Letters to the Editor
Ugly Christian Apocalyptic beliefs
November 17, 2023
For the past year, I have researched the shooting deaths of two young cops and a concerned neighbour in Wieambilla in the Western Downs of southern Queensland in December 2022. This cruel, arbitrary ugly event has been deemed by ASIO as the work of religiously-motivated extremists, not Islamic but Christian ones. The three killers were shot to death by police, just as they expected to be. Ex-PM Scott Morrison, a happy-clapper born-again Christian, pouncing around with the UK's ex-PM Boris Johnson in Israel, is better than anything Laurel and Hardy's scriptwriters could come up with. Tonight on X...
John Kerr from Coburg
In response to: Scott Morrisons heartless yearning for Armageddon
Mitigation and Australia
November 17, 2023
When the Hawke government was elected in the early 1980s, BHP Steel was contemplating shutting down steel production in Australia. The minister, Button, proposed a modernisation capital injection, that BHP wouldnt repay if they could not be made profitable . It worked, despite Australia being a very small part of world production. Right now, to replace fossil fuels, Australia has to triple its electricity production, because not only coal, but oil and gas use, need to be replaced by renewables. As the generating cost is currently about $0.10 per kW.hr for coal, $0.05 for onshore wind, and $0.025 for...
Noel Thompson from Sydney (Riverview)
In response to: Climate policy: the widening reality gap
END TIMES AND ARMAGEDDON WELCOMED
November 17, 2023
Reb Halabi's excellent expose on Scott Morrison's religious zealotry taking precedence over rational thought made for chilling reading. I was brought up in an extremist Christian Zionist group and can verify that unquestioned adherence to their fanatical beliefs in the End Times, the Rapture and Armageddon is a given. While Mr Morrison may strenuously deny there is any conflict of interest, in his heart he knows that should his beliefs be at odds with matters of global importance, his religious convictions will always win. Look no further than Australia's embarrassing and dangerous prevarication on genuine commitment to climate...
Joy Nason from MONA VALE, 2103 NSW
In response to: Scott Morrison's heartless yearning for Armageddon
Immigration: economy, politics or survival?
November 17, 2023
Abul Rivzi has pinpointed the viciousness that will envelop political discourse on the current half-million figure of new immigrants, and the ensuing social disharmony that will follow as the right-wingers give new impetus to the race card. Is it now time to consider the more critical issue of what might constitute a sustainable population for Australia, given the frequency with which water usage keeps re-emerging as a critical issue across most of the continent? The economy is the main driver of argument about immigration, which has spilt over to social cohesion occasionally since World War II. This...
Tony Tucker from Leichhardt NSW
In response to: Net migration of 500,000 guarantees an ugly immigration election
Whales and misinformation
November 17, 2023
Mr Duttons recent statements about off-shore wind turbines endangering whales and dolphins have been shown to be based on disinformation. It has been reported that a Facebook post, stating that a paper supporting the evidence for harm to whales had been published in respected publication Marine Policy. As soon as the fake was flagged by Marine Policy staff, the Facebook page disappeared. Research from InfluenceMap shows that anti-climate groups are using Facebooks advertising platform and unique targeting abilities to spread disinformation, intentionally seeding doubt and confusion around the science of climate change. And more generally in the US, think tanks...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Divide and fool: The Coalitions misinformation campaign
A witty take on US-China Summit
November 16, 2023
Heard a witty take on the US-China summit concluded in San Francisco, leveraging a popular Chinese idiom: both sides admitted that they may not pee in the same pot but vowed to ensure they will not pee on each other. Thanks for reading Wang Xiangwei's Thought of the Day on China
WANG XIANGWEI from Hong Kong
In response to: Biden forgets that the c-in APEC stands for cooperation
The critical mass is getting close to defeating the Israeli and Western propaganda machines
November 15, 2023
I have been observing the current intransigent and wonderful opposition to the Israeli and Western propaganda machines. What the grass roots opposition signifies is the growth of a massive international opposition to the genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. And what it reminds me of is the beginnings of the opposition to the Vietnam War. The same lying and mendaciousnes on the part of the ruling elites, and the same visceral and informed reaction and opposition to the lying about the barbarism engaged by these ruling elites. What is significant in this current...
John Ebel from Melbourne, VIC
In response to: Gaza and the graveyard for children: the moral decline of Western politics
These Children Could Be My Children
November 13, 2023
I am the mother of Palestinian children. I married into the ancient and highly respected Al Ramini family from Jenin. Our children, born in the west, have deep brown eyes, soft brown skin and they stand tall and proud and relish their Palestinian background. I am grateful that they have this heritage, but I am also so very grateful that they have never known the appalling deprivation of everything to do with being a human being that has befallen so many young people looking just like them, with all the hopes and dreams, just like them, but who were born...
Sandra Ramini from Fremantle, WA
In response to: Israel's Hideous Final Solution
Revelation is not canonical in the Orthodox Church
November 10, 2023
The Orthodox Greeks, who were actually close enough to recall the nutter who wrote Revelations on the Greek Island of Patmos, decided that it was NOT a canonical work and would not be read in Orthodox churches.
Paul Malone from Ocean Grove
In response to: Scott Morrisons heartless yearning for Armageddon
What we need now is a clear declaration of peace
November 10, 2023
The hopes expressed in the article 'Australia-China relations: Diplomacy and a win without a fight', are hopeful indeed, for good relations with China are essential for our economic prosperity, yet Mr Albanese has made a foolish decision without debate and very little consultation, to confirm the previous Governments decision to arm Australia with a few submarines which are specifically designed for a fight with the very country our economy depends on, and with which Australia has no major quarrel. Cancelling that submarine deal would send a very clear message to China rather than the ambiguous message currently being sent....
Bruce George from Candelo Southern NSW
In response to: Australia-China relations: Diplomacy and a win Without a Fight
Fearless article calling out Penny Wong
November 10, 2023
It's as though the Labor party thinks it doesn't need its grassroots anymore. The Labor party (through the public statements of Penny Wong, Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles) has taken a stance supporting the United States' hardline Zionists and that has translated into a cruel military support for the occupiers. I'm not the only previously rusted-on Labor supporter who will never ever vote Labor again. I will find a person of principle in my electorate as opposed to a party. Collectively, Australia has blood on their hands and it will NEVER wash it off. The Zionists have...
Gladys Johns from Carlton, Victoria
In response to: Israel does not have the right to defend itself
We Must Break Labor's Faustian Climate Policy
November 10, 2023
Mike Scrafton demonstrates the Faustian bargain that our government is making with their approach to combatting climate change. Labor focusses on transitioning to become a renewable energy superpower, and at the same time, and in the face of the urgent demands in the IPCCs 2023 report, approves new coal, oil and gas projects to boost fossil fuel production. These steps build short-term prosperity, and so underpin the governments popularity and therefore its re-election prospects, but they keep our carbon emissions far too high. The price to be paid for these, as the planet continues to warm, will be borne...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic 3127
In response to: Climate policy: The widening reality gap
Climate Inertia
November 10, 2023
While I agree with much of Mike's article Climate policy: the widening reality gap I prefer a more basic approach. Our whole economy is based on neoliberal principles and as such the only way forward is to trash the planet! Furthermore, we will never rein in greenhouse gas emissions while our population continues to increase, it is inconceivable! In Australia we are running out of water, but we continue to import people to the detriment of our economy, the environment and our well-being.
John Bentley from Tongala
In response to: Climate policy: the widening reality gap
Stopping the massacre in Gaza
November 10, 2023
The US has the diplomatic, military and economic might to stop the Israeli attack, which has now gone well past a proportionate response to the Hamas attack. To do so is vital for all of Palestines citizens including the women and children, and also for Israelis particularly those held hostage, and not just those near Gaza. Why doesnt the US do so? A multinational force to take over to keep the peace, as ex Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has proposed, should follow, preferably set up under the provisions of the UN Charter, but set up anyway, if...
Geoff Taylor from Riverton WA
In response to: The moral complexities of bombing a concentration camp full of children
Ali Kazak has exposed the ugly history of Zionism
November 3, 2023
Originally the establishing of Israel was just a Zionist land grab, and the separation of states by distant powers a result of a racist disdain for the Arab culture. But it's now more sinister because the stakes are much higher. Obviously ethnic cleansing is the way forward for an oil-hungry US and Israel. So, thanks to the complicity of ABC reporters and journalists and most western Governments, we are following the US/Zionist playbook in order to effect a genocide. How can people like Sarah Ferguson be gullible and brutish enough to demonise the Palestinians? For heaven's...
Gladys Jones from Carlton 3053
In response to: An open letter to ABC Managing Director David Ande
Crematorium Threatens Endangered Habitat
November 3, 2023
Peter Sainsbury notes that the second pillar of the World Resources Institute requires that we protect remaining natural and semi-natural ecosystems from conversion and degradation. All conversion and degradation of forests, grasslands and forests should stop by 2030 at the latest. Yet ACT Planning has given the provisional go-ahead for an unneeded, destructive crematorium complex on the boundary of the Callum Brae Nature Reserve that will destroy critically endangered trees as well as threaten an important wildlife corridor and biodiversity including the swift parrot and the Small Ant-blue Butterfly. Friends of Callum Brae Nature Reserve, a community group,...
Pamela Collett from Canberra ACT
In response to: If Green Growth is the Answer, Humanity needs a new question
Call Them By Their Names
October 31, 2023
Writer Jessie Boylan has stuck a chord that stays irrevocably in the mind. 8306 Palestinian deaths so far. Deaths that used to be 8306 lives. People. Men, women and many, many children who had names and families and hopes and dreams. By quoting them as numbers, without names or faces they become statistics of war. Collateral damage, that will just crumble in the dust. And the silence of our leaders is deafening. I am numb.
Sandra Ramini from Fremantle
In response to: We are the Silence: How words bear witness in life and in death
When reporting wars, the mass media cannot help themselves
October 31, 2023
Conservative Australian politicians have a debilitating pre-occupation with the objectivity of the ABC. Needless to say, what they really cannot stand is when the simple truth about their policy stances produces its own criticism. Far from being pro-left however the ABC is overly cautious not to offend the right. Such caution is particularly evident at times of war. In 1991, the outcry over the ABCs reporting of the first Gulf War was such that the Backchat program ran a special edition to help clear the air. The options were that the ABC was reporting objectively or that it was...
Tony Smith from Australia
In response to: Objectivity serves the powerful, and silences the oppressed
The war is just beginning
October 31, 2023
Julian Cribb has pulled together several disturbing scientific reports on climate. They should have the world on a war footing but other wars have taken prominence. In 2022 annual global mlitary spending reached US$2.2 trillion. And according to Cribb, US$1 trillion per annum is also spent on government subsidies to fossil fuel companies. Furthermore, McKinsey claims the world needs to spend another US$3.5 billion per annum on emissions reduction to achieve net zero by 2050. The spending deficit could be achieved by diverting the military spending and the subsidies to emissions reduction. But are we smart enough...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Hallucinatory world: Governments blind as catastrophes besiege civilisation
A Comment on Tim and Simons Twist
October 30, 2023
Since reading the 2017 Indonesian law on elections I have wondered when there would be a challenge to its provision that prevented anyone under the age of 40 to stand for election for President or Vice President. And the outcome of the fourth challenge to the Constitutional Court mentioned by Tim Lindsey and Simon Butt is not so outstanding, except in the way that the decision was made. I am glad to see Tim Lindsey and Simon Butt acknowledging the integrity of Justice Sadli Isra. It will not bode well if his honest and open statement in his dissenting...
Owen Podger from Australia
In response to: A twist in Indonesias presidential election does not bode well for the country
Two peoples, an equal claim to self determination and sovereignty
October 30, 2023
Unlike some of the contributing writers to Pearls and Irritations on the Israel/Palestine conflict in general and the current situation of the Hamas attack and the Israeli retaliation in particular, I find Peter Roger's article Netanyahu's War presents some realistic and evenhanded analysis of some negative aspects of Israeli and Hamas policies and the possible worst outcomes for both the long suffering Gazan victims and also the many Israeli victims. I believe all the pleading and threats by the international agencies, and by hawks and doves from both sides who live outside the disputed land will not...
Michael Dorembus from Malvern East
In response to: Netanyahu's War
Finally the uncensored truth. . .
October 30, 2023
If you paint your enemy as depraved and not even fit to live, then you will be supported in 'cleaning them up'. The systematic degradation of the Palestinian population has been brilliantly 'stage-managed' by the Zionist state. They have described the Arab peoples as animals and not fit to govern themselves. The Palestinians have endured this barrage of insults and oppression and restrictions over decades and even been branded as 'not fit to live'. And now, the western press has the audacity to question their pain. . . and that surely makes them complicit in this contemporary genocide.
Glenda Jones from Carlton
In response to: How can you sleep at night Anthony?
The UNSC must act now on Israel's invasion of Palestine
October 27, 2023
The UN Security Council may, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, determine the existence of a threat to the peace and to decide what measures shall be taken to maintain or restore international peace and security. In recent days, we have been informed that cruise missiles and drones were launched from Yemen in the direction of Israel but were shot down by the US Navy and that Israeli warplanes have struck targets inside Syria after rockets were launched towards northern Israel. Meanwhile 7,000 people, about a third of whom were children, are said to have been killed...
James Schofield from Aylesbury
In response to: The outside world must walk Israel back from the abyss. It cannot be part of the choir of incitement
We all need a mirror
October 27, 2023
Ali Kazak says If Western countries are concerned for peace in the Middle East, then all they have to do is to make Israel accountable, recognise Palestinian peoples inalienable right to return to their homeland, to be equal with Jews and exercise their self-determination. I then add And apologise!! Now you have described our First Nations peoples' plight. How did the Voice fail, and Australians not see this? We all need a mirror.
David Farrands from Melbourne
In response to: Blindly supporting Israel
The No vote was racist
October 27, 2023
I would like to take issue with what Fr Frank has stated in his article about the Voice. The statement that The NO vote is not indicative of a racist or stupid nation is factually incorrect. For the past 8 weeks or so, Door knocking, Letterboxing and standing at Pre-polling booths in the Port Stephens electorate it is of general consensus from all who stood beside me that a majority of voters in general were either from mildly angry to those who were objectively hostile. We received threats of violence, intimidation by big burly tradies towards a...
PETER DOWLING from RAYMOND TERRACE
In response to: Frank Brennan: Rejected by the people who dispossessed and colonised them
Australia is selfish and lacks empathy. Ignorant too!
October 27, 2023
As reported in The Conversation recently, the research, practice and teaching of Australian history is in a parlous state, and getting worse. The 2nd last paragraph 'Why is this a problem?' is highly germane to Anderson's argument, but the whole article partly explains why much of Australia is ignorant of it's history, and is getting worse. Ignorance is probably another reason that the lies and misinformation disseminated by 'No' proponents apparently were believed and acted upon by many when voting. Better historical awareness should have made the 'If you don't know, vote No' slogan laughable, as it was...
Karen Sydow from Ballarat, Vic
In response to: Australia has shown itself to be a selfish nation that lacks empathy
Nuclear waste and our oceans
October 27, 2023
Thanks to Peter Sainsbury for another excellent piece Environment: Oceans to the rescue: 7 watery ways to reduce greenhouse emissions (22/10). Given the latest push from the Coalition to introduce nuclear power in Australia, nuclear waste could be added to the list of toxins polluting our oceans. The first operations involving sea disposal of radioactive wastes took place in 1946 in the Northeast Pacific, about 80 km off the coast of California. During the 48-year history of sea disposal, 13 countries have disposed of approximately 140 PBq (140 x 1015 Bq) of radioactive wastes into the oceans (International Atomic...
Fiona Colin from Malvern East
In response to: Environment: Oceans to the rescue: 7 watery ways to reduce greenhouse emissions
Smoke and mirrors policies
October 27, 2023
Would the U.S. and others (such as Australia) who are not calling for an immediate ceasefire, end to blockades and a workable and sustainable two-state solution - effectively condoning the forthcoming (continuing) ethnic cleansing / expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza - be willing to accept the million or so displaced from northern Gaza or, indeed, all Gazans who could well eventually be annihilated or left to die? Given their effective support for Israel's desire to have Gaza, they should be willing to resettle all Gazans in their own countries.
Kam M from Canberra
In response to: Support the strong, suppress the weak
Blaming Judaism is beyond reasonable comment
October 20, 2023
In the P&I article by Paul Heywood-Smith of 20/10/2023 regarding the hospital bombing in Gaza, it is stated: I rather think that a more likely scenario is that a government which believes that it is entitled to steal another peoples land because that land was given to the Jewish people by God, might also be persuaded that God also authorised the occasional white lie if same would assist in the recovery of the land that God had earlier given. I don't have a problem with Israel being criticised, even when I believe it's over the top, but really,...
Harold Zwier from Elsternwick, Victoria
In response to: Western reporters shameful cover-up of Israels hospital massacre: A postscript
Biden's hospital atrocity pretence
October 20, 2023
Gaza Hospital. It is interesting to note that US President Biden was far from unequivocal in his remarks in Israel on the attach on the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. Based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, he told Netanyahu. Biden then added: But theres a lot of people out there not sure, so weve got a lot, weve got to overcome a lot of things. Since the Hamas attack, a host of US spy satellites, drones and other means would have been on heightened alert, closely monitoring...
Paul Malone from Ocean Grove
In response to: Mass media reporters arent buying Israels hospital bombing story
BUT WHO CARES?
October 20, 2023
If the pen really is mightier than the sword, why are we still sickened to our stomachs by the western leaders' reaction to the wholesale genocide in Gaza? If articles like this, spelling out the savagery and wickedness of the Israeli attacks on a population, at least half of which, are children, are ignored by Mr Albanese and Ms Wong and their bosses in the USA what does that say about the people who purport to lead us? Reb Halabi couldn't be clearer in his condemnation of western world leadership, but who's listening? Who dares to speak out?
Sandra Ramini from Fremantle WA
In response to: HISTORY WHISPERS UNTIL IT SHOUTS
Triggers will slow planet wrecking
October 20, 2023
It was pleasing to read that, last year, investments in the global energy transition (US$1.1 trillion) equalled fossil fuel investments. However, as Peter Sainsbury explains, half of the transition investment was made by China and investment needs to triple immediately for the world to reach net zero emissions by 2050. While Sainsbury is justified in pointing out that Australia is one of twenty planet wrecking countries for its aggressive exporting of CO2 pollution, its important to differentiate Australians from their governments. Australia leads the world with residential rooftop solar and two Australians, Professor Andrew Blakers and Professor Martin...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Environment: Australia labelled a Planet Wrecker
Australia's capacity to address global heating
October 20, 2023
Peter Sainsbury has again collated a useful update on the current climate trajectory (Environment: On track for 2 degrees of warming within 20 years 15/10). Sharing both the ExxonMobil and the Global Climate Tracker trajectories was certainly educational. While ExxonMobil, who famously withheld knowledge about global heating from the general public, 46 years on, still thinks they can continue business as usual by promoting pipe-dream delay tactic non-solutions like carbon capture and storage and biofuels, Climate Tracker puts the worlds continued addiction to fossil fuels on notice. Although conservatives constantly exclaim that addressing Australias mere 1.3 per cent of the...
Amy Hiller from Kew
In response to: Environment: On track for 2 degrees of warming within 20 years
There are no 'No' winners
October 20, 2023
When my friend in Aotearoa rang me to say how she despaired for Australia when the Voice was lost, I reminded her to keep her anger not her despair. What has the 'No' vote achieved? I stood in the 40 degree heat at the polling booth in my local rural area and was so, so proud of my fellow Voices from the Heart! The 'No' campaigners were represented by a majority of 'old white men' (as a 'yes' voter noted) and they were lost in settler resentment and lies about what the Voice would take from their rights to own...
Diana Rickard from Tumbling Waters NT
In response to: Australian Politics has reached a dead end
The Korean War and Hollywood propaganda
October 20, 2023
This was only the first of the great US follies that we Australians have so slavishly followed in our frightened, isolated conservatism, leading us into the succession of catastrophies, for the countries and for our own young men, in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Is China to be the next catastrophy? Meg Hart is so very correct in her assertion that Hollywood has been a great propaganda machine, selling for mindless entertainment ('circuses') and obscene profit falsehoods about the 'goodies' (always handsome, overconfident and overbearing white males, with a thin sprinkling of exotic females for titillation) and the 'baddies', in...
Philip Keane from Geelong, Victoria
In response to: Meg Hart's 'Battle at Lake Changjin'
Captured by the fossil fuel industry
October 20, 2023
Peter Sainsburys research this week offers another valuable insight into the forces shaping how our climate is likely to evolve over coming decades. The Exxon-Mobil projections for 2050 demonstrate that this major fossil fuel producer sees sustained, substantial business growth between now and 2050. Climate Tracker confirm that the other major fossil fuel producers, and the countries - including Australia - that host their activities, are planning for that growth too. These revelations show that the fossil fuel industry is now completely confident that it is leading its host countries governments by the nose. They think they can continue...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills
In response to: Environment: On track for 2 degrees of warming within 20 years
DeGrowth and Steady State - another ideology?
October 20, 2023
De-growth and steady state concepts occur to me as a flattening of the reality of planetary life. At an ecological and evolutionary and energy viewpoint there is no 'steady-state'. Things are either flourishing or dying, and when the ecology is at it's best, there is great redundancy in its flourishing that is invigorated in that which dies. And over time ecological systems alter by all sorts of 'external' inputs. The planet and 8 billion people must flourish to reach 'steady state'. This does not occur to me as de-growth. It does occur to me as an incredible transformation of...
Owen Allen from Atherton Qld
In response to: Planned degrowth is needed to stop the collapse of civilisation: Mark Diesendorf
Dutton has much to answer for
October 20, 2023
This weekend Australia determines whether we accept the request of our First Nations people for a Voice to parliament, or whether we put the country back another 50 years as Indigenous activist Gary Foley claims. Foley should know. He established the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 and an Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern shortly after. Should the referendum be unsuccessful, it could well be the last one held. As Samantha Helps points out, the commonality to the challenges facing Australians is sneaky, pathetic governance. What could be more pathetic than Peter Dutton and the No case choosing...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: This land cries out in final warning
Trump's supposed misuse of sensitive information
October 8, 2023
It seems that the Australian media is assuming that American reports of Trump's supposed misuse of sensitive information applied to nuclear submarines to be supplied under AUKUS. These are Virginia attack class nuclear submarines that are not supposed to carry nuclear weapons. If they do, that would certainly be a big story. It would be a breach of the Treaty of Rarotonga, which we have signed and covers West Australia and the Fremantle submarine port. If Albanese agreed to let them carry nuclear warheads that would be in contradiction of everything he has said, including what he said at...
Brian Toohey from Australia
In response to: Trump allegedly shared potentially sensitive information about US nuclear subs with Australian billionaire
Why are we not there? Because Beijing won't give us visas
October 6, 2023
Hi Pearls and Irritations, I just read Bob Rogers lament on the lack of coverage of the Hangzhou Asian Games in Australian media. One can only ask oneself the thinking behind this total white wash? Bob wrote. Please pass on to Bob that one of the reasons it has not received much coverage, is that -- once again -- our requests for visas to report on it were not agreed to by the Chinese government. I tried for almost six months to get a visa. I wasn't allowed one. Frankly, I'm not surprised your contributors are unaware...
Will Glasgow from Australia
In response to: The biggest sporting event the West has never heard of
A CRY FROM THE HEART
September 29, 2023
Every time I read this great humanitarian I feel a twinge in my heart and spring in my spirit. He makes me believe that one day more Jews will find their moral compass and come to the conclusion that what they are doing to us, the Palestinians, in the name of their religion, is wrong and ask for forgiveness. Until the day that Jews around the world, push aside the shield of Antisemitism, raise their hands and say, 'Not In Our Name', Palestine, Israel, The Holy Land - call it what you wish, will never see peace. Thank you, Mr...
Jafar Ramini from Fremantle, Western Australia
In response to: WHEN WILL ISRAEL SEEK FORGIVENESS FOR ITS CRIMES AGAINST PALESTINIANS
The clear need for truth in political advertising
September 29, 2023
The classic cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. This, as Lucy Hamilton identifies, captures the heart of the No campaign. Subjecting us to a litany of misrepresentations and fabrications, this Trumpian campaign imagines so many potential costs that could arise from a Voice, and so few potential benefits. As Hamilton explains, we are being subjected to these distortions of the truth by people on the taxpayers payroll. We are paying to be wilfully misled. This is an absolute abuse of public money. In this age whereDonald Trump has led many to doubt the trustworthinessof key...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic 3127
In response to: The Voice reveals the urgent need for truth reforms
The echoes of assimilationism taught in our universities still haunt us
September 29, 2023
Many decades ago I was an honours student of anthropology at Sydney University. My thesis supervisor was W. R. Bill Geddes. I was not fated to do outstandingly under him, but thats another story. What haunts me now is his advocacy, not least in our one-on-one supervisory sessions in 1969, of assimilationism. It awakened no positive response in me - my family were of the left and always supported indigenous causes of another stripe. Was Geddes in some political relation to this idea or was it a peculiarity of his anthropology?
David Kelly from Sydney
In response to: Assimilation reemerges
Filling the hole - then what?
September 29, 2023
The article is an excellent contribution to filling the memory hole, as are so many of the P&I articles. But filling the hole is only the first step; the acquired knowledge has to be converted into action to be of any value. Besides voting for one of the largely identical political parties every three years or so, what am I supposed to do with the knowledge? How can I, as a citizen, make a personal and effective contribution to the political process? The problem seems to be not only the hole, but our form of democracy; an issue that P&I...
Erik Aslaksen from Allambie Heights
In response to: The mass media memory hole: Ukraine, Libya and war crimes
Disgusted!
September 29, 2023
Yes, a small bomb did go off in a marketplace, specifically at a time when the Han tended to shop there. But did it justify the obvious build-up of Chinese military strength on the streets and the imminent attacks on the Muslim religion itself - headed by the same enforced assimilation of Uighur children that Henry Reynolds article on what might have been the Australian model for the Han highlights so brilliantly. Could it be that your over-enthusiasm for all things (Han) Chinese blinded you to the blatant unfairness of this Maoist take-over of this Turkic nation for its mineral...
Jeremy Eccles from Sydney
In response to: Xinjiang: A Personal Perspective
Proposed cuts at ACU threaten work on Safe AI
September 29, 2023
This is particularly surprising given Chancellor Daubney's stated hope that ACU would play a central role in the development of ethical and safe AI. The cuts would end the positions for nearly every academic working at ACU on ethical AI. We believe this is an oversight, but a sign that the change plan is incompatible with Daubney's vision. In his speech to the Assembly of Catholic Professionals, Daubney said, As Chancellor of Australian Catholic University, Id like to see our university playing a leading role as our society plays catch up in the formulation of legal and ethical frameworks...
Clayton Littlejohn from Melbourne
In response to: Has Australian Catholic University just lost the right to call itself Catholic
ACU and Post-Modern Epistemology
September 29, 2023
Epistemology is the foundation of the scientific method, of all human progress, of the other disciplines defended by the author here, and we all exercise an epistemology, whether or not it is trained and philosophical. Epistemology is central to all western philosophy since Plato. A better education in this is essential in educating students in critical thinking and problem solving skills, and would also be an antidote against our post-truth, conspiracy theory vulnerable times, and against the undermining of genuine expertise. The Arts & Humanities have never been as strong in Australia as they have traditionally been in most other...
Stephen Lake from Moss Vale, NSW
In response to: Has Australian Catholic University just lost the right to call itself Catholic
Enough is enough. Free Julian Assange.
September 22, 2023
I have come to the conclusion that I am living in a country that admires the policy and procedures of a police state. I may be wrong but when I see footage of a helicopter crew firing machine guns into a group of men I feel deeply upset. Especially when the integrity of the footage is questioned by governments which collude to blame one Australian citizen who chose to post footage of this dreadful event. Against the wishes of those countries who may have been effectively committing a war crime. I am the son of a father who spent his...
Dr Peter Willans from Coningham , Tasmania 7504
In response to: 64 Australian parliamentarians endorse diplomatic trip to free Assange
Expenditure priorities: AUKUS subs versus climate
September 22, 2023
In her article Elizabeth Boulton says: It is surreal to imagine that the ONI report could predict anything [climatically] worse than what scientific reports already tell us Quite so, but the non-release of the ONI report may have much less to do with the revelation of climate horrors as with the non-availability of sufficient funds to address the problems that it reveals because of prior AUKUS commitments. Within 24 hours of Morrison announcing his ill-conceived and enormously expensive AUKUS submarine deal it was embraced unqualified by Albanese and his inner sanctum. One of the criticisms mounted against the AUKUS deal...
Ian Bayly from Upwey, Vic.
In response to: Group think: Paralysis and the missing ONI climate security report