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The Consequences of Western Liberal Failure

Western Liberals seem incapable of learning from the generational repercussions created by ignoring past genocides. Without doubt the IDF can raze every building and kill or maim Gaza's surviving population but at what cost to Israel and its role as one of the world's democracies? It can be argued that Germany is still atoning for its genocidal actions under Nazi rule. Scarcely a week passes when the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides do not reverberate. Russia's Chechnyan genocide, the erasure of Grozny and the Western failure to act provided the Ukranian template which has ensured international opprobium for its government...

An Australian Republic should include establishment of a Bill of Rights

In response to the article I think two important issues have been overlooked. Firstly an Australian republic should be based on a new constitution. The current one is not totally fit for purpose - as demonstrated by the recent voice referendum. It was written at a time when Aboriginal people were still considered to be non Christian and sub human, hence their ongoing enslavement. Secondly, in my view, an Australian Republic should include establishment of a Bill of Rights to apply to all citizens.

Ralph Evans: "China leads on renewable energy"

China Pledged to Strictly Control Coal. The Opposite Happened. In April 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to strictly control coal-fired power generation projects in China. According to analysis of Global Energy Monitor data, in the two years before Xis pledge, the government approved 127 plants, collectively capable of producing 54 gigawatts of coal power. In the two years after, that number rose to 182 plants, with 131 gigawatts of coal power. Chinas new coal power capacity has more than doubled. China opened the 1,800 kilometer Haoji Railway in 2019 specifically to carry coal. Designed to...

Authoritarian governments have even greater problems than democracies in meeting "net zero" targets

Dear Editor, Ralph Evans must have somehow missed this fact when composing his paean to authoritarian governance.... In 2022 China commissioned 50GW of coal fired power and de-commissioned 4.1 GW. And: China has the greatest number of coal-fired power stations of any country or territory in the world. As of July 2023, there were 1,142 operational coal power plants on the Chinese Mainland. This was more than four times the number of such power stations in India, which ranked second. China accounts for over 50 percent of total global coal electricity generation. Whatever the reasons...

Strengthen Integrity to Save the Climate

In Australia our government faces a fossil fuel conundrum. While they may accept that carbon emissions reduction is urgent, they do so in a country whose financial viability depends to a considerable extent on fossil fuel exports funding our imports of manufactured goods. Our democracys integrity is significantly compromised by fossil fuel and other vested interests. Climate change cannot be tackled effectively until government integrity is restored. The government must urgently reduce the undue influences that impede healthy public debate and decision-making eg: reforming political donations regulations to remove the disproportionate influence of major donors; reforming lobbying to...

Australia's options under Labor

It seems the ALP only considers a narrow range of futures for Australia, as Americans sit in our Defence Department, Americans will crew the nuclear engine rooms of our eventual AUKUS subs, and the Pentagon will dictate the Australian Navy's every move. First, Australia will be the next Ukraine (Has any Canberra politician checked Ukraine out, lately?). Or, Australia will be the next Taiwan. Or, the next, nuclear-armed Japan. Or a Pacific Israel. But we won't be getting billions a year, to be Washington's Down Under aircraft carrier. No: we will be PAYING, billion upon billion,...

The Jewish lobby or the Zionist lobby? - Words matter

There are both secular and religious Jews in Australia who are horrified by the actions of the Israeli government and military, ranging from those who have only become engaged by the current conflict, those who have opposed Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank since 1967 to those who disagree entirely with the establishment of Israel in 1948. There are also vocal groups of pro-Israel Jews who put pressure on the government and media to give unconditional support to Israel and smear any support for the Palestinian people as antisemitic. The part played by a group of Jewish...

ABC failure to uphold journalistic principles

I totally agree with the statement 'they (ABC sic) have failed to uphold journalistic principles and defend both independence in journalism'. I have written numerous letters of complaint to ABC news and to individual ABC Directors, pointing out their total failure to comply with their own charter regarding impartiality of reporting evident in all articles and programs dealing with Russia and Putin both before and after the start of the Ukraine war. Regardless of one's view of the conflict the ABC coverage has been totally one sided and hypocritical and many times patently false. Needless to say...

Never a Truer Word Spoken!

The so-called Rule Based Law is now a myth......conveniently trotted out by ignorant and clueless politicians who have no idea what they are even talking about. The actions of the Israel Lobby - and especially those lawyers said to make up Lawyers for Israel - can only be described as appalling. With the unmitigated and unrelenting slaughter of Gazans, to suggest, as the lobbyists are, that Israel is entitled to act as it is because of what Hamas did on 7 October is disgraceful - and even disgusting! Forget about the myth of the IDF being the most...

Heartfelt thanks

Dear Editors, my heartfelt thanks that you decided to post the link. It was a great tonic to listen to this conversation, about which I had not been aware. I subscribe to P&I, because when I joined the public service long ago I recall the great admiration and respect when my seniors spoke of John Menadue. P&I is important for our public discourse and more so now. The LNL program is a gem to be treasured, thank you! ZC

ABC Impartiality

The ABC newsroom 1940. Staff directive 'No journalist is permitted any bias on the matter of German Forces moving into France. Coverage must be impartial.'

But this is what we do...

Have you noticed that the news is not talking about Israel's bombing of the Palestinians anymore? We are not hearing about the situation because it is unpalatable. We are only hearing about the bad people in Yemen and how they are disrupting shipping. We are in for a rough ride in 2025.

NATO, and now EU, efforts to expand into Asia

So far the attempt to open a NATO office in Tokyo has been blocked by a France which very rightly points out how the NATO charter restricts its concerns to Europe. But that has not stopped the militaristic minded NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, from insisting the security of Asia and the Indo-Pacific also come within the orbit of NATO concern. Security is no longer regional; security is global, he said during a panel discussion at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos. And now we are supposed to believe that for the EU which is charged solely...

Australia Day

Australia Day! Much has been said about Australia Day, Invasion Day, Survival Day. Whichever way we look at it, it doesnt stack up as a National Day of Celebration. And let us not forget what were celebrating on January 26th each year, the theft of land from the First Nations! Im afraid thats not my cup o tea. Nor is coming up with any other day that may tickle anybodys fancy. We CANNOT have a National Day of Celebration until we become a united nation. At present we are a divided nation! And we will remain so until...

Incisive analogy

What an incisive analogy by Peter O'Keeffe! Yes, indeed, just imagine if the headline were about the British wreaking destruction and the death of 14,000 in Belfast in order to destroy the IRA. There is no comeback to that. I hope Peter submits his analogy in letters to the editors of the major daily newspapers across Australia -- and that they have the moral courage to print it.

Sacking of ABC journalist

MSM is essentially singing with one conforming voice here, even our two public broadcasters ABC and SBS. When I write to them to indicate such I get gobbledygook back. Most journalists are cowered with good reason clearly. For a land which produced such journalist giants as Wilfred Burchett, John Pilger (RIP) and Julian Assange, it is disgraceful.

Dreaming of a culture of humanity

Tricontinental Institute reminds us that even though we live in a time of escalating anthropogenic global heating and appalling violence in the Middle East, human strength remains (We need to reverse the culture of decay and march on the street for a culture of humanity 14/1). Our collective sorrows, stemming from loss of life and loss of a stable climate, have resulted in significant mass protests. Across the globe, people are standing up for their beliefs and for human rights. If enough of us publicly take a stance for peace and equity, and stand up to fossil fuel interests, maybe,...

Aged Care Overboard

We should not be surprised by this back-to-the-future approach to Aged Care, though. When Minister Wells proclaimed at the National Press Club that the boomers are coming, it was so reminiscent of previous government Ministers and Prime Ministers bleating a warning about the boats are coming. I half-expected her to add stop the boomers. All that remains now is for someone to accuse older Australians of throwing their bedpans overboard, or even worse, having WMOs, weapons of mass obstruction. I wonder which Minister will have a model of a walking frame on their desk with the inscription, I stopped the...

Climate Chaos

Andrew, Thanks for your article. Unfortunately, I believe that most of what you say will come to pass, but I also believe that it may happen even quicker than most anticipate. This of course includes our pathetic governing bodies who are in the pockets of the fossil fuel lobby. The main reason why I say that our demise may occur sooner than most expect is that our dilemma: that population and resource consumption continues to increase while we endeavour to maintain our current standard of living. Going forward, in an effort to reduce our carbon footprint, we must...

We Must Break The Fossil Fuel Shackles Now

Julian Cribb captures the essence of humankinds carbon emissions folly with devastating clarity. We are using money, an infinitely-creatable resource which ultimately exists only in our imaginations, to exploit our real, finite planet. As Cribb observes, we will run out of planet before we run out of money. Those industries and governments who ignore or deny the climate science may not agree, but the science and the planet are realities that remain unmoved by their wishful thinking. Last years final IPCC report was crystal clear: we must move away from fossil fuels, start no new fossil fuel projects. ...

Holbrook and USUKA

The siting of an Oberon class submarine in a town 400 kilometres from the sea appears to be a metaphor for current governmental thinking. Decommissioned in 1994 HMAS Otway did not appear to hinder the southward movement of North Vietnamese troops, the development of nuclear missiles by North Korea, or indeed any other developments in East Asia during its thirty years in service under the sea or sitting in dry dock. Lining up the three countries involved in current submarine planning by powerfulness, it seems the first two the US and UK- are huge financial beneficiaries, paid...

Proposed New Aged Care Act. Shonky deal.

The proposed new Aged Care Act is somewhat like trying to flog an old bomb. The Sales spiel glosses over the truth. Its rebuilt by experts and rebranded by consultants. Its practically brand new. Its been painted, seatbelts installed, spruced it up a bit. Ok, we havent touched the engine, its a bit small, and its got a couple of dents we might knock out if you point them out. We removed some of the accessories especially the aircon, because you would use it too much if you were comfortable, and its expensive to run, but it will...

The nuclear option: Peter Duttons bid for power

Thank you to Mark Diesendorf for his cool-headed and informative piece on why nuclear is no good for Australia. The facts speak for themselves. The political debate about the oppose renewables aspect, however, needs constant attention. As we saw at COP28, the nuclear lobby was touting for business. Members of the Opposition joined with 22 countries whose main task appears to have been to commit to mobilise investments in nuclear power, including through innovative financing mechanisms. The World Nuclear Industry Status Report noted a 4 percent decrease in global nuclear production; it fell to 9.2 percent, its lowest...

November 11, 1975 vs January 6 2021

The outstanding work by Jenny Hocking to unmask the Palace Letters brings into sharp focus how one attempted open partly armed revolution in the US was unsuccessful while the other revolution in Australia 45 years before, conducted largely in secret, was successful. Our revolution involved the Queen, the then Governor General, then leading judicial figures and the then Opposition Leader. Just which way the Army would have leaned if there had been a violent response we dont know, although the recent decision about the duty of Afghanistan alleged war crimes whistleblower David McBride offers a clue. It was determined...

DVD The Search for the Palace Letters

This is an important historical record, in fact, it is a record that requires constant and immediate access for the Australian public most of whom do not know any other means of accessing this information/video. The ABC is the public's access to the historical record on the events of 1975 and has, I believe, an obligation to provide transmission at all times if such a documentary is available. On searching your accessible records I was unable to find any record of this video and so resort to a letter not only requesting access, but requesting this video be...

People power to the rescue

It was uplifting to start 2024 with such a good news story. That is, over the course of 2023, renewable energy supplied nearly 40% of electricity demand in Australia, nearly halfway to the governments target of 82% by 2030. Furthermore, this was up from 35% the year before. But clearly to get to 82%, increases of more than five% per annum are needed. Interestingly, the capacity of roof top solar increased 21% from 2022 to 2023. Another type of power, people power, is driving the transition. The estimated total annual potential for rooftop solar is 245 TWh, almost...

Its peace USA, UK , France fear most

Being a relative novice to the war games arenas I can only conclude and agree with the article by; x UK commoner, Colin, that the importance of weapons production and sales has overtaken any foreign oil, resources needs. And that to keep it simple its PEACE that UK fear most. Weapons have use by dates and foreign policy covers everything to ensure they are used elsewhere? Once The initial horror and disbelief that this is so, dissipates the conclusion is that we, in the west, are the terrorists. Mysteriously Even the 9/11 attack never went near weapons manufacture...

Shrewd dealings

Fair go, mate, asking the bunch of glove puppets and rubber ducks in Canberra to deal shrewdly with anything is a bit above their pay grade, isn't it?

ABC missed the Genocide

If the ordinary person in Australia relied on their public broadcaster or their politicians to keep them aware of an important period of history, they would be left uninformed. The ABC morning news will tell you about silly people jumping off a cliff at Mt Martha and that the town of Rochester was spared an overnight flood, but there would be no update that Israel had slaughtered even more Palestinian babies; dropped phosphorus bombs on civilians to burn through the skin to the bone; limited food aid through the only in-road access point so that people are starting to...

SE Australia Global Warming impacts from 1990s

La Nia was a main contributing oceanic climate driver to record rainfall during the multi-year La Nia phases of 20102012 and 2020February 2023. Also, contributing was a favourable negative IOD phase in both periods. Added to those oceanic climate drivers were favourable atmospheric climate driver phases of the SAM favouring deep, moist onshore air from the Coral and Tasman Seas, and the SOI, which is a measure of the strength of the tropical Pacific trade winds. Attribution pointed to the dominant climate drivers as complex interactions between these climate drivers with global temperature, and above average global and Tasman...

We must recover the common good

A new political idea can address a societal need for a short time, but when the idea solidifies into an ideology it becomes doctrinaire and inflexible. And so with neo-liberalism: initially liberating, it has for the past few decades, as John Tons observes, decreed that it is both morally wrong and technically unnecessary for governments to intervene to remediate inequalities. As a result we see growing social inequalities: the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, ever-increasing intergenerational inequity, and the debacle of The Voice. The idea that any tax should be increased, or new tax introduced, to better balance...

Why was Whitlam not angrier?

Jon Stanford's detailed re-examination of the Whitlam dismissal leads to the inevitable conclusion that the many forces which truly feared his government had the luck to find a willing political assassin in John Kerr, abetted by perhaps partly ignorant accomplices in Malcolm Fraser, Reg Withers and others. It is clear that without Kerr, the dismissal simply could not have happened. What I cannot understand is Whitlam's relative silence on the affair. It is possible that he did not initially realise how outrageously Kerr had been influenced in his actions. But with time - eg when he received the US...

The Australian's ongoing climate disinformation

How refreshing that former editor-in-chief of The Australian, David Armstrong, should publish the Bureau of Meteorologys annual mean temperature anomaly graph (1910-2023) and write This little graph provides persuasive evidence that Australia is not just experiencing bad weather: the climate has changed. Recently, The Australian newspaper has tried to undermine both the Bureau and the CSIRO on climate matters. The latest assault came from Peter Ridd when he disparaged the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies both linked to JCU. Earlier, Ridd had claimed that coral is the least endangered...

Beauty in our world

The positive message from Bishop Huggins is that amidst the trauma that we see in the images posted relentlessly, there needs to be room to also reflect on both the personal and the wider world and the beauty that exists there. In Judaism there is the idea of tikkun olam, healing the world. It is a responsibility that all have, but it doesn't just focus on the fractures. It has to be done with an understanding of how things might be. And that means appreciating our own experience of satisfaction, joy, love and beauty.

Check your facts.

While I agree with the gist of Peter O'Keefe's article, I urge him to get his facts straight regarding this preposterous statement; 'The atrocities committed on 7 October 2023 by the military wing of Hamas, exceed in scale, intensity and barbarity anything previously done in Israel or Palestine.' For a start, has O'Keefe heard of Deir Yassin - one of over 400 Palestinian villages and towns ethically cleansed, where rape and massacres abounded - in 1948? Has he heard of Shatila, or, do the deaths via repeated bombing campaigns against Gaza with its countless usage of internationally banned weapons,...

WA GST revenue vs NSW pokies Revenue

The article in question reads as fairly myopic, with tunnel vision. No mention of royalty offsets, no mention how NSW collects nearly as much pokies revenue as WA royalties, but the pokies revenue is not included in the GST calculation - WA should be rewarded for not allowing the pokies scourge if nothing else. Also, WA is the size of Western Europe and needs to spend on infrastructure to enable the king flow of revenue to all. WA is not getting endless underground rail networks and so on to anywhere near the same scale as Vic or NSW....

ALP cooperating with US intelligence conceivable

It is jolting to read from this excellent journal over and over of your surprise. The apparatchiks of the ALP repeatedly silenced those of us taking the risks of grassroots action pointing to the role of the US. Which of you criticised and made known Beazley's role as an arms dealer and President of Lockheed Martin for example. Remember, the ALP voted for the change in the Pine Gap Legislation following the win by the PINE GAP 4 in the NT courts. Only Scott Ludlam, and the other Greens voted against this legislation warning that the USA was...

Additional Extraordinary Australian Journalist

The late Phillip George Knightley also deserves a special mention, especially considering his investigative journalism covering United Distillers and thalidomide and the Vestey family companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Knightley

Bit Sized But Brilliant

Remember the film clip that went viral on the net? The Palestinian family who went to a wedding, or similar, and came back to find their home, and its contents, had been hijacked. Stolen. With no shame. And the excuse that the Israeli thief came up with? If I don't take it, someone else will. Is this a society? Is this a culture? Is this Jewishness? I don't think so. It's greed and it happens because nobody dares stop it. And our leaders still mutter about 'Israel defending itself' and 'the two state solution'. Get...

It's about a healthy mindset

Not everything to do with wellness needs to work. Some of it might just have a feel good factor. If it can put people on the right path, create a wellness mindset, then people will take up doing some of the things that really do work FOR THEM. They will take an interest and do research, try different things out, some of what they go with will be a total waste of money, but they are very likely to stick with some of the good stuff. Take it from someone who has being doing Pilates for around 3 hours...

US Sanctions are not working

The US can clearly see that China's economy will soon be larger than America's and that, within a decade, they will be technologically ahead of the US, but their is little the US can do about it. The US is doing all the propaganda it can to get everyone to still believe in them and support their world hegemony, as it slowly dwindles . Some US figureheads are declaring, with a straight face, that the US will go to war with China within five years, which is just laughable. The Americans are keeping up the mantra in the hope...

John Pilger - a great journalist

I dug out my copy of Distant Voices as a way of paying tribute to John this morning. Vale.

Why Israel envies the Palestinians so much.

I visited Israel in the mid eighties and was confronted by the Israeli informed stereotype of the lazy, ill-educated Arab, uninterested in improving the land and water that provided their food. I lazily failed to search for any contrary evidence until reading comments by Gazans much more recently in social media. In contrast to the stereotype, they were smart, switched on to technologies and the world around them, educated, ambitious for themselves and their country, passionate, and vitally connected with their family and friends. Tragically, many of them would ask if they would wake up the following morning. The...

US/Israeli strategy for the Middle East

If you look at US history and The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, that brought an official end to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), you realise the US and Israel are trying to repeat history but this time it's in the Middle East. They need a couple more steps to put this all into play. They need a normalisation agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia so that Israel is responsible for Saudi Arabia security, and the later can be told to sit on the sidelines and do nothing or join in on Israeli's side when the land takeover begins. ...

Media bias

Each night in its coverage of the Gaza violence SBS monotonously intones the line when referring the Hamas, 'Hamas is recognised as a terrorist organisation by many states, including Australia.' What is the purpose of this? It represents a failure to apply non-subjectivity to reporting a news item. It clearly causes a bias to the rest of the news item. I have written to them calling for them to desist. I suggest other do also.

So called private schools

As a past Business Manager of a large public school, I find it disgraceful that we continue to have the most unequal education system in the OECD! Far from being Independent, these highly privileged Private schools are obtaining more and more government funding while the public schools are getting less. It has to stop, and the present federal government has to act to restore some justice to the system.

Theological reform . . . an oxymoron?

The 'elephant in the room' when discussing 'theological reform' is this: Considering that the entire history, of Christology, from even before the very beginnings of an institutional 'church' has been riven with 'theological disputes' many of which remain unresolved and swept under the ecclesiastic rug, out of sight out of mind; but the question remains, always there but never spoken: Is theology even a valid human intellectual endeavor or just the extreme of human intellectual vanity? For if the foundations of 'tradition' are all theological, that being a human intellectual interpretation of scriptural materials, WHAT has been revealed by...

The new Holocaust - Israel's genocidal war on Gaza

For an article with promise, Alison Caddick has sadly fallen for Israel's greatest lie - that it is the victim of a 'genocidal' attack by the Palestinian resistance, rather than the Palestinian people as victims of a new Holocaust. One must only look at the graveyard of cars destroyed by Apache helicopters to see who was responsible for most or almost all of the civilian deaths of October 7th, and consequently treat with great scepticism Israel's claims of a Hamas 'atrocity' committed against innocent Israelis, and the ballooning claims of rapes and abuse then carried out. Then one should start...

More than theology

Dear Michael - let's look to 'nature-consciousness on which all can focus, not just 'theology' development. Were all in this together! See, for example the guidance of someone like Thomas Berry.

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