erdogan has been cracked. There is a real chance that the election might lead to substantive change in Turkish foreign policy promoting the war in Syria. (This article first published at Dissident Voice on June 24th, 2015.)

Even though Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the most votes, they lost their majority in parliament and must now find a coalition partner. Turkey’s new parliament was seated for the first time on Tuesday June 23. Now begins the political bargaining and negotiations to form a governing coalition.  Depending on the outcome, Turkey may stop or seriously restrict the flow of weapons and foreign fighters through its territory into Syria.  If Turkey does this, it would offer a real prospect for movement toward negotiations and away from war in Syria. Why?  The Syrian war continues because Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, USA, France, UK and others are spending billions of dollars annually to fund the armed opposition and sustain the war in violation of the UN Charter and international law.

Closely allied with Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey has been the primary path for weapons and foreign fighters in Syria. ISIS has depended on export of oil and import of weapons and fighters through Turkey.  Jabhat al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham and other armed opposition groups have depended on weapons and foreign fighters coming in via Turkey for attacks on northern Syria including Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.

Turkish Government Support of War on Syria

The following examples show the extent of Turkish involvement in the war on Syria:

• Turkey hosts the Political and Military Headquarters of the armed opposition. Most of the political leaders are former Syrians who have not lived there for decades.
• Turkey provides home base for armed opposition leaders. As quoted in the Vice News video Syria: Wolves of the Valley: “Most of the commanders actually live in Turkey and commute in to the fighting when necessary.”
• Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT has provided its own trucks for shipping huge quantities of weapons and ammunition to Syrian armed opposition groups.  According to court testimony they made at least 2,000 trips to Syria.
• Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh here.  In May 2013, Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish authorities.
• Turkey’s foreign minister, top spy chief and senior military official were secretly recorded plotting an incident to justify Turkish military strikes against Syria. A sensational recording of the meeting was publicized, exposing the plot in advance and likely preventing it from proceeding.
• Turkey has provided direct aid and support to attacking insurgents. When insurgents attacked Kassab Syria on the border in spring 2014, Turkey provided backup military support and ambulances for injured fighters. Turkey shot down a Syrian jet fighter that was attacking the invading insurgents. The plane landed 7 kms inside Syrian territory, suggesting that Turkish claims it was in Turkish air space are likely untrue.
• Turkey has recently increased its coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This has led to the recent assaults by thousands of foreign fighters on Idlib and Jisr al Shugour in northern Syria. Armed with advanced weaponry including TOW missiles, and using suicide bomb vehicles, the armed groups over-ran Syrian armed forces defending both cities. The assaults were facilitated by Turkey jamming and disrupting Syrian radio communications.
• Turkey has facilitated travel into northern Syria by extremist mercenaries from all parts of the globe including Chechen Russians, Uyghur Chinese, Europeans, North Africans, South Asians including Indonesians and Malaysians.  The assault on Jisr al Shugour was spearheaded by Chinese Uyghur fighters and suicide bombers crossing over from Turkey with tanks and heavy artillery.
• Turkey itself has provided steady supply of recruits to the Islamic State. Like other countries which have had citizens indoctrinated with wahabi fanaticism, they have done little or nothing to limit the indoctrination or restrict emigration for ‘jihad’.
• Turkey has permitted the supply of huge quantities of car bomb ingredients (ammonium nitrate fertilizer) to the Islamic State. On May 4 the NY Times reported these shipments at the Turkish border. Sixteen days later ISIS over-ran Ramadi in an assault that began with 30 car bombs with ten reportedly the size of the Oklahoma City bombing.
• Finally, as part of its continuing effort to draw the U.S. and NATO into direct participation in the war on Syria, Turkey is an active player in various propaganda campaigns. For example, the “White Helmets” or “Syrian Civil Defence” are trained and supplied in Turkey. Some of the videos purportedly from Syria are likely filmed in Turkey at their training site. White Helmets and Syrian Civil Defence are both creations of the West and join with Turkey in calling for a “No Fly Zone”.

Turkish Repression of Journalism, Police and Courts

The AKP government has vigorously tried to suppress information about the extent of Turkey’s support of the war on Syria. They have resorted to repression and intimidation such as:

• Turkish authorities have charged four regional prosecutors with attempting to topple the government. Their “crime” was to insist on the inspection of four trucks headed from Turkey to Syria. The trucks contained weapons and ammunition in violation of Turkish law. The trial of the four prosecutors is ongoing, 18 months after the inspection.
• Turkish authorities arrrested seven high ranking military officers over the inspection of trucks taking weapons and fighters to Syria.
• Turkish authorities banned social media and news outlets from reporting on arms shipments through Turkey to Syria. Twitter and Facebook accounts that talked about the shipments where shut down. Erdogan went on to threaten to “eradicate” Twitter.
• Turkish President Erdogan threatened two life term sentences for the editor of Hurriyet daily newspaper for publicizing support of the armed opposition in Syria by Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT.
• A whistle-blowing MIT (intelligence agency) officer who opposed the agency’s collusion with terrorism in Syria was arrested, convicted and imprisoned. After two years he managed to escape and tell his story. The blockbuster account was broadcast on Turkey’s OdaTV and later translated into English and published here.

Was American Journalist Serena Shim Murdered?

As seen in the examples above, Turkish AKP authorities have aggressively tried to suppress information on the involvement in Syria. If they have been that aggressive with Turkish journalists, prosecutors and military officers, how far might they go against a foreign journalist working for Iran’s Press TV?

The American born journalist Serena Shim died just days after she documented the use of World Food Program trucks to transport foreign fighters to the border with Syria and into ISIS territory.  After learning that Turkish intelligence was looking for her, Serena Shim was so concerned that she expressed her fear on television. Two days later, Serena Shim’s car was hit head-on by a cement truck.  The driver of the cement truck disappeared but was later found. There are many discrepancies about what happened. The first reports indicated the truck and driver left without stopping.  Then the driver and truck were located, and then photos appeared showing a collision.

While some Turkish security services have preemptively exonerated the driver of the cement truck,  the local prosecutor has filed charges against the driver, accusing him of causing death through negligence. There are many suspicious aspects, not least is the fact that the cement truck’s wheels are angled toward the car, not away as one would expect with a vehicle trying to avoid collision.

The death of American journalist Serena Shim, and her factual investigative reporting on Syria and Turkey, stands in sharp contrast with the sensational media accounts about the “kidnapping” of NBC reporter Richard Engel. That event turned out to be a hoax contrived by “rebels” to manipulate American political opinion.  With the complicity of individual reporters and mainstream media, the fraud was successful.  The bias in mainstream western media is further demonstrated by the almost complete media silence about the death of Serena Shim and her important journalistic work.

Turkey’s Election

For the past 13 years Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has had majority control of Turkey’s parliament.  In the recent election AKP’s share of the popular voted plummeted 10% and they lost their parliamentary majority.  The results are a clear rebuff to Erdogan and AKP policies.  Sixty percent of voters went against AKP, splitting the vote among the three alternative parties. The pro-Kurdish and Leftist People’s Democratic Party (HDP) burst onto the scene capturing 13% of the votes and equaling the number of parliamentary seats captured by the rightist and anti-Kurdish National Movement Party (MHP). The main opposition party is the social democratic Republican Peoples Party (CHP) with 26% of the vote.

Over the coming weeks, AKP will try to form a coalition government with one or more of the alternate parties.  However, it won’t be easy. The natural bedfellow would be the anti-Kurdish and rightist MHP, but they are demanding the resumption of a corruption trial against AKP leaders including Erdogan’s son Bilal.  That trial would probably lead back to President Erdogan himself, so it seems unlikely AKP will ally with MHP. The three alternative parties could form a coalition to govern without AKP, but it’s hard to imagine the staunchly anti-Kurdish MHP allying with the pro-Kurdish HDP.

If a majority coalition cannot be formed within 45 days, the Turkish constitution requires a rerun of the election.

Election Should Bring Major Change in Syrian Policy

Even with severe repression and intimidation, the Turkish public is aware of Turkey’s policy supporting war on Syria. One consequence of the war has been almost 2 million immigrant refugees with the dispersal of many throughout Turkey, providing cheap labor and adding significantly to the unemployment problem.  In addition, there have been terrorist attacks in the border region and an escalation of corruption and repression as external money and weapons have flooded the area en route to Syria. The war against Syria has been widely unpopular and played a significant role in the election.

• All the opposition parties called for change in Turkey’s foreign policy.
• Criticism of Erdogan and Davutoglu’s policy even comes from within the AKP membership: “Many believe that one reason for the AKP’s dismal showing in the 2015 elections is its policy on Syria.”
• The head of the main opposition party (CHP) says Turkey will start controlling the border and stop the flood of arms and fighters into Syria.

The coming weeks will indicate how Turkey moves forward:  Will AKP manage to form a coalition government with one of the opposition parties? Or will there be another election?

Will Turkey start enforcing the border and stop shipments of arms to the armed opposition as demanded by the leader of the main opposition party?  This would be a huge change in the dynamics within Syria. Without a rear base of constant and steady support, the armed opposition would be forced to rely on their own resources rather than those of foreign governments.  They would quickly wither since they have very little support base within Syria.

Since the election, there are already signs of a shift in the balance. Kurdish forces recently captured ISIS’ important border crossing at Tal Abyad. This has been the main route of weapons, fighters and supplies between Turkey and the Islamic State’s ‘capital’ at Raqqa in eastern Syria.

The Past Year and Looking Ahead

Thirteen months ago it looked like the war in Syria was starting to move toward resolution. The last remaining armed opposition in the “capital of the revolution” Homs, reached reconciliation and withdrew from the Old City of Homs in May 2014.  On June 3, 2014 the election in Syria confirmed substantial support for the government.

Since then, we have seen dramatic changes. On June 10, 2014 ISIS surged through western Iraq and captured the city of Mosul and huge quantities of American armaments including tanks, rockets, humvees, etc. That led to the creation of the “Islamic State” and expansion in eastern Syria including Tabqa Air Base where hundreds of Syrian soldiers and ISIS fighters died.

This past spring saw the coalescing of numerous foreign and Islamist groups into the Jaish al Fatah (Army of Conquest) supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  With high powered TOW anti-tank missiles and thousands of shock troops they were able to overtake both Idlib and Jisr al Shugour near the Turkish border.

ISIS and the Army of Conquest are both dependent on the Turkish supply line. If that is closed off or seriously restricted, it will dramatically change the situation.

With the prospect of losing their base of support in Turkey, will the opposition try something desperate to draw the US and NATO into the conflict directly?

The Turkish people have indicated they want to stop their government’s war on Syria.  If their will is respected, it should lead to restricting and stopping the foreign funding and promotion of the conflict. If Turkey stops the flood of weapons and foreign fighters into northern Syria, it will be following instead of violating international law. This will give peace a chance in Syria.

Rick Sterling is active with the Syria Solidarity Movement and Mt Diablo Peace and Justice Center. He can be emailed at: [email protected]. Read other articles by Rick.

This article was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2015 at 7:53pm and is filed under Elections, France, Kuwait, NATO, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Terrorism (state and retail), Turkey, United Kingdom.

Yesterday, as the U.S. Senate resolved to ‘fast- track’ the TPP, in Australia, the Productivity Commission came out all guns blazing declaring the ‘free’ trade agreement ‘preferential’ and ‘dangerous’. Bill Davis and Dr Matthew Mitchell report.Republished with thanks from original article at Independent Australia.

See also: The Day the Earth Died and why Sierra Club, Greenpeace, et al. were virtually silent about it (25/6/15) | Global Research

THESE TWO EVENTS occurring on opposite sides of the Pacific should trigger ring alarm bells with the Australian public because the Abbott government is on the brink of signing away our sovereign rights (ISDS clause) amongst other things.

What is the TPP?

Firstly, what is the TPP? The U.S. trade representative’s official description is:

... an ambitious,21st-century Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that will enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, promote innovation, economic growth and development, and support the creation and retention of jobs.

Here's why the TPP is such a BFD

The economic growth claims have already been debunked by a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, so if it does not deliver GDP growth, then what is the purpose of the TPP? Professor Jane Kelsey  from the University of Auckland explains the real intention of the TPP [IA emphasis]:

The US aims to revive its geopolitical, strategic and economic influence in the Asian region to counter the ascent of China, in part through constructing a region-wide legal regime that serves the interests of, and is enforceable by, the US and its corporations.

So this proposed TPP “agreement” involves Australia as well as a host of other potential member nations including Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam and the United States. South Korea has also indicated it may sign up.

How far off is agreement on the TPP?

The deal is essentially done in terms of agreement between the 12 countries which make up this bloc and could be signed by end of the year. Fast-tracking the TPP has removed a major impediment in the United States. Fast-tracking is summarised by journalist Dave Johnson as follows:

With fast track, Congress agrees to set aside its duties under Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution and vote on TPP within 90 days of it being signed, to severely limit discussion and debate, not to filibuster the agreement in the Senate and not to amend it not matter what problems turn up after the agreement is revealed. Fast track essentially pre-approves the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement (and future trade bills) before the public gets a chance to know what is in it.'

Overnight, Reuters reported that the Senate voted 60 to 38 giving Obama the power to negotiate the TPP and other trade deals and fast track them through Congress. The bill goes next to President Obama for his signature

Australia’s process for approving trade agreements is not so different to the U.S.’s fast-track process.

AFTINET describes Australia’s process as follows [IA emphasis]:

The Trade Minister presents the text to the Cabinet, which is made up of the Prime Minister and other Cabinet Ministers. The decision to sign the text is made by Cabinet, not the whole Parliament.

The text cannot be changed after it is signed.

Parliament only votes on the implementing legislation, not on the whole text of the agreement. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), for example, has 29 chapters and only a few of these will require changes to legislation.”

However, many other chapters will restrict the ways in which current and future Australian governments can legislate, but will not require legislation. For example, the inclusion of the right of foreign investors to sue governments over domestic legislation (investor-state dispute settlement or ISDS) does not require a change to Australian legislation. Other changes, like changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, could be done by changing regulation rather than through legislation.

As many journalists and commentators have argued, agreements like the TPP have dubious benefits for the populations of the countries involved.

Last night I watched Larissa Waters and Nick Xenophon doggedly try to curb sinister bi-partisan legislation that burns down our native forests and calls this clean energy. In a final attempt to salvage some public control over this legislated attack on our native forests, they argued that the general public be ensured 'standing' to bring about complaints when they perceived breaches of these new laws. I found it nauseating to watch the arrogant demeanor of Senator Birmingham, the Minister for Education, Liberal Party, as he blocked the rights of ordinary citizens to bring about complaints under the law and as he disparaged Senator Water's attempts to bring attention to crucial matters, such as the preservation of soil fertility when forest is depleted of its biomass. Greens Senator Milne summed up the situation when she said: "You are creating an industry to drive and prop up native forest logging. You are destroying habitat, you are destroying carbon stores and you are behaving in a manner that is contrary to all of the science on what we should be doing about global warming, and you are calling it renewable when it is not renewable. It is driving the destruction of forests. That is the point. It is not about the trees being 'cut down anyway'. They are not being cut down now, because it is not economic to do so. What you are doing here is trying to put a dollar value back into logging to prop up native forest logging because it is an ideological obsession of the Prime Minister. Isn't that exactly what is going on here?"

Editor Candobetter.net: Note that the transcript here is from http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansards/a3a8dfe1-27c9-4c71-a8ec-1fe1cc2461a0/toc_unixml/Senate_2015_06_23_3540_Part.xml;fileType=text%2Fxml This means that, until/if I get round to changing the links, all the links to speakers' names will take you to a dead end, however, if you go to the original site, you can find the active links.

Renewable Energy Bill

[This article is formed belatedly from excerpts in two RT reports that are a few months old, but it may be of interest to people concerned about US activities in Europe.] Former French Prime minister Francois Fillon, told the public broadcaster France 5 in February that the United States was attempting to “unleash a war in Europe, which would end in catastrophe.” He added that once a war broke out, the US would attempt to distance itself from it. “Total war caused [by the] Ukrainian conflict is absolutely unacceptable. And really there is no reason for it," he said. Fillon accused the US of suffering from “blindness” and an oversimplified approach to reality, which saw them constantly attempting to “solve all problems by force.”

He further said Washington was always attempting to force others to join its camp, a mistaken approach given that a country like Ukraine has ties to both Europe and Russia.

"The Americans have made one mistake after another and today they have simply been discredited,” said Fillon.

He added that attempting to punish Russia with sanctions was like trying to intimidate a bear with a pin prick. He further commended recent efforts by French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to open a dialogue with Moscow.

“The West is trying to imagine today Russia as a threat to the whole world, while deliberately forgetting that Russia is a large and truly a great country, not to mention a nuclear power,” he said.

“Humiliating Russia is simply unacceptable.”

Also on Saturday, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that Europe was part of “a common civilization with Russia,” saying they needed to avoid conflict on the continent.

“The interests of the Americans with the Russians are not the interests of Europe and Russia,” he said, adding that “we do not want the revival of a Cold War between Europe and Russia.

"Crimea cannot be blamed for seceding from Ukraine – a country in turmoil – and choosing to join Russia, said former president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. He also added that Ukraine “is not destined to join the EU.”" Source: http://rt.com/news/230283-sarkozy-crimea-russia-blamed/

On the same day, Marine Le Pen said that "European capitals do not have the wisdom to refuse to be dependent on US positions on Ukraine."

"Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys," she said, before warning that “the aim of the Americans is to start a war in Europe to push NATO to the Russian border."

She went on to accuse European leaders of turning a blind eye to the Ukrainian government’s “bombing of civilians,” adding that both those in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine believed the country should be federalized.

Le Pen has regularly criticized the EU for its policy on Ukraine and its alleged lack of independence from Washington.

In September 2014, she told Le Monde that the ongoing crisis in Ukraine is “all the European Union’s fault,” saying Brussels had “blackmailed the country to choose between Europe and Russia.”

In June, she similarly told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze that there were “no independent states left in Europe,” saying many of their foreign policy mistakes in recent times had been made “under Washington’s influence.”

Source: Crisis in Ukraine is ‘all EU’s fault’ – France’s Marine Le Pen

ALEPPO, SYRIA: We have received the following report, which attests to knowledge of ISIL using chlorine as a chemical weapon and controlling water supply from the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates.

ALEPPO: We have water today, after 10-14 days without water service from the government. We spent all the day filling up all empty containers and bottles, the bathtub and water tanks and cisterns at home and on the roof. We filled up some of them few days ago, via the water seller. Aleppo 's water is from the Euphrates. Turkey used to prevent us from accessing water in the 1990's. ISIL is controlling the dam today and most of the Euphrates. They occupied the chlorine factory as well, which used to sterilize the water. Now ISIL is using it in chemical attacks, and the UN is blaming the Syrian army and government, either for claiming using it against innocent people, or for failing in protecting it from falling in the wrong hands of ISIS! Thanks to them, Aleppo is thirsty.

Forty year old neighbors have become like enemies. When you have limited time to have limited resources, people in the west turn nuts and do crazy stuff, run over each other, swear and hit each other while fighting over a digital camera or any other item. Same over here, fighting over little water.

Water is coming little by little, with some dust and clay at the beginning. It doesn't reach the higher stories of houses in the easy way of the old days. We need like a private pump to each house to do the job. But that needs power, and power/hydro/electricity comes around 4 hours a day.

People are depending on alternative solutions, like a small size generator that works on fuel. But fuel has become a problem of its own during the last couple of years, since there was no fuel in the city!

The other solution is to register with a bigger generator size for the neighborhood, with one's request of Amperes. We are registered for 6 Amperes, enough for the fridges, tv, fans, and lights. A dentist friend needs 16 Amperes for his clinic. That service gives us another 10-11 hours of power a day, and costs around $20 a week. We still have to suffer 9 hours without power.

So, back to the water conflicts between neighbors, each claiming that the others took more. I don't blame my mother or neighbors who are ready to start a conflict because of that, but I feel so bad at how sanctions, battles and agreements on the global level, have reached us as individuals and cause troubles between friends, families, and neighbors, who only a few years ago were laughing and inviting each other to share plenty of food...and water!

Did fossil fuel cause capitalism or did capitalism cause the creation of the technology to use fossil fuel for industrial processes? Did population start to grow in Britain before or after industrial capitalism? Why did the industrial revolution begin in Britain? Were there any precedents? Beginning before Roman Britain, this work of evolutionary sociology also looks at how Doggerland, sea-level changes accompanying ice-ages and global warming, forestation changes, malaria and plagues may have affected population movement, along with kinship rules, inheritance laws, and access to distant and denser communities through new modes of transport. Then, departing from Roman Britain, the book examines changes to the political system, fuels, technology and demography during the Reformation, the Restoration, the Dutch capitalist revolution, and the Trade Wars, to the eve of the French Revolution, which is the subject of the next volume. Hint: The cover on this book is like a treasure map and contains the major elements of the final theory. Order Demography Territory Law2: Land-tenure and the Origins of Democracy in Britain.

Demography, Territory and Law (Volume 1: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations) identified a bio-social system that keeps populations in steady-state with their environments. In this stand-alone second volume, the author tests that theory on Britain, where the world's first remarkably fast and sustained population increase began. Did this growth coincide with disruption of clan and tribal organization and relationship to place? Other possible causes investigated include capitalism itself, as well as fossil fuel.

Did fossil fuel cause capitalism or did capitalism cause the creation of the technology to use fossil fuel for industrial processes? Did population start to grow in Britain before or after industrial capitalism?

The author finds that Britain's unusual population growth was built into the British land-tenure system, which caused more fertility opportunities and diverged from that of the Romans or their successors on the European continent. The author confirms the long held suspicion that this inheritance system had something to do with the development of capitalism in Britain rather than elsewhere, and this book develops a completely new theory of capitalism.

Beginning before Roman Britain, this work of evolutionary sociology also looks at how Doggerland, sea-level changes accompanying ice-ages and global warming, forestation changes, malaria and plagues may have affected population movement, along with kinship rules, inheritance laws, and access to distant and denser communities through new modes of transport.

The book finds that the industrial revolution was not inevitable, but more likely in Britain than elsewhere because of the confluence of land-less labour, proximity of coal and iron, and deforestation after the injection of gold and silver from the New World. As it produces more private property and capitalism, the peculiar British system increases wealth disparities and reduces democracy. In France, however, population increase and industrial capitalism did not develop spontaneously, but a democratic revolution did.

Demography, Territory and Law2: Land-tenure and the Origins of Capitalism in Britain

Preview

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Here are a few poems I have written about cows. When are we going to learn to live on a plant based diet, not only for the animals’ sake but also for the sake of the planet and our own health? See Dr Michael Greger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30gEiweaAVQ

Let None Escape
I saw her running down the hill that day
Lightning Bessie was her name
From back of Roma she and her friends came
A life of wild freedom gone forever
Now prodded and shoved into a truck.

He said ‘Ah, but she can be tamed
Made to give birth to calves we will steal’
But the farmer was wrong – wild cows, forever wild
The courage to fight for their lives and babies burned into their souls
Fighting destiny with skull and hooves.

Two years on and their time was up
Time for the slaughterhouse, you’ve eaten enough grass
We will weigh you and price you
Collect your value at the saleyard
Our coffers are full but we can never have enough.

She ran from the gate, the farmer standing there
Adrenalin pumping, running for her life
Her legs moving so fast down that hill.
The farmer watched her as I watched him
Would he let her get away?

Tormented by the sight I considered my options
Till my friend and I hatched a plan, returning the next day
Money in hand, would he sell her to us
With maybe some friends
To enjoy her life and be free again?

Alas we were too late – she had already gone
Off to the knackery, where every cow goes.
‘Let none escape’ the farmer said
‘Every blade of grass on those hills is mine
And I decide who eats, who lives and who dies.’

No happy ending for Lightning Bessie
Or her babies, all quartered and sliced
To feed the insatiable hunger of their predators
Who don’t hear the final screams of Bessie and her friends
Or mourn their freedom and life lost.

Menkit Prince
12th June, 2015

Planet of the Lonely Cows

I hear a mother cow in the distance
Crying for her calf

“BABY! COME HOME!
BABY, WHERE ARE YOU?”

Her urgent message carries along soundwaves
Transmitting the pain, the agony
From her heart to mine
And from her heart to every heart
That hears and feels

Tears fall down my face
My throat constricts
My mouth dries

She goes on and on and on
Groaning and moaning
Hour after hour after hour

“BABY! COME HOME!
WHERE ARE YOU?
PLEASE, I AM SAD!
I’M WORRIED! ARE YOU OK?
I NEED TO SEE YOU
WHERE ARE YOU?”

Her calf is all alone
With other calves all alone
All feeling their mothers calling them
Far, far away
Never again to see her face
Smell her sweet body
Taste her sweet nourishing milk
Feel her tongue licking them
And see the love shining from her eyes
She loved me – she was my world!
Gone now – gone forever.

Every day all over the world
Millions and millions of mother cows
Cry in vain for their babies
Ripped away without a thought for their aching heart
By humans well trained to switch off
And feel nothing

The humans drink our milk
Pour it in their tea
Over their cereal
Solidify it into butter, yoghurt and cheese
For their cakes, pies, cookies
Pancakes, soups, spreads,
Pizzas and ice cream

Our milk floods the land
Hidden in cans lining supermarket shelves
In bottles of drinks
Dried into packages of food
Filling human and domestic animal’s bodies
Travelling in their blood
To their cells
Breathing through their pores
Being excreted in their faeces
Down the drain
Vomited into the sea
Making people, the air, the land and the oceans
All sick

The human race is cursed
By their addiction to our milk
Never having been properly weaned themselves
From their own mother

She cries again
A simple cry - a cry of love
A cry of a heart breaking
Into thousands of pieces
Over and over
With each baby
To her grave

Precious baby of mine
So cute so playful and funny
I loved the sound you made
When you tried to moo
Your total devotion to me
Your need brought out the best in me
Taught me how to love and protect you
And how to cherish each moment
You were the sunshine of my life
All I ever wanted was you!

In deep space mystical celestial harmonies reflect
The magnificence of life everywhere
But for one sound,
A sound that shatters the divine matrix
Piercing the core of the Universal Heart
The cries of billions of lonely cows rising up as one sound
A sound so loud it is heard across universes and galaxies
Trapped in a timeless vacuum
For countless aeons
And making angels weep
Buddhas look down with compassion
at the Planet of the Lonely Cows.

By Menkit Prince
April 2008

***********

During the first week of February, 2007, two dairy farmers were brutally slain by cows in separate incidents for the same crime against nature.

In Ohio, one cow killed a farmer after he separated mother from calf shortly after birth. In Australia, a dairywoman died for the very same reason. (Video links unavailable without subscription).

Cows are not usually angry or aggressive creatures. The human act of separating mother from child is the most inhumane act to be found on a dairy farm. Those vegetarians who eat dairy products must take responsibility for this horrible lack of compassion, for that is the nature of the dairying business.

The insult of marketing "Happy Cows" in California is no more than a deceptive lie. To be witness to the angry crying of the mothers, or the pathetically sad moans from the calves is to know and be haunted by an infinite sadness which all mammals share in similar circumstance.

A November 19, 2001 story in Canada's National Post revealed that "dumb farm animals" are smarter than they look and that they actually feel pain. According to the Post:
"Cows have the ability to reason. Sheep have remarkable memories. Pigs have sensitive feelings."

Editor comment: The address for this citation does not work.
http://www.canadapost.com

Canadian researchers have demonstrated that dairy cows are more sophisticated than farmers realize.

Recipes for a dairy-free diet can be found free at http://www.goveg.com and http://features.peta.org/how-to-go-vegan/

Some light relief: http://cowswithguns.com/cowmovie.html

This article has been adapted from Member of Kiev's top brass 'defects' to anti-govt forces, predicts more like him (22/6/15) | RT. this article includes an embedded 1:05 minute video of Aleksandr Kolomyets speaking to a press conference. This story is confirmed by Former Advisor to Ukraine’s Defense Minister Defects to Donbass (22/6/15) | Sputnik. See also: Brothers in Arms: Two Kiev Officials Defect to Fight for Lugansk (15/6/15) | Sputnik A man claiming to be a Ukrainian major general and former assistant to the country's defense minister has announced he is now working with the forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.

"I am Ukrainian Armed Forces Major General Aleksandr Kolomiyets. My latest posts are chief analyst of the Ukrainian armed forces, assistant to the Ukrainian defense minister," the man said at a news conference at the Donetsk news agency loyal to the self-proclaimed republic. Kolomiyets had also spent 19 years as the chief enlistment officer in the Donetsk region.

The speech in the 1:05 minute video above unfortunately, has no English text included.

"I am going to work for the good of the Donetsk People's Republic," Kolomiyets (not to be confused with oligarch Igor Kolomoysky) announced.

The defector says he took his family out of the Ukrainian capital, fearing repercussions from officials.

He also claims a lot of people in the Ukrainian military want to switch to the self-proclaimed republics' side, including officers. According to Kolomiyets, hundreds have already abandoned Kiev.

"Look at who is actually fighting. Only the volunteers from nationalist squads," the defector said at the news conference.

There is growing dissatisfaction with the commanders, Kolomiyets said. "Soon, there is going to be unrest within the military. They do not understand the orders they are given, to kill civilians. We are going to see that by autumn, everything will change."

He added that morale is very low in the Ukrainian army: "All the officers, the generals that understand the criminal nature of the authorities' actions, do not want to fight."

Meanwhile, the press secretary of Ukraine's General Staff has told Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper that Kolomiyets was fired from the army in 2012 due to incompetence. "He could not handle the post of the army's top analyst," the newspaper quoted the press secretary as saying. "Besides, he traveled to Russia as a private [individual]. Military men are supposed to inform their commanders about such visits, but he broke the rules." ₁ 

Aleksandr Kolomiyets, claiming to be a major general of the Ukrainian army, speaking
at a news conference at the Donetsk news agency. (RIA Novosti/Igor Maslov)

Kolomiyets, if it is him, is not the first Ukrainian official to have switched sides in the conflict that has been tearing the country apart for over a year now. Previous defections include the head of the Lugansk customs office, an officer of the Ukrainian foreign intelligence office and a member of staff of the Ukrainian embassy in France.

Footnote[s]

Footnote not in the original article.

1. ↑  The quoted words of the press secretary of Ukraine's General Staff seem self-contradictory. If Aleksandr Kolomyets had been sacked in 2012, then he was a private individual when he travelled to Russia. How could they have expected him to "inform [his] commander about such [a] visit?"

There has been a lot of discussion about the benefits likely from the return of traditional animal predators into the Australian environment. In Victoria Toolern Vale’s Australian Dingo Foundation, Aus Eco Solutions and Mt Rothwell Biodiversity Interpretation Centre in Little River have launched the Working Dingoes Saving Wildlife project. Inside is a link to the ABC film reporting this. And we have also embedded another film about the impact of returning wolves to Yellowstone Park in the United States, whence they had been absent for about 70 or more years. The effects were positive and remarkable. This is a short and enjoyable film, narrated by George Monbiot.

Below is a link to the Australian ABC video report on the Mount Rothwell Dingo Project:

Video: Mt Rothwell Dingo Project ABC News.

Here is the wolf film:

The experience in Yellowstone of the reintroduction of wolves has begun not only improvements in their own habitat, but in other habitats across the world, including the Flinders Ranges. The principle of the importance of reintroduction of a top order predator to degraded ecosystems underpins the quoll project in the Flinders Ranges: for ‘wolves’ read ‘quolls’; for ‘deer’ read ‘rabbits’. While we do not anticipate such a dramatic impact in arid Australia we already know that our quolls are killing rabbits, and there will no doubt be observable benefits for native vegetation in the next few years.

FAME (and DEWNR) are breaking new ground with our project and we should be very proud of ourselves. Other, larger organisations are now clamouring to establish similar projects involving Australia’s very few remaining top predators, but we will always be the first!

Remember when the wolves were introduced back into Yellowstone National Park about 20 years ago?

There was a lot of debate about whether or not it was a good thing.

Republished from A protest in Paris against terrorism-backing policies of French government and Saudi regime (21/6/15) | SANA. See also 80,000 terrorists enter Syria via Turkey, Jordan: Syrian UN envoy (22/6/15) | PressTV and other articles about Syria.

Paris, SANA – A number of associations, including the French "Civitas" association, "The Gathering of Expatriates for Syria" and "The Union of Syrian Patriots" staged on Saturday a protest outside the Saudi Embassy in the French capital Paris against the terrorism-supporting policies of the French president Francois Holland and those of the Saudi regime.

A crowd of French citizens and members of the Syrian community in France and Belgium took part in the event, with the participants holding Holland’s government and the Saudi regime responsible for the massacres and crimes committed by the terrorists in the Middle East countries, particularly Syria, Iraq and Egypt.

They demanded an international trial for the two sides and all other individuals, organizations and governments that are backing or dealing with the terrorist organizations.

French and Syrian flags were waved during the protest and the slogans chanted expressed support for Syria, applauding its steadfastness in the face of the terrorists and their backers.

Alain Escada, Chairman of Civitas association, which seeks to create a French political lobby opposing the French President Francois Holland, placed the blame for the terrorist acts committed in Syria and other countries on the policies of an "axis of countries" including the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Turkey.

This axis, Escada said, seeks to establish a new world order to subjugate countries into implementing their agendas in service of their interests.

For his part, Omran al-Khatib, head of the Gathering of Expatriates for Syria told SANA in a statement that "Our participation aims at demanding that the peoples and governments of the world stand firmly in the face of Al Saud regime that generated terrorism in all its forms."

SANA reporter also spoke to a number of Syrian expatriates, who stressed that they support their homeland and its leadership and army against the terrorist organizations and all of their sponsors.

Qabas/ H. Said

Other stories about Syria: ISIS fighters plant mines and bombs in Palmyra - monitor (21/6/15) | RT, 'Revolution within revolution': How and why Kurdish women are fighting ISIS (DOCUMENTARY) (18/6/15) | RT, Syrian communities abroad condemn terrorist crimes in Syria, protest against arming terrorists (18/6/15), Syrians abroad: International silence on ISIS massacres is betrayal of human values and (3/5/15), Hundreds of Turkish citizens protest against Turkish support for terrorists.

Comment: If Angelina Jolie, the "Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)" and now visiting Turkey, ostensibly to help Syrians and Iraqis displaced by war (3/5/15), truly wanted to stop the refugee crisis, then perhaps she should consider joining any planned demonstrations by Turks opposed to President Erdogan's complicity in the proxy terrorist war against Syria which has so far cost over 220,000 lives. One such demonstration occurred on 3 May and is described in a previously linked article.

See also PressTV, the Syrian Free Press NetworkFars News, Voltaire Net, Land Destroyer, Syria News,, Global Research, RT and Sputnik News.

[Editor update: Entire Sally Pachlock B12 film embedded on 21 May 2018.]They tell us that Australia has an 'aging population problem' and an associated ‘dementia epidemic’, with Alzheimers Disease the leading diagnosis. But everything that looks like Alzheimers is not Alzheimers. Vitamin B12 deficiency causes an easily treatable and reversible form of dementia which has been increasingly overlooked since the 1980s, although it was discovered in 1900 and the cure found in 1926, earning Minot and Murphy a Nobel Prize. Previously it was core medical practitioner knowledge that the ability to absorb Vitamin B12 via the gut diminishes with age and may cause dementia. [See appendix at end of article: “Useful reference documents on age, Vitamin B12 and dementia.”] This failure to absorb Vitamin B12 orally can be compensated by B12 injections and or by megadose lozenges or drops absorbed under the tongue. It used to be wide practice to give B12 injections to people over 60 monthly in Australia and many other countries, but for a variety of reasons this went out of fashion.[1] The problem is not confined to the elderly. Children breastfeeding from mothers low in B12 have a high risk of neurological damage.[2] Vitamin B12 cannot be supplied from vegan diets. [2a] There is also quite a large group of people of all ages, including children, who develop auto-immune pernicious anaemia (due to loss of the 'intrinsic factor') [3], which can and will cause brain injury, psychiatric problems, dementia, paralysis and death if untreated. However Australian, British and United States medical teaching, diagnostic and treatment guidelines are very problematic with regard to B12 deficiencies. So problematic that there is now a huge international movement where sufferers of pernicious anaemia teach each other about diagnosis and treatment, and where to access different forms of the vitamin, while they try to inform the medical profession.

As well as pernicious anaemia, many other events can affect Vitamin 12 absorption:

”Gastrointestinal disorders such as Crohn’s disease, celiac disease, enteritis and any inflammatory process will interfere with B12 absorption, even if it is correctly broken down by the body. Toxins such as mercury will interfere with the ability of B12 to cross the blood-brain barrier. Alcohol and the anesthetic nitrous oxide (often used in dental surgery) will inactivate B12; birth control pills deplete the vitamin in the body. A variety of inborn metabolic errors can also prevent normal absorption. The most well known aberration is pernicious anemia, although it is not the most common problem. Numerous medications inhibit the absorption of B12, including the many commonly prescribed drugs for heartburn, GERD and ulcers, as well as medications for diabetes, gout, some antibiotics and diuretics, the cholesterol drug Questran, and others. These drugs are commonly prescribed to the aging population, along with fistfuls of other medications that can mask the signs of B12 deficiency while worsening its effects, such as anti-depressants, drugs for insomnia, fatigue, numbness and tingling in extremities, incontinence, and tremors. Especially because of these drug interactions the aging population is at great risk for B12 deficiency. Most medical practitioners, however, will ascribe their deteriorating conditions to the ravages of age, or the complications and “natural progression” of their wrongly diagnosed diseases.” Source: http://www.westonaprice.org/book-reviews/could-it-be-b12-by-sally-pacholok-and-jeffrey-stuart/

A book by Sally M. Pacholok and Jeffrey J. Stuart called, Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses (2007) (2011) records a nurse’s heroic efforts to get negligent hospitals to recognise and treat severe cases of B12 deficiency. For her careful and intelligent work she was shamefully persecuted. Nonetheless many doctors began to support what she was doing and continue to do so (as you can hear in the youtube clip at the top of this article.) This story is now the subject of an upcoming feature film about the cost of forgetting about B12. See the complete film below:

The forgetting of B12 is attributed in part to the streaming by US insurers of diseases into treatment categories that classified B12 deficiency as a red blood cell deformity rather than for the neurologic and other damage it does before it gets to that stage. A further complication is that compulsory addition of folic acid to many cereals [4] in the 1990s has had the effect of reducing the red blood cell deformity that doctors often rely on to diagnose the deficiency, without reducing the psychiatric symptoms including dementia and weaknesses and paralysis, which are then attributed to other or unknown causes, such as Alzheimers Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. The folic acid was added to reduce cases of spina bifida, which it did, but lack of B12 also causes spina bifida and unfortunately this problem has grown. “Birth defects linked to low B12.”

Treatment

Sometimes B12 deficiency can be such an emergency that a blood transfusion is required to preserve life. In pernicious anaemia injections are usually preferred because the patient must take them for life and unfortunately people tend to cease taking oral supplements when they feel better, not realising or forgetting how important it is never to stop this vitamin.

"Vitamin B12 is not carcinogenic, teratogenic, or mutagenic. It is considered safe even at 1,000 times the RDA." Source: Baik and Russell, 1999, cited by the American Center for Disease Control, http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/b12/patients.html

CDB Editor 29 October 2017: The above link is no longer viable. Here is another statement on dosage level from the US CDC:

"No adverse effects have been associated with excess vitamin B12 intake from food or supplements in healthy individuals, and no UL has been set."
Source: Institute of Medicine, 1998. Dietary Reference Intakes for Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin B12, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, cited by Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board. Dietary reference intakes for vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, and carotenoids. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press; 2000, cited in 2nd National Report on Biochemical Indicators of Diet and Nutrition in the U.S. Population, p.16, https://www.cdc.gov/nutritionreport/pdf/Water.pdf.

More caution should be exercised about rapid initial dosage in relatively rare cases involving megaloblastic anaemia (big red cells) especially in the presence of heart disease.

The rate of injections depends on severity of neurological symptoms. The pharmaceutical advice accompanying Neo B12 injections suggests 1000mcg (1mg) of B12 intramuscularly every second day for one to two weeks. A lot of doctors are not aware of this.

After that the convention is weekly for 6-8 weeks. Then monthly. Some people need it more frequently and may even inject it daily with ‘pens’ like the ones that are used for insulin administration.

Unfortunately Neo B12 manufacturers and a few guides suggest that 3 monthly administration is sufficient after the initial intense treatment, however there are many warnings in the medical literature that this is usually not enough in pernicious anaemia or other mal-absorption syndromes. The patients cannot maintain levels for so long for various reasons. Patients in the UK find that the prescribing regimes there are so rigid and niggardly that many resort to buying B12 in injection form and self-injecting. The Pernicious Anaemia Society is circulating a petition to have the UK system more responsive to individual patient needs. See various forums for people with pernicious anaemia.

There is a Pernicious Anaemia Society which costs $80.00 to join, but there is a free self-help facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/653686738072599/.

Lozenges and drops are not fast enough in an emergency – i.e. where there are noticeable neurological symptoms. If you take about 5mg (5000 mcg) sublingually daily for a month, by the end of a month you may reach the same dose as you would reach within 48 hrs after a single 1mg (1000mcg) injection. You can import high dose lozenges from the United States via amazon.com and also from New South Wales, Australia.

Blood level norms vary widely between countries

The levels considered 'normal range' vary greatly between different countries. In Japan 450 picograms per milliliter(pg/mL) is considered the lowest safe level, but in Australia it is 150, although guidelines advise that anyone with lower count than 350 who has symptoms, should be investigated further. The problem here is that many doctors think that the only ‘symptoms’ are deformed (macrocytic) red blood cells and attribute any neurologic symptoms to other or unknown causes or just ignore them. The patient goes away but the disease progresses and they may finish up in psychiatric facilities, nursing homes or dead.

I have experienced this lackadaisical treatment for two members of my family, leaving both disabled by brain injury. In both cases blood tests had been done which were well below the danger level, but they were ignored, again in both cases, by neurologist and a range of GPs in a particular clinic. When, as a carer with power of medical attorney I finally twigged to the cause and requested records of tests and new tests, the responses by the practitioners were awfully predictable: “But they don’t have macrocytosis.” “Oh, does she have symptoms?” (In a patient who had developed profound dementia over three years). “Oh, but his symptoms were caused by an accident.” (But they preceded the accident.) It seems that with B12 deficiencies people cannot even trust neurologists, let alone GPs to do the right thing. We therefore need to arm ourselves with knowledge and re-educate GPS. What we can do with our anger and despair at the needless suffering, I am not too sure. I find it hard to write about, but I write about it because I want to warn people.

This is a disease of frequently subtle onset:

"...because the liver is a very efficient storage organ for vitamin B12, even completely deficient diets in healthy adults might not result in low serum vitamin B12 levels for several years. Conversely, apparently healthy adults, especially the elderly, consuming diets rich in naturally occurring vitamin B12 can still develop a significant deficiency because of undetected malabsorption. It is possible for vitamin B12 deficiency to develop in a much shorter period of time (months) in some people." (Source: American Center for Disease Control, "Detection and Diagnosis.")

The disease runs in families as well as occurring with no family history.

Getting the norms changed, sensitizing clinics to neuro and psyche symptoms, diagnosing and treating the vitamin deficiency is very difficult because formal recognition of so far ignored cases could open up retrospective opportunities for legal suits. If the phenomena is as widespread as it seems to be, then we would be looking at huge class actions. Maybe we still are, since the evidence is so abundant, you wonder how long the medical and pathology definitions can resist this.

Pernicious Anaemia and Macrocytosis

"The accepted normal range, created many decades ago, is based on hematologic (blood) changes and not neurologic changes, and thus contributes significantly to late diagnosis." Source: Pacholok, Sally M.; Stuart, Jeffrey J. (2011-01-01). Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses (p. 14). Linden Publishing. Kindle Edition. "

As I have already alluded, many doctors have been taught that pernicious anaemia is largely a blood disorder where the red cells that carry oxygen become visibly deformed (under the microscope). They have been taught that until this happens, the disease is not very serious. In reality, brain injury can occur well before the blood cell deformity occurs, and the blood cell deformity may never occur, especially now that most people are exposed to compulsory Folic Acid supplements in cereals. As well as classic brain injury, spinal lesions occur, crippling people with low B12 and mimicking Multiple Sclerosis.

"We believe that the “normal” serum B12 threshold needs to be raised from 200 pg/ml to at least 450 pg/ml because deficiencies begin to appear in the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) below 550 pg/ml.10, 11, 12 At this time, we believe normal serum B12 levels should be greater than 550pg/ml. For brain and nervous system health and prevention of disease in older adults, serum B12 levels should be maintained near or above 1,000 pg/ml." Source: Pacholok, Sally M.; Stuart, Jeffrey J. (2011-01-01). Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses (p. 11). Linden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

It is over a century since medical scientists discovered the link between B12 and mental illness, but in the early 21st century, “very few mentally ill patients are being evaluated for underlying B12 deficiency, and only a minute percentage receive the adjunctive urinary MMA test that can also assist in diagnosis.” Source: Pacholok, Sally M.; Stuart, Jeffrey J. (2011-01-01). Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses (pp. 87-88). Linden Publishing. Kindle Edition. "

NOTES

[1] I visited my mother’s 90 year old friend, who is a retired pharmacist a few days ago and raised the subject of B12 with her. She immediately said, “The minute someone turned 60 the doctors used to give them monthly Vitamin B12 injections. It was a very good earner for our pharmacy! And then it kind of went out of fashion.” She would have begun dispensing from her father’s pharmacy around 1942 or so.

[2] Severe vitamin B12 deficiency in infants breastfed by vegans; ” Vegan Infants & Toddlers with B12 Deficiency.”

[2a] https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/nutrition-health/vitamins-minerals-and-more/vitamin-b12-your-key-facts/what-every-vegan-should-know-about-vitamin-b12

[3] The intrinsic factor is a substance secreted by the stomach which enables the body to absorb vitamin B12. It is a glycoprotein. It can be destroyed by alcohol, various drugs, including antacids, beta blockers, some antibiotics and some illnesses. Discussed above as factors affecting Vitamin B12 absorption.

[4] Regulations for mandatory fortification of wheat flour with folic acid are currently in place in 53 countries although in many cases these regulations have not been implemented [23]. In 2006, the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations published guidelines to help countries to set the Target Fortification Level, the Minimum Fortification Level, the Maximum Fortification Level and the Legal Minimum Level of folic acid to be used to fortify flour with folic acid]. In the United States, mandatory fortification of enriched cereal grain products with folic acid was authorized in 1996 and fully implemented in 1998. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257747/#B23-nutrients-03-00370

APPENDIX: Useful reference documents on age, Vitamin B12 and dementia

Vitamin B12 deficiency common among elderly people

MOLNLYCKE, SWEDEN. Swedish researchers have discovered that many older people are deficient in
vitamin B-12. Their study involved 368 men and women aged 75 years or older. Analysis of blood serum
showed that 11 per cent of the participants were deficient in cobalamin (vitamin B-12). The researchers
point out that a vitamin B-12 deficiency has been linked to neuropsychiatric disorders such as memory
loss and dementia. The researchers discovered several cases of gastritis (inflammation of the lining of
the stomach) and two cases of celiac disease among patients with low serum values of cobalamin. They
conclude that routine screening for a vitamin B-12 deficiency is justified in the case of older people.

In a separate letter to the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society doctors from the Union
Memorial Hospital in Baltimore report on a case of vitamin B-12 deficiency. The patient, an 85-year-old
man, had developed progressive memory loss and lethargy over a two-year period. Although his serum
level of vitamin B-12 was within the currently accepted range, the doctors decided to proceed with vitamin
B-12 therapy. The patient received an intramuscular injection of 1000 micrograms of vitamin B-12 for
three consecutive days, then 1000 micrograms weekly for a month, and then one injection every month.
By the fifth injection his mental status had vastly improved and his lethargy had completely vanished. The
doctors conclude that the levels of serum vitamin B-12 concentrations currently considered normal in the
United States may be too low and should be reassessed. The lower limit of 200 pg/mL is based on the
level that causes abnormalities in the blood (pernicious anaemia). In contrast the lower limit in Japan and
some European countries is 500-550 pg/mL and is based on the level that causes mental manifestations
such as dementia and memory loss. The doctors suggest that a trial of vitamin B-12 therapy is warranted
in patients with borderline cobalamin serum levels as it is effective and inexpensive.

Eggersten, Robert, et al. Prevalence and diagnosis of cobalamin deficiency in older people. Journal of
the American Geriatrics Society , Vol. 44, No. 10, October 1996, pp. 1273-74
Goodman, Mark, et al. Are U.S. lower normal B-12 limits too low? Journal of the American Geriatrics
Society, Vol. 44, No. 10, October 1996, pp. 1274-75

NEW YORK, NY. Researchers at Columbia University have confirmed that elderly people often suffer
from a lack of vitamin B12 (cobalamin). The deficiency is usually only discovered when patients develop
megaloblastic anaemia. However, before this stage is reached, cobalamin-deficient individuals may
develop neuropsychiatric damage and show signs of disorientation and confusion. The researchers
evaluated 548 men and women aged 67 to 96 years and compared their cobalamin and folate status to
that of 117 healthy, younger control subjects. They found that 40.5 per cent of the elderly people suffered
from a vitamin B12 deficiency versus only 17.9 per cent in the younger group. There was no significant
difference in folate status between the two groups. The researchers also found that people who took oral
supplements containing vitamin B12 and folate (6 micrograms and 400 micrograms per day respectively)
were much less likely to suffer from a deficiency than were people who did not supplement. They point
out that as people age they become less and less able to absorb vitamin B12 from food and therefore are
likely to develop a deficiency. As gastric atrophy progresses vitamin B12 status can only be maintained
by taking high oral doses of cobalamin (500-1000 micrograms daily) or by routine intramuscular injections
providing 1 mg per month. The researchers also point out that a vitamin B12 deficiency leads to an
accumulation of homocysteine in the blood. An increased serum concentration of homocysteine and its
derivatives is now recognized as a major risk factor in heart disease and stroke.

Lindenbaum, John, et al. Prevalence of cobalamin deficiency in the Framingham elderly population.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 60, July 1994, pp. 2-11
Allen, Lindsay H. and Casterline, Jennifer. Vitamin B-12 deficiency in elderly individuals: diagnosis and
requirements. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 60, July 1994, pp. 12-14

LEUVEN, BELGIUM. An international team of researchers have confirmed that elderly people often
suffer from a deficiency of vitamins B-6, B-12 and folic acid. Their investigation involved 99 healthy young
people (aged 19-55), 64 healthy elderly subjects (aged 65-88), and 286 elderly hospitalized patients
(aged 61-97). The researchers measured the blood concentrations of the vitamins in all subjects as well
as the concentration of certain metabolic products that tend to build up if a vitamin deficiency is present.
They found that 9% of the healthy elderly subjects had a low vitamin B-6 level as compared to more than
51% for the hospitalized patients. Corresponding numbers for vitamin B-12 and folic acid were 6% and
5%, and 5% and 19% respectively. Of perhaps greater significance was the finding that in 63% of the
healthy elderly subjects and in 83% of the elderly patients the researchers observed an increased serum
concentration of one or more of the metabolic products that indicate a deficiency in vitamin B-6, B-12 or
folate. Thus an elevated level of the metabolite (methylmalonic acid), which indicates a B-12 deficiency,
was found in 23% of the healthy elderly people and in 39% of the elderly hospitalized patients. Recent
experiments have shown that weekly injections of vitamin B-12, B-6, and folate are highly effective in
normalizing the elevated metabolite concentrations in elderly people.

Joosten, Etienne, et al. Metabolic evidence that deficiencies of vitamin B-12 (cobalamin), folate, and
vitamin B-6 occur commonly in elderly people. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 58, No. 3,
September 1993, pp. 468-76

See also the following peer reviewed statement in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, in response to a letter from Dr Soloman, who speaks in the film at the top of this article, ""Diagnosing and Treating Vitamin B12 Deficiency .:

Response Letter to Lawrence Solomon

Previously published on the PressTV YouTube channel Dozens of locals followed the unlikely pet walk to the beach where they gathered round to take photos with the felines. The owner had purchased the two infant lions from a run-down zoo in Gaza at the start of the year. The cat-loving family has been raising the cubs in a three-room apartment with their four children. But what will happen when the cubs grow up? Your comments invited.

Editor's comment: The following three comments were posted YouTube in reponse to the above video:

"Liked" for others to view. Let's hope someone acts and rescues these poor creatures.- offwithtefairies

Your own opinions about the content of this video are welcome. Please post your own views in the comment form below. - Ed

Your own opinions about the content of this video are welcome. Please your own views in the comment form below.

Pope Francis needs to be praised for calling for an "ecological conversion" for the faithful in his sweeping new encyclical on the environment. "Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost forever," he writes.

In a draft of his encyclical on the environment , Pope Francis says that the world could see the destruction of entire ecosystems this century without urgent action on climate change. He makes direct connections between our "throw-away culture" that pollutes and degrades the environment with how our society discards those "excluded" from the global economy, exploits workers, harvests human organs, and traffics in people.

The release of the Pope's 184-page teaching letter on the environment is being seen as the moment when the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics threw the Church's support behind the climate movement. 2

The Pope backs scientists who say global warming is mostly man-made and that developed countries have a particular responsibility to stem a trend that will hurt the poor the most. However, the Pope is being intellectually dishonest and evasive by rejecting suggestions that population control would solve the environmental crisis, saying instead the problem is one of “extreme consumerism”.

But, contradictorily, he also claims that: "In the face of the so-called culture of death, the family is the heart of the culture of life." And, "Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion." 1

Population "control", or less harshly, family planning, is far removed than a "culture of death" but of spacing pregnancies and avoiding unwanted ones. It doesn't have to mean abortion, but the use of contraceptives! He's equating "population control" with "abortion"?

Overpopulation is often the cause of poverty,and environmental degradation.

The Pope does not acknowledge that the Catholic Church has contributed to these environmental and social justice problems by its irrational and adamant opposition to responsible family planning.

So, if we will all switch off excessive lights, reduce the use of paper, plastic and water, separate trash, practice car-sharing then global population can keep overshooting natural limits with impunity? While we may individually reduce our impact on natural resources and waste, in absolute terms anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions will still keep rising due to exponential population growth!

Pope Francis still defends the Church's opposition to contraception. He's being enlightened, but at the same time directing the blame for over-consumption on the "wealthy" nations. Disingenuously, he's ignoring the impoverishing and destructive impacts of overpopulation.

Pope Francis goes on to acknowledge that “attention needs to be paid to imbalances in population density, on both national and global levels” . Apparently, then, it is not a surplus of babies that is the real problem, but where they are born.

Overpopulation is certainly not the sole cause of our environmental crisis, but there’s no question it is a significant contributing cause, and a rapidly expanding population will only exacerbate our environmental problems. 2

Improved access to contraception must be an integral part--albeit an essential one--of a larger effort to improve health and well-being in the developing world. 4

References:
1 http://www.smh.com.au/environment/global-warming/10-key-excerpts-from-pope-francis-encyclical-on-the-environment-20150618-ghru2s.html

2 http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4257987.htm

3 http://www.csindy.com/IndyBlog/archives/2015/06/18/popes-green-cred-marred-by-family-planning-remarks

4 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-walker/the-papal-encyclical-taki_b_7612890.html

"Why can't we all just get along?" asked Rodney King back in 1991, after he had been savagely beaten by four Los Angeles cops. That's a really good question, Rodney. But an even better question might be, "Why wasn't Rodney King thrown in jail forever with no hope of parole -- like what happened to Mumia Abu-Jamal?"

Quick question, quick answer -- someone had a videotape recorder up and running on the day that King was being beaten so badly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb1WywIpUtY No one had a videotape recorder up and running back in Mumia's day.

So now let's go forward in our time machine, from 1991 to the present. Now everyone has a video camera on their iPhone, and not just some clunky old video camera that is impossible to haul around in your back pocket or purse. And now a whole big bunch of police malfeasance is being caught on tape -- daily. Everyone who witnesses police brutality can now post it on YouTube. Police all across the nation now have nowhere to hide.

But now let's go backwards in our time machine again -- and this time let's take our iPhones with us. What would we see? What else could we videotape and upload on YouTube from back in the day?

Would we catch the FBI unlawfully attacking innocent Native Americans in their home and then forcing witnesses to give false testimony against Leonard Peltier, J. Edgar Hoover style? http://www.freeleonard.org/case/

Would we see Mumia Abu-Jamal being framed for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer even though evidence points to Kenneth Freeman having done the shooting and that Freeman was later found naked, handcuffed, beaten and dead? What do you want to bet that we would? http://www.freemumia.com/who-is-mumia-abu-jamal/

Or what if bystanders had all gleefully pulled out their iPhones and taped the real killer in the murder of Caroline Olsen? Then Geronimo Pratt, who had been falsely charged by COINTELPRO, wouldn't have had to spend 27 years of his life in jail before his conviction was overturned.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/03/geronimo-pratt-dead-at-63_n_870910.html

And what if.... "Don't go there, Jane!" Sorry, guys, I just gotta go there. What if everyone had iPhones on the Grassy Knoll back in 1963 and also took videos of what Abraham Zapruder's home camera has shown us -- only in more detail? Would Lee Harvey Oswald still be the lone patsy? I bet not. My best bet would be that heads in the CIA would have rolled.

But, alas for Wall Street and War Street and Fox News (but lucky for us), there are now over 700 million iPhones loose on the world -- and, all over the world, they are telling us what is really happening instead of what corporate propaganda sorely wishes that we would believe.

Police in America can no longer get away with carte blanche brutality.

We now know that Flight MH17 was shot down in Ukraine by the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.

ISIS and Al Qaeda are now in possession of over 2,300 American Humvees -- especially after American satellites just happened to fail to notice that thousands of ISIS and Al Qaeda fighters were crossing open deserts in Toyota trucks after having been thrown out of Syria by President Assad, who is currently hated by Turkey, the Saudis, Israel and the US for taking his courageous stand against ISIS and Al Qaeda, War Street's new BFFs. Plus a lot of this American-backed craziness in the Middle East has actually been captured by teams of ISIS bad guys on their iPhones and uploaded to FaceBook -- which is completely and totally weird!

You don't believe that American, Saudi, Turkish and Israeli neo-colonialists are backing, financing and supporting ISIS? Here are just a handful of the many, many links that prove my case -- and I'm sure you will find some iPhone snapshots in this mix as well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/iraq-isis-humvees_n_7487254.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawmakers-move-to-curb-1-billion-cia-program-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/06/12/b0f45a9e-1114-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html?tid=sm_tw

http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/09/logistics-101-where-does-isis-get-its-guns/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/world/middleeast/isis-is-winning-message-war-us-concludes.html?_r=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r68ANObt818&feature=youtu.be

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/10/did-the-war-in-syria-just-become-a-regional-war/

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/06/the-guardian-joins-the-moderate-al-qaeda-public-relation-campaign-.html

Damn those traitorous American bastards to hell who are funding and supplying ISIS with weapons! ISIS just attacked a school in Aleppo. Ambulances were heard carrying suffering children away to hospitals for over four hours. And we can now watch this carnage close up -- taken on the iPhones of the families and doctors of these children. Why aren't Americans stopping this! https://www.facebook.com/ForMotherSyria/posts/662030840564771?notif_t=notify_me

And as for Monsanto, Scalia, Obama, Congress and the Koch brothers, we also know what you did last summer -- thanks to Apple and Steve Jobs.

But why stop here now that we've got our time machine out? Let's take this analogy even further. Holy sheep dookie! Just imagine!

What if.... What if there had been iPhones back in the days of Jesus, Moses and Mohammed? And we could all actually listen in on what these three amazing men actually said? Then all of those phony Christians, Jews and Muslims in Washington, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia today would be immediately exposed for what they really are: Just sleazy neo-colonialist hypocrites in disguise. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/yemen-historic-houses-unesco-world-heritage-sana-old-city-reduced-rubble-by-saudi-strikes-1505760

Originally published on Jane Stillwater's blog at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/06/leonard-mumia-if-only-theyd-had-iphones.html

The policy and position of Australian government with respect to population issues is the most influential factor likely to impact on Australia’s future sustainability and hence the prosperity of current and future citizens. Because of the bipartisan government position on population/immigration numbers it is all but impossible to engender an effective public debate on these issues. I therefore welcome this opportunity created by the Productivity Commission to have this debate in a manner that is untarnished by vested interests and scaremongering about perceived xenophobia.

The current fertility rate for Australian women is hovering at around replacement levels.[1] This level decreased significantly in the decades leading up to 2000 and has substantially stabilised since then. I believe this choice by Australian families at once represents a level of confidence in future prosperity of the nation as well as a desire to ensure quality parenting that can be better delivered through smaller family sizes. Given a continuance of this statistic our population would stabilise at around 28 million. This is more than 20% higher than the level recommended by the Australian Academy of Science as a sustainable level while maintaining the current standard of living that all Australians expect to pass on to our descendants. The corollary to this statement is that our population growth levels are already such that they are compromising the prosperity of future Australians. Nevertheless, at this level the nation would be able to respond effectively to both positive and negative externalities that may impact on our future prosperity.

The major impediment in the way of us achieving this flexible and optimum outcome is our level of immigration. Immigration has been by far the most significant driver for Australia’s rapid population increase over the last two decades.

Population increase as a result of immigration impacts the country in a number of ways:
- Upfront impacts to infrastructure congestion and costs
- Increased impact on the environment
- Dilution of wealth creating resources over an increased distribution
- Increased disparity of wealth
- Erosion of amenity and culture.

Having a local market is now irrelevant

Whilst there is some truth to the idea of innovation being enhanced by diversity the concept that increasing population of itself somehow makes us all more wealthy is simply unsubstantiated spin, put out by vested interests. In the past, Australia has benefited from growth to our critical mass of population. This has facilitated domestic industries to develop where a smaller population could not have sustained these industries. Those days are gone. With global capital, communications and distribution networks industries will develop and flourish where they incur the lowest costs. Through the internet, individual consumers now, and increasingly so in the future, will purchase directly from the lowest cost supplier and the lowest cost distributer in the world. Whether we agree with it or not, governments are actively ensuring that no legal or commercial barriers can be used protect local industries. Having a local market is now irrelevant. As such, any petition that argues that increases to our population will enhance local market strength should be dismissed.

Infrastructure Costs

Wealth and wealth generation and our standard of living in Australia is supported by an array of public infrastructure, much of which is owned and controlled by government. A review of the value of the government portion of public assets across the three levels of government indicates a total current value of approximately $1.9 – $2.0 trillion.

It is reasonable to argue that any increase in population resulting from immigration will need to be supported by a commensurate increase in this public infrastructure. This equates to a value in excess of $83,000 per immigrant.

Note that the previous number represents a depreciated value of assets and not the current replacement value. It can be argued that migration necessitates the building of new infrastructure and so should be costed at the current value but I will ignore this argument for the sake of presenting a conservative position.

There are three major factors that impact on this argument:
- Higher population density will result in more efficiency in the utilisation of some assets.
- The cost of provision of supplementary infrastructure to provide additional capacity in an already built environment is significantly higher than the cost of the original assets ie. a tunnel costs far more than the above ground road it supplements.
- Provision of major infrastructure is almost always incremental. For a continually increasing demand, this results in an infrastructure complement that is always operating at either below or above optimum capacity. The more rapid the population change, the more severe the impact of this derogation in efficiency.
I believe in an Australia at the current time and with our current growth rates the last two of these negative factors will far outweigh the benefits of the first.

Environmental Costs

Australians currently are responsible for one of the highest GHG emissions of any country. On average we emit around 16T of GHG per person per year. The bulk of immigrants arriving here originate from countries with GHG emissions at a fraction of the Australian numbers. From a world perspective this flow of people therefore represents a huge negative impact on the effort to limit climate change.

Putting the world perspective aside and looking purely at the financial impact to Australia the immigration numbers will result in a significant increase in the costs this country will incur in order to meet our international obligations. Although GHG emissions are currently trading for around $20 per tonne it is expected that this value will rise to over $60 per tonne in order to meet the 2050 target of a 50% reduction. The price will continue to climb beyond this point.

Running an NPV analysis for a 30 year old on the basis of a GHG price of $40 per tonne will yield an upfront cost of approximately $16,000.

Note that this figure represents a small fraction of the total environmental cost of population increase but it is that portion that can be readily quantified and has a high degree of certainty in terms of our national cost obligation.

Dilution of Wealth Resources

A number of studies have been done in other countries to assess the net benefits of migration. Invariably these studies have determined that there was no net benefit to the existing population derived from immigration. The most definitive of the studies was conducted by the UK government that came to this same conclusion.

The most significant aspect where the Australian situation differs from the UK case is in the basis of the two economies. The UK derives most of its wealth through the leverage of labour whereas most of our core wealth is derived from exploitation of both renewable and non-renewable resources. The income that Australia earns from these sources represents around 80% of the amount we use to pay our way in the world.

The sources of this income are finite. The thinner we spread these income sources over our population the less there is for each of us to enjoy.

Assessment of the per capita value of national resources is quite a difficult exercise and subject to a range of assumptions regarding public and private returns from these resources. The diminution of per capita wealth through the dilution of resources cannot be ignored and should be the subject of a public enquiry by the Productivity Commission.

Total Financial Impact

Given the above factors each new immigrant costs the Australian public well in excess of $100,000 per person in public infrastructure, environmental and dilution of public wealth. If the government’s objective is to provide a net wealth benefit to its citizens through immigration, then this is the minimum that we should expect new migrants to return to Australian society.

Often there is an argument that new immigrants will pay back their upfront infrastructure costs through the taxes they pay during the course of their working lives. The trouble with this argument is, that the bulk of taxes simply go towards the costs of recurrent government expenditure. New infrastructure spending represents only around 4% of total government expenditure. Using this proportion and an NPV analysis on the tax payable by a 30 year old immigrant, in order to pay off the upfront infrastructure cost, they would need to pay over $95,000 (present value) per year in tax over the entire course of their working lives. This level of tax is unlikely to be recovered from even the top 1% of new immigrants.

It therefore makes sense to recover the upfront costs from new migrants upon entry thus allowing market forces to dictate those immigrants that will be in a position to make a positive financial contribution to Australia’s net wealth.

Increased Disparity of Wealth

The effect of population increase on labour prices can be analysed using the most well established economic tool, the cost demand curve. The greater the availability of labour in the economy the lower the price will be for that labour. Although we may want to pretend otherwise, the bulk of immigrants to Australia commence on the bottom end of the labour market. Even skilled migration applicants generally bring with them family members who will be taking entry level positions in the jobs market. It is undeniable that this will push down the price of the bottom end of the labour market.

At the same time there are substantial corporate benefits associated with increasing the population. Land development, banking, retail of consumer and whitegoods all derive the bulk of their profit growth from the growth in population. While in itself this is not bad. On a balanced playing field these profits would circulate into the economy therefore growing Australia’s overall net wealth. The trouble is, there is not a balanced playing field. There is a disproportionate ownership of most Australian corporations by foreign owners. The extra profits generated are not recycled back into the Australian economy but instead are siphoned off to overseas investors. There are some Australian owners of corporations that have derived substantial wealth from population growth, but as a general rule, the greater the rate we stimulate the economy through population growth, the greater the rate that profits generated are siphoned off overseas.

The use of 457 visas only exacerbates the above effect. I know for a fact that the 457 visa scheme is being rorted in the computer programming industry. Indian programmers are being brought in on 457 visas at a salary of around $25,000 per year. They have been used to replace Australian programmers who previously held these positions and earned around $60,000 per year.

The major companies involved in this rort are following the government procedural process to the letter. They are advertising the positions in the Australian market making the low salary offered for the position very clear. Naturally they receive no applications at these low rates. They then use this information to justify that they cannot acquire employees in the local market and hence the need to import labour through the 457 scheme. Virtually all of the salaries earned by these 457 workers is being repatriated back to India. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of experienced Australian programmers either working as unskilled labour or collecting unemployment benefits.

So an industry that was entirely self-contained, training and employing local people to generate wealth has been replaced by one that has a net effect of draining wealth out of the economy.

If this is the known case in this one field then it is very reasonable to expect that this same practice is being utilised across all industries. How is this scheme beneficial to the Australian economy?

Both the importation of low skilled labour and the 457 visa scheme is eroding the earning capacity of the less well off in Australia. At the same time these arrangements are benefiting corporate owners. This practice has already diminished the egalitarian nature of Australian society and will cause further deterioration if allowed to continue.

Erosion of Amenity and Culture

It is very difficult to put measures on amenity, and even more difficult to quantify loss of culture.

The argument for the correlation of higher population and the erosion of amenity is obvious. Congestion on roads and public transport, the need to live further from places of work, lack of provision of government services once taken for granted, the overcrowding of beaches, parks and recreation areas are all the direct result of population growth. The counter argument is that much of this loss of amenity is due to low infrastructure spending. Higher relative spending will certainly fix some of the problems, but not all. And, as indicated above in the economic analysis, this higher spending is simply not financially feasible without governments going into higher debt or a higher tax regime.

While I am sure the advantages of a diverse culture will be put forward by proponents of high immigration numbers, it is worth considering one negative aspect that is rarely discussed.

In the first half of the 20th century, Australia had by most standards a very homogeneous culture. Because of this homogeneity the various governments of the day were able to make bold plans for the future that were generally supported by a voting public that spoke with a single consistent voice. Over the last twenty years this capacity to make strong long term plans has completely disappeared from all tiers of Australian government. Politics is completely consumed by the need to satisfy small special interest groups rather than the focus on the general common wealth. Diversity of culture is not solely driven by immigration but immigration is the major contributing factor to it. Thus the capacity of governments to make consistent long term plans for the future has been significantly hampered by our growth in cultural diversity. The detrimental economic effects of this while indeterminate should not be ignored.

It is difficult to justify in a submission to the Productivity Commission the true value to the community of the freedoms we used to enjoy in this country. Freedoms that have been curtailed either directly due to the density of population or have come about as a result of necessary government rules and regulations to control society that has become both larger and more complex. It is these past freedoms that formed the core of what used to be Australian culture. Unfortunately, most such justification will be viewed simply as nostalgia.

I retaining an abiding wish to ensure that my grandchildren (as yet unborn) will enjoy the feeling of being Australian and proudly different from the rest of the world. These differences however, are being profoundly diluted as a direct result of the combined effects of immigration levels and the adoption of multi-culturalism. Through these policies we are consigning future children of our nation to be simply amorphous world citizens rather than uniquely Australian. That fact is deeply concerning.

John Roles

Queensland.

NOTES

Candobetter.net Editor's note: Sub-replacement fertility is a total fertility rate (TFR) that (if sustained) leads to each new generation being less populous than the previous one in a given area. In developed countries sub-replacement fertility is any rate below approximately 2.1 children born per woman, but the threshold can be as high as 3.4 in some developing countries because of higher mortality rates.[1] Taken globally, the total fertility rate at replacement was 2.33 children per woman in 2003.[1] This can be "translated" as 2 children per woman to replace the parents, plus a "third of a child" to make up for the higher probability of boys being born, and early mortality prior to the end of their fertile life.[2]

Replacement level fertility in terms of the net reproduction rate (NRR) is exactly one, because the NRR takes both mortality rates and sex ratios at birth into account. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility#cite_ref-2

According to the RSPCA, since ESCAS was introduced, Israel's live export market has been the subject of numerous complaints regarding the treatment of Australian animals. Apart from inhumane loading and handling, abattoirs in Israel continue to use barbaric inversion slaughter boxes which rotate cattle upside-down to have their throats cut without stunning.

Hidden cameras set up by Animals Australia investigators have captured harrowing vision of routine abuse inside one of Israel’s biggest abattoirs. Just like Bakar Tnuva, (exposed in 2012), the Deir Al Asad slaughterhouse passed audits and was given the ‘tick of approval’ by live exporters and the Australian Government.

This must be incredibly painful, and terrorizing for the animals, but now, footage from the Dabaah abattoir has revealed even more appalling treatment at the point of slaughter.

Australian cattle that have just been attacked in what's crudely called "slaughter" are staggering onto the kill-room floor with their throats gaping open, to be eventually hoisted while still conscious. Workers are seen twisting and breaking their tails to make it easier for them to attach the hoisting shackles.

This abattoir is deemed compliant with every single requirement of ESCAS by the exporter-appointed auditor. Australia is compliant to this torture by supplying the animals!

When Animals Australia investigator visited Vietnamese abattoirs last month, he witnessed what Australian cattle who commonly fall ‘outside the system’ are subjected to. It is the same fate suffered by local cattle as well as those imported from other countries when they are slaughtered in the ‘traditional method’: A frightened bull is marched onto a blood soaked kill floor. He is restrained tightly by a rope around his neck. A slaughterman stands before him wielding a sledgehammer!

In 2013, the first video evidence showing Australian cattle being hit with sledgehammers was provided to the Department of Agriculture by a concerned member of the public. But instead of halting live cattle exports at that time, the industry chose to rapidly expand the trade and increase market share in Vietnam.

It's unconscious-able that our government fully supports this evil trade. We've had sledgehammer attacks, sheep buried alive, and every atrocity imaginable, but the live export trade continues.

While profits benefits producers, and Australia's economy, any industry built on such horrendous animal abuse and abandonment of ethnics is completely unacceptable, and must end.

PETITION: Ban live exports
banliveexport.com

Some recent comments reproduced here. Please contribute more. Joe Hockey seems like a nice guy, an intelligent guy, but he's just too rich to be really useful to anyone who isn't. He reminds me of Marie-Antoinette, a foreign princess who didn't want to try to understand the problems of the people and her husband. People look back and say, "How could she be so silly? Couldn't she see that the people were angry and desperate?" But, you know, she had other priorities.

Joe Hockey's insulting response to unaffordable housing

He declared that "If you've got a good job and it pays good money and you have security in relation to that job, then you can go to the bank and you can borrow money and that's readily affordable". The fact that wages are not keeping up with house prices is being ignored by this buffoon, and shows just how callous and out of touch our arrogant politicians really are!

Mr Hockey made the comment at media conference in Sydney where he was being asked about rising housing prices across the country, especially in Sydney and Melbourne. He denied that housing in Sydney had become unaffordable, particularly for new entrants into the property market. Just wonder how the normal people are actually able to communicate with our leaders, in their ivory towers of affluence. How many houses must our politicians have? They just watch their profits increasing, while the masses are struggling to meet mortgage payments, or are thrown onto the streets. Older people now are in danger of homelessness, due to pension cuts and soaring housing and costs of living.

The Treasurer said rising house prices were a good thing because they enabled owners to borrow against the equity to fund new spending. After decades of paying off a house, or even part of it, how are they to see it eaten away with reverse mortgages? Houses can't be used to pay water, Council rates, electricity and everyday expenses!

Joe Hockey's advice to first homebuyers - get a good job that pays good money (9/6/15) | SMH/the Age
Other stories : Joe Hockey pilloried for 'get a good job' remarks

(9/6/15) | SMH, [Joe Hockey's claimed] property crackdown 'won't hurt Australia' (9/6/15) | SBS

"Skating on thin ice"

Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott are skating on thin ice with their defence of stratospheric house prices especially in Sydney. Another Liberal politician, Craig Laundy has defended Joe Hockey's recent remarks on the subject and advised the public that now is a good time to get into the property market. What happens if someone takes on a mortgage which he can just afford and then interest rates rise and he can no longer cover the repayments? Does the government bear any of the responsibility? Abbott said that he wanted prices in Sydney to rise because he has a property there (mortgaged). He is far from disinterested. Hockey says housing is not unaffordable because people are buying but that the answer to the problem that apparently is not a problem is to "build, build, build". He must know that the problem is shortage of land , land land in relation to the huge numbers of people, people, people needing housing in the areas where people want to live. He knows that the average person can only buy where land is cheap or buy in more expensive areas but have little or no land. Members of the government are skating on thin ice because they appear to be interfering in the housing market. Isn't their dictum to let markets be free? They also appear to be giving advice and to have their own interests in the asset case in which they are giving advice to the public. What they need to do is take on the responsibility of a housing safety net. This means "public housing, public housing, public housing!"

Candobetter.net Editor: This article is about the US contribution to the radicalisation of the Middle East. In reality there is no dividing wall between the 'extremists' and 'America's supposedly moderate opposition allies'. Recently both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which operate out of US-led command centers in Turkey and Jordan, signed a pact to coordinate support to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in order to further attack the Syrian government.

Recent Rebel Gains a Result of US Support to Extremists

The rebel opposition in Syria has in recent months made a series of gains against the Syrian army, most notably in Idlib, Palmyra, and Ramadi in Iraq. However, given that from the very beginning the opposition had taken “a clear sectarian direction” and has been dominated by “ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra… in addition to other extreme jihadi groups”, itself consisting of “no moderate middle”, and the fact that “in reality there is no dividing wall between them [extremists] and America’s supposedly moderate opposition allies”, it is no wonder why all of the recent gains have been made by hard-line Islamists.(1) The radicalization of the opposition was the result of a covert US/CIA-led program in collusion with regional allies to expand the dissent base in Syria and strengthen Islamist rebels against the Syrian government.(2)

These recent Islamist advances are the result of an increase in support from the US-led coalition to their proxies inside Syria. Recently both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who operate out of US-led command centers in Turkey and Jordan, signed a pact in early March to coordinate support to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in order to further attack the Syrian government. Huffington Post quotes Usama Abu Zeid, a legal advisor to the Free Syrian Army, as confirming that this new coordination had facilitated recent rebel advances.(3) The pact subsequently lead to the al-Qaeda takeover of Idlib in late March, where the two countries have since set up a joint command center to further coordinate and command their extremist proxies from the captured province. Syrian government sources thus accurately blame Turkish intervention as the key factor in the fall of Idlib. The city’s fall however is only the 2nd provincial capital that has been captured by the opposition during the entire 4-year war, the other being Raqqa, which is now the de facto capital of the fake Islamic State “Caliphate.”(4)

In addition to Turkish and Saudi support to al-Qaeda extremists, so too has the US increased its support to Islamists.

In early May Charles Lister of the Brookings Institute Doha Center confirmed that “US-led operations rooms in southern Turkey and Jordan” have specifically “encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations”, and while doing so have “dramatically increased [their] level of assistance and provisions of intelligence” to this Islamist-led opposition, all of which has led to the al-Qaeda victory in Idlib.(5) So not only has the entire support to the opposition from the beginning been coordinated and commanded by the US, so too has the US spearheaded recent support to al-Qaeda along with its Turkish, Saudi, and Qatari allies.

These Western-backed advances were facilitated by the delivery of “gamechanging” new advanced weaponry to the extremists, including TOW anti-tank missiles. The Guardian reports that the results of this “were shocking. The regional capital of Idlib fell within days. Several weeks later, the nearby town of Jisr al-Shughour also fell to an amalgam of jihadist.”(6) All of this being “the outcome of the first heavy weapons to reach the hands of the Syrian opposition in years of civil war from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Turkey,” which was “blessed by Washington after long hesitation.”(7)
The US recently encourages support to Islamists while it’s Saudi and Turkish allies openly support al-Qaeda linked militants, all of whom have been provided with new shipments of advanced weaponry and support which has been instrumental in their recent advances.

Qatar has made recent efforts to convince al-Nusra’s leader to detach itself from al-Qaeda and portray Nusra as though it is not planning to attack the West in an attempt to justify this increased aid. However it is important to note that “if Nusra is dissolved and it abandons al Qaeda, the ideology of the new entity is not expected to change,” while it’s leaders would remain “close to al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahri [sic].” In a recent interview with the Qatari channel Al Jazeera, al-Nusra’s leader al-Golani was given a platform to say that Nusra does not plan to attack the West, yet he still reaffirmed full allegiance to al-Qaeda’s leader al-Zawahiri against the wishes of Qatar.(8) Despite the failure of re-branding al-Qaeda’s Syria faction the group still received a substantial increase in aid and support from its backers in the Gulf, Turkey, and the United States.

Given this, both the US and Turkey have in addition recently agreed “in principle” to establish a no-fly zone to further aid the forces on the ground they are supporting.(9) This is illegal, against international law, and would be de-facto support to terrorist organizations in the form of US aerial attacks against the Syrian state. It would be devastating to the region as well, only benefiting supporters of reactionary Islamic rule and Western imperial hegemony.

However, the al-Qaeda linked factions unfortunately are not the only groups that owe their recent battlefield successes to their Western patrons, so too does the Islamic State.

When the Islamic State recently took Ramadi in Iraq, they travelled a full 553km across open desert to the city from their de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria.

Despite the fact that destroying the militants along this route would have been like shooting fish in a barrel, the US “anti-ISIS” coalition did not expend a single airstrike against them, even though the US “had significant intelligence about the pending Islamic State offensive in Ramadi. For the US military, it was an open secret at the time.” The US intelligence community “had good warning that the Islamic State intended a new and bolder offensive in Ramadi because it was able to identify the convoys of heavy artillery, vehicle bombs and reinforcements,” which were coming from Raqqa, “through overhead imagery and eavesdropping on chatter from local Islamic State commanders.” Furthermore, “It surprised no one,” US intelligence officials said. (10)

Speaking on these developments, former British MI6 agent Alastair Crooke comments that “the speculation about a coming fractured Iraq has gained big momentum from ISIS's virtually unopposed walk-in to Ramadi. The images of long columns of ISIS Toyota Land Cruisers, black pennants waving in the wind, making their way from Syria all the way -- along empty desert main roads -- to Ramadi with not an American aircraft in evidence, certainly needs some explaining. There cannot be an easier target imagined than an identified column of vehicles, driving an arterial road, in the middle of a desert.”(11)

As ISIS arrived in Ramadi, the US-coalition launched a paltry 7 airstrikes against them, a number so low as to be entirely insignificant. To alleviate concerns that the US openly allowed ISIS to take Ramadi, the US military blamed a great and powerful “sandstorm” for their lack of airstrikes. However, just days later they retracted these false statements. ABC reports that “Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters today that last weekend's sandstorm had not affected the coalition’s ability to launch airstrikes in Ramadi, though “weather was a factor on the ground early on.””(12) Further dispelling these excuses, the day after Ramadi’s fall rows of Islamic State militants were pictured celebrated openly in the streets below crystal clear skies.

(Source of picture: MailOnline, May 19, 2015)

If the US-coalition had been serious about stopping ISIS they could have easily destroyed whole factions of the group at this time.  Instead, desperate for another excuse to explain their inaction, they changed their reasons and blamed concern for civilian deaths for the lack of strikes.  However this excuse is so patently absurd as to be laughable, and therefore can be completely disregarded; one need only look at the grave human death tolls inflicted during the invasion of Iraq, the US support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza last summer, the US-facilitated devastation of eastern Ukraine, the global drone campaign, the US’ own “anti-ISIS” airstrikes, and the current crazed US-backed Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen to see that Western officials lose exactly zero sleep over the civilian blood that is on their hands.(13) 

Dr Mehdi Frauqi's NSW Legislative Council speech opposed to privatisation (2/6/15)

Dr MEHREEN FARUQI [6.41 p.m.]: On behalf of The Greens I contribute to debate on the Electricity Network Assets (Authorised Transactions) Bill 2015 and the cognate Electricity Retained Interest Corporations Bill 2015. I thank The Greens members and activists; Dr John Kaye, who has led the fight on The Greens' side; and all the hardworking "Stop the Sell Off" campaigners and union members who have been leading a strong campaign against the sell-off of our public electricity network. It is a disgrace that the arrogance of this Government means it is not willing to listen to sense or public opinion on this issue. This legislation will enable the lease of 49 per cent of the State's electricity network. The word "lease" is misleading; it is de facto privatisation. It is telling that the lease is so long–99 years, in fact–that no-one voting on the bill today will be alive to see this asset revert to public hands, if it ever does. The decision made today robs our children and our grandchildren of public assets. It is a very bad strategy to get rid of these assets and forfeit the resulting revenue that would otherwise flow into the State budget to be used to benefit the people of New South Wales.

Not many in this Chamber will be surprised to hear me describe this move for what it is: completely backward policy. Privatisation of public assets and services fails the community and the "public good" test. Public assets must remain in public hands for the good of us all and for the good of our State. These are assets that generations of Australians have paid for. Once they are sold off, they will not be able to be brought back into public ownership. Handing over our electricity assets to private operators will effectively rule out any large-scale move towards compatibility with innovative energy systems–systems that are green, clean and renewable. Dr Kaye wrote in the Guardian this week that the Baird Government ignores the recent "sea change of technology" in the energy distribution area at its peril. The release of Tesla's battery units is a game changer for everyone. The profit model of the corporate owners of the grid leases will simply not be compatible with supporting a shift towards the local trading of electricity. There is an incentive not to make our grid more efficient and more sustainable.

Members in both Houses have described as a sham the inquiry into this issue that has taken place over the past few weeks. It was an investigation with a predetermined outcome, with narrow terms of reference and no real expectation that it would produce anything other than a positive story for the Government. Indeed, why would the Government have agreed to such a process if there was any serious risk of it jeopardising its privatisation agenda? The issue at the heart of this matter is that this is short-term thinking by a Government that sees benefit in flogging off public assets and getting some short-term cash in advance. That leads me to the issue of expenditure. Perhaps just as worthy as criticism of the lease itself is what the Government is putting on the table as potential investments in order to justify the sell-off. I am concerned that much of the proceeds of the sale will go towards projects that are ill suited to the needs of our State. Particularly close to my heart is the expenditure on roads and transport.

The Government intends to spend almost half of the $20 billion raised by the sell-off of poles and wires on transport infrastructure that will not work for Sydney and will not work for New South Wales. It will not work and it is not in the interests of the long-term future of New South Wales because it effectively locks down a future of road congestion and pollution for the State, and locks us all into a privately operated, unintegrated rail network along the way. Like the electricity sell-off itself, these plans are not in the public interest; they are in the private interest. They are in the interest of the Liberals and The Nationals and their mates. A massive $7 billion will be directed to the Sydney Rapid Transit line. This line is possibly the biggest rail con job in the history of the State. Sydney Rapid Transit involves the extension of the private North West Rail Link shuttle through North Sydney and the city and onto the Bankstown line, with entirely single-deck trains, privately operated and separated from the current Sydney Trains network.

It seems very recently that the Government had us all scratching our heads over its plans to rip up the recently opened Epping to Chatswood line for its private metro service and incorporate the line into the North West Rail Link. The Epping to Chatswood line was only opened in 2009–as many in this Chamber would remember–for $2.4 billion, under the previous Labor Government. Despite the bloated price tag and the failed ambition of extending the line all the way to Parramatta, this is a good service. It works for people, especially those in the North Ryde and Macquarie Park industrial areas and students attending Macquarie University. It is well patronised and efficient, but the Government wants to rip it up to make way for the privately operated shuttle.

With Sydney Rapid Transit on the table, thanks to the sell-off, we know that the Government's ambitions do not stop there. It also wants to rip up the Bankstown line completely and put the privately operated network through there too. This will cause unnecessary and painful disruptions for people on many parts of the network. But the "short-term pain for long-term gain" argument does not hold much weight here either. Unfortunately, there is going to be short-term pain for more long-term pain. There is no doubt that we will need a second harbour rail crossing in the future. We need to look at new services and new capacity. ₃  This can be achieved in some part through technology, such as automated signalling, and in some part by expanding the current public transport system, not cannibalising it. The single-deck, low-capacity Sydney Rapid Transit is probably the worst way possible of achieving what we want. It puts in train the wholesale privatisation of the rail system in Sydney, from Rouse Hill to Epping, to St Leonards, to the central business district, to Sydenham, to Marrickville, and all the way through to Bankstown. What is worse, the single-deck service does not even make sense capacity-wise for much of that journey.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Trevor Khan): Order! I note that, while wide latitude is extended to members speaking during the second reading debate, Dr Mehreen Faruqi should ensure her comments are within the leave of the long titles of the bills. I have allowed the member to continue for some time, but I now invite her to consider the legislation that is before the House rather than rail lines.

Dr MEHREEN FARUQI: Thank you, Mr Deputy-President. Of the constituents the Government spoke to regarding the sell-off of the poles and wires, I doubt many knew about the second harbour rail crossing being a private line and cannibalising their current train line. Moving on to the wasteful expenditure of the money acquired from the privatisation of poles and wires, $1.1 billion will go to the WestConnex extensions and a new western harbour tunnel, which will spew further traffic into more of Sydney. It is not enough that billions of dollars are being totally wasted on toll roads that are not solving Sydney's transport problems but more money from the sell-off of a public asset will be thrown into producing more congestion in the city and destroying our environment.

In essence, the community loses profits from a public asset and these will be spent on private motorways for the benefit of private companies. The Transurban Group, which owns roads in all the eastern seaboard capital cities, made a profit of $282 million in the last financial year. This is a textbook example of corporate greed–the transfer of wealth from the public to benefit only a few. Fortunately, there is another way. During the 2015 election campaign The Greens outlined our own way of financing $20 billion through a range of measures, including reinstating the vendor duty, restoring marginal poker machine tax rates and maintaining stamp duties on certain business transactions. This money would be invested in schools, hospitals, energy, housing and transport of the twenty-first century. The Greens showed that through smarter spending we can divert $4.5 billion being wasted on the NorthConnex and WestConnex projects to public and active transport that expands access for the people of New South Wales. We do not have to sell the electricity network. We can get the infrastructure that New South Wales wants and needs by keeping its electricity network in public hands. The Greens strongly oppose the legislation.

Footnote[s]

1. ↑  In part, Baird's victory was also due to the whiteanting of Luke Foley's campaign by elements within the Labor Party, including former NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr and former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating. See
Former premier Bob Carr crashes in on the debate over privatisation of electricity networks (7/3/15) Daily Telegraph, The Debate: should NSW's poles and wires be privatised? (23/3/15) | SMH, Mike Baird's caution on privatisation may affect NSW voters (8/3/15) | AFR.

Bob Carr's undermining of NSW Labor in 2015 is reminiscent of his undermining of Federal Labor Party's election campaign in 2004 as described by former Labor Leader Mark Latham in The Latham Diaries (2005). See also Ex-Labor treasurer downplays NSW privatisation boost (19/5/15) Herald Sun.

2. ↑  In some parts, the words in the transcript differ to a small degree from Dr Faruqi's actual spoken words, but meaning contained in those words is virtually identical.

3. ↑  Dr Faruqi's claim that a second harbour rail crossing may be necessary could be taken as a presumption that Sydney's population will continue for some years to come to increase at its current rate of growth. In fact, if Sydney does not achieve population stability in the near future, no amount of government investment in the second harbour rail crossing or other infrastructure can prevent Sydney from from becoming a miserable urban slum for most of its inhabitants.

At first glance The Australian Greens’ announcement that they would abolish the negative gearing ₁  tax break, in a bid to increase government revenue through increased taxation and improve homelessness and housing affordability looks like the right move. I have, however a few questions about this.

Firstly it must be pointed out that the Australian Greens advocate that the new tax regime be “grandfathered” so that current negatively geared investors could continue to be so, but that no new investors would be entitled to this. Two sets of tax rules would apply side by side.

I wonder if borrowing to buy a property would be as attractive to a potential investor if s/he could not negatively gear. Presumably, The Greens do not advocate NO tax deduction on an income-generating investment but just to the point where it goes into the red.

I see from the policy document that their ruling would apply to all asset classes. At least here is some consistency.

Negative Gearing applies to non-property investments too

Negative gearing is usually only discussed in the context of property, but of course it applies to other investments too. At present one can borrow to buy shares, which will generate an income since they pay dividends. These dividends are subject to income taxation, in many cases offset by company tax already paid, in the form of imputation credits to the investor. Any shortfall in the income from the shares compared with the interest on the loan is tax deductible. With The Greens’ policy presumably this would only work up to the point that the investor is not going into the red.
One needs to look at why people borrow to invest in any asset. The sensible reason to do this is that the investor believes that the investment will rise in value, such that equity in the asset increases and the loan starts to look small by comparison. The investor can profit in two main ways:

1. With housing, as the value rises, the rent will also increase. Eventually the investor who was negatively geared could become “positively geared” and hence will pay tax to the government.

2. The investor who sees that s/he has made a paper profit can realise this gain, pay back the bank and pocket the profit minus Capital Gains Tax.

I cannot see that abolishing negative gearing will free up housing for non-investor home buyers nor that the tax gains for the government will be as significant as the Australian Greens believe. The abolishing of negative gearing would affect Australian investors, but it would not affect foreign investors who have borrowed from elsewhere. How would that be addressed?

Greens proposal fails to address land-costs – the biggest part of housing unaffordability

The Australian Greens advocate the use of prefabricated houses as a part solution to the terrible problem of homelessness in Australia. I don’t see anything in the document about the land required to put the prefab house on. Land-costs are the major component of housing in cities and these costs are more marked in areas which would be considered to be in a “good position.” The actual house is a relatively minor thing. If people had their own land, probably most would manage to erect some sort of shelter for themselves!

The Australian Greens, in deciding that “negative gearing” is to blame for Australia’s housing woes (and the complete evaporation of “the Australian dream”) fail to address the demand factor which is fundamental to the issue of unaffordable housing.

Where do the demands for Australia’s housing come from?

1. Australians as they reach adulthood tend to need housing apart from their parents . Only about half as many people die in Australia as are born here in any one year so there are roughly only half the number of houses available from that source as there are young Australian people looking for them. Thus there is a built-in shortfall because of our demography.

2. In addition to this, with high immigration, there are likely to be more migrants invited to Australia as business migrants, as skilled workers, students or for family reunion, than there are young Australians looking for their first home.

Penalised Australians would retreat and foreign investors advance

These two groups compete in the same housing market. If Australian would-be investors retreat from the housing investment market because the advantage of negative gearing is not there, I think as long as the total demand for housing does not slump then non-Australian investors will fill the gap left by locals and compete with local home-seekers. With large numbers of people needing housing and a short-fall in supply leading to very high purchase and rental prices, home-seekers and would-be renters will “fall through the cracks.”

Scott Ludlam says that 7,000 houses “for the homeless” will be supplied by 2020. That’s great, but people need housing now. There are 105,000 homeless people on any one night in Australia, according to Salvation Army figures and according to “Kids under cover”. Family breakdown is blamed for a lot of this but if housing were abundant, as it should be, a family breakdown would not result necessarily in homelessness.

Something needs to be done much more urgently about this problem, one which used to be practically unknown in Australia. We all, including The Greens, think we have a silver bullet for this problem but it seems clear that the demand side of the equation still needs to be lightened. This can be addressed easily and quickly at little or no cost. We should not be bringing in large numbers of skilled immigrants to compete against local young people for both housing and jobs. In maintaining very high immigration we are doing our young people a terrible disservice. Surely they deserve better than this?

NOTES

1. ↑  "Negative gearing is a form of financial leverage where an investor borrows money to invest and the gross income generated by the investment is less than the cost of owning and managing the investment, including depreciation and interest charged on the loan (but excluding capital repayments)." Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_gearing

Even as an old man, my father was as strong as an ox and built a log cabin from scratch with his bare hands when he was 70 years old. But then he suffered a heart attack. And his doctor put him on all kinds of medications, at least ten pills a day. And a year later he had shrunk from standing over six feet tall to being only 5' 7" -- and from weighing 200 pounds to weighing only 125. And a month after that he was dead. Geez Louise! What the freak was in those pills anyway? Couldn't he have just eaten more bananas instead?

And, yes, I really am aware that modern medicine does save a whole bunch of lives. And, yes, I do watch Gray's Anatomy and know that modern medicine can and does perform miracles. But still. 106,000 Americans a year die from "adverse drug reactions". Side effects, side effects, side effects -- just like the ads on TV say.

And I used to really resent Big Pharma for that -- especially when my own father was one of those statistics.

And I also used to really hate the idea that American children are being overdosed on vaccines too. Our kids will be given 71 different batches of vaccinations before they reach age 17 -- and 26 of these vaccines will be given to babies under one and a half years of age. But it's not the vaccines themselves that I used to resent. Hell, bring them on -- in the hundreds if that's what it takes to save little kids' lives.

It is the fillers, additives and preservatives such as mercury, formaldehyde, MSG, detergents, aluminum and yellow dye #6 that make up approximately 99.99% of each shot that I used to hate. I used to really hate that Big Pharma would shoot all that junk into the bloodstreams of our very own little darlings -- just to save a buck on extending their drugs' shelf-life. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf

Apparently there are now a few drug-company start-ups working on creating DNA-based vaccines that no longer need fillers. Others are working on vaccine-based "tattoos" that don't need fillers either. Hurray for them. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/tiny-tattoo-vaccines.html

But I still used to shudder with dread for my three-month-old granddaughter at the thought of her callously being used as fodder for Big Pharma profiteering. Because of baby Sofia, I used to study up and read everything I could lay my hands on with regard to the pros and cons of vaccines. With a tiny and vulnerable small baby in my family, I used to worry night and day about the fillers, additives and preservatives in her vaccines. http://www.ora.tv/offthegrid/grid-robert--kennedy-jr-takes-big-pharma--vaccine-industry-0_6ck7ne6j25bv

But not any more.

Now I've finally learned to relax and love Big Pharma. I've finally become philosophical on the subject. I've finally learned to just reflect on the Spartans of ancient Greece and how they put their weaker babies and old folks out to die in the snow -- for the good of the tribe. Or was it Sarah Palin who did that?

And then I remembered that the presence of lions in Africa are actually good for the gazelle population there -- because they cull the herd. On the plains of the Serengeti, only the strong survive.

And then I learned to cogitate upon the African slaves who survived the dread Middle Passage -- only the strongest made it through that ordeal too, right? So that only the most healthy slaves arrived in the New World? Or I'd think about the small-pox-laden blankets that European immigrants used to give Native Americans so that the weaker ones would die off and stop hogging up all the good land.

And now, like some heroic latter-day Spartan or Indian-killer or human trafficker, Big Pharma is also culling our modern American herd of weaker babies and seniors -- making sure that only the strong survive. How philosophical of them is that! http://yournewswire.com/mandatory-vaccine-act-2015-spine-chilling-u-s-legislation-proposed/

A recent study has shown that America is ranked way down at Number 34 in the list of countries with regard to infant mortality rates -- and is also the highest in the world regarding vaccines given to babies in their first year. So what does that tell us? That we should all immediately move to Singapore as soon as we get preggers? http://www.wanttoknow.info/health/vaccines/vaccines-studies-infant-deaths

No, this tells us that we Americans should stop bitching all the time about how Big Government (under pressure from the Big Pharma lobby of course) is taking away our very right to choose whether or not to have our babies inundated with huge doses of preservatives and fillers before they are even out of diapers, and about how over-selling drugs to our elders has become such a profitable racket -- and instead just be grateful that now only our strongest babies and most viable old people survive, and that Big Pharma is culling our herd.

I mean really. Who the freak wants a weak baby or an old person who can no longer produce and will retire or be hospitalized before reaching age 90? "Man up, babies. Old guys, stop being wimps."

PS: I just went to see Rebecca Solnit give a talk here in Berkeley. "The greatest danger to human beings right now is climate change," she said. No, the greatest danger to us right now is what causes climate change -- the use of fossil fuels, especially by the military.

According to Project Censored, "The U.S. military is the biggest polluter on the planet." So not only is Big Pharma trying to cull the American herd, but War Street is apparently trying to cull this herd too. With all of its various wars and proxy wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Palestine, Haiti, Honduras, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Russia, China, Africa, South America and goodness-knows-where all else? The American military is now endangering the lives of babies and elders here at home as well as killing them outright on the other side of the world. http://www.projectcensored.org/2-us-department-of-defense-is-the-worst-polluter-on-the-planet/

Just sayin'. Rebecca Solnit got me to thinking about how War Street is also culling the herd. Perhaps she will get you to thinking too. Nah, thinking is obviously un-American.

First published on Jane Stillwater’s blogspot at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/06/only-strong-survive-how-big-pharma_6.html

5 June 2015 is World Environment Day, but you wouldn't know it in Australia as State and Federal Governments pave the way for inappropriate and highly environmentally damaging land-clearing. This week media reports have detailed the Federal Government's approval for significant clearing of Critically Endangered woodlands in the Hunter Valley and lack of oversight on potentially illegal broad-scale clearing in Cape York, permitted by the former Queensland Government in direct contravention of national environment law.

The Federal Environment Department has just given mining company Coal and Allied the green light to clear 535 hectares of White Box-Yellow Box-Blakely's Red Gum Grassy Woodland and Derived Native Grassland, a Critically Endangered ecological community listed under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). The community has been recognised as Critically Endangered since 2006, primarily due to a decline in geographic distribution, and since that time numerous developments have chipped away at what remains. Permitting a further 535 vital hectares to be cleared for a single project indicates the Government is loath to use its habitat protection powers effectively.

"This is a unique and incredibly important ecosystem that has been absolutely smashed by development. More than 93% of the woodlands have been cleared since European settlement, yet the Commonwealth has justified the destruction of a further 535 hectares by requiring a biodiversity offset management plan and vegetation clearance protocols - simply inappropriate measures for Critically Endangered habitats,” said Humane Society International (HSI) Senior Program Manager Evan Quartermain. "This decision goes directly against the Threatened Species Scientific Committee's conservation advice as well as the Recovery Plan prepared for the ecological community by the Department itself, both of which recognise that with around 5% of the woodland left, protecting what remains is the only chance of survival,” stated Mr Quartermain.

Similarly bad news has surfaced in Cape York, where clearing of 33,000 hectares of habitat for the buff-breasted button-quail (the only known Australian bird to have never been photographed in the wild) and at least 17 other threatened species listed under the EPBC Act was permitted in the dying days of the former Queensland Government. Any action that may significantly impact on an EPBC Act listed species requires Commonwealth referral, yet neither the Newman Government nor the pastoral company that owns the land in question did so.

"This is a private business being allowed to destroy core habitat for a range of legislatively protected Matters of National Environmental Significance for their own personal gain. That such major clearing was not referred to the Federal Government is a blatant disregard of procedure and works must be immediately halted and swift investigation and action undertaken. What is the point of legislation if the powers at be don't have the teeth or intent to enforce it? It's a mockery and embarrassment,” Mr Quartermain concluded.

Humane Society International, 5th June 2015

Video-link inside. Australians now have a choice of many news services from all over the world via the internet. Many countries broadcast in English. Iranian television on-line has a continuous on-line news broadcast service in English and conducts some very topical and vivid debates. Tonight Shabbir R. Hassanally, activist and Islamic scholar in London debated Lawrence J.Korb, former US assistant secretary of defense from Washington, on the subject of who benefits from sowing the seeds of division among Muslims. The role of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States vis a vis ISIS are questioned. The whole notion of 'Sunni-Shia' division is challenged. Female presenter, Kaneez Fatima, comperes. Well worth listening to if you want to hear the other side of what is served up by the ABC and SBS on the wars we support in the Middle East.