Judenrat* Jeff Angel's monumental arrogance revealed on Stateline NSW: 'Only I can tame treasury'
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Topic: nsw govt
* Judenrat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Judenräte (singular Judenrat; German for "Jewish council") were administrative bodies that the Germans required Jews to form in each ghetto in General Government (the Nazi-occupied territory of Poland), and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union.
The Judenrat was an important extension of Hitler’s government and was charged with solving the problems that arose in the occupied community. The Judenrat operated post offices, hospitals, soup kitchens, day care centers, and vocational schools. They also collected taxes and paid salaries for certain types of work.
These bodies were responsible for local government in the ghetto, and stood between the Nazis and the ghetto population. They were generally composed of leaders of the Jewish community (with the exception of the Soviet Union, where Jewish organizations were eliminated in 1930s). They were forced by the Nazis to provide Jews for use as slave labor, and to assist in the deportation of Jews to extermination camps during the Holocaust. Those who refused to follow Nazi orders or were unable to cooperate fully were frequently rounded up and shot or deported to the extermination camps themselves.
In a number of cases, such as the Minsk ghetto and the ?achwa ghetto, Judenrats cooperated with the resistance movement. In other cases, Judenrats collaborated with the Nazis, on the basis that cooperation might save the lives of the ghetto inhabitants.[1]
"The Community Council - the Judenrat, in the language of the Occupying Power – is an abomination in the eyes of the Warsaw Community…" — Chaim A. Kaplan, 23rd April 1941.
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Preface
Don't be misled by the headline into thinking this is some shallow bigoted anti Jewish post below. This writer believes there are many beautifuil Jewish (and Arabic) people in this world. Both Ian Cohen MLC and John Kaye MLC both of the Green Party are of Jewish Australian heritage and both are opposed to the privatisation of public energy assets (see below).
What this post is about is the historically accurate, yet still taboo subject apparently (according to Melbourne University Press's Louise Adler for instance, another prominent Jewish Australian), of a minority group of Jewish collaborators with Nazi fascism in WW2, for their own preservation amongst an evil holocaust. The ultimate betrayal. Given the widespread destruction of the non human environment that biologists lament we are literally living today, even sleep walking through, the comparison is entirely apposite.
The point is the old aphorism about the fruit does not fall very far from the tree. Angel by his career is demonstrably a collaborator with the ALP Right in NSW on every big environmental policy controversy going. They will freely admit that they "can work with Jeff". This is not a compliment given what we know of the corrupt ALP this last 10 years. We can only conclude Angel has a genius for this double game learned from somewhere like the infamous Judenrat phenomenon, just as others have referred to the NSW polity suffering the Stockholm Syndrome, and it's taken us a good many years and environmental tragedies to distill this reality.
If the Iemma govt had wanted a really honest and credible expert on energy production from a practical environmental perspective free of political baggage and compromise he could have retained either Dr Mark Diesendorf, Institute of Environmental Studies at University of New South Wales:
Or Professor Stuart White (Expert profile: Professor Stuart White) at the University of Techology Sydney, Institute for Sustainable Futures Or maybe even Professor Peter Newman of the Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy at Murdoch University. But in true Yes Minister form it had to be a bloke who would deliver on the intellectual fix in a somewhat plausible way:
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Story
Quentin Dempster's NSW Stateline tonight (14/3/08 here in due course) has attempted to provide a platform for the two 'independent' members of the Unsworth pro privatisation committee, of NSW $10-18B publicly owned energy assets. These are Jeff Angel and Harry Herbert.
But all it's really achieved is to reveal Jeff Angel's monumental hubris to think he is greater than parliamentary democracy itself as represented by the elected Green MPs, publicly declared ALP MPs, silent Opposition, the remaining wavering ALP MP's, and civil society itself via the near unanimous ALP conference delegates, and unions and membership of branches, and such groups as Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
Apparently none of these can stand up to the nameless Treasury officials 'already acting like rapacious private corporations blocking any green initiatives' according to brilliant Jeff. Jeff Angel must interpose himself conveniently as self appointed honest broker.
It 'has to be' indispensible Jeff Angel, who 'coincidentally' will be rewarded with political gratitude and rewards beyond (till now) his wildest dreams courtesy Iemma and Costa for timely sophistry.
'Only' Jeff Angel you see can deliver closure of coal fired power stations. Only Jeff and his brave 700 member band of TEC, with media oxygen via say abc Stateline can bring these wicked treasury rednecks to heel.
Never mind an elected Parliament and government responding to overwhelming public demand for action on dangerous climate change. No, the powerful insights of Jeff are greater than all that wisdom and energy of civil society put together. As if.
This is the biggest con trick of Angel's career trying to draw down all the political capital of the dangers of climate change into his own policy hands and self aggrandisement. To gazump democracy itself. It has nothing to do with which is the better model, public or private, to restructure the energy sector - demonstrably more possible in public hands given the natural monopoly and universal service obligations.
Angel by all means is entitled to his opinion such as it is. The poblem is the brazen fraudulent assertion he has much authority to speak for anyone but his own hopelessly compromised group of 700, which actually stood for something under Milo Dunphy when it was founded by architect Dunphy in 1972.
Angel's bizarre fantasy, pandered to by the gormless, or ALP aligned cynics, is an insult and denial of the huge political momentum developed by others on action against dangerous climate change. Angel has been seeking a chess board approach to real politik his whole career, undercutting and drawing down political capital built up by thousands of others, usually behind their backs and covertly with whoever has the sinecures to trade. Jeff the client, and the collaborator greenie. The gazump artist.
Whether it be 1,500 urbanites arrested fighting to save the south east forests of NSW as organised by The Wilderness Society in the early 1990ies. Then somehow these ecological patriots belong to Jeff Angel by 1995 appointed onto govt 'RACAC' panel which then endorses Premier Carr's 20 year logging guarrantees in a forest deal underpinning the ALP's ('helping trees and jobs live together')1999 tv advert re-election campaign. Even when Carr makes it clear he will break an earlier election promise to close the Eden Chipmill.
Or Greenpeace organising the 'Green Olympics' in 1993 - then suddenly dioxin (still) at Homebush is off the agenda by 1999 via the confusing noise of govt funded TEC/Green Games Watch 2000.
Or dirty Lake Cowal $6M 'Environmental Trust' in the face of hot protest over cyanide gold mining in the late 1990ies. All of these have been well reported here on the sydneyalternativemedia micro news.
Make no mistake, Angel is a carpet bagger of the highest order.
Angel's arrogance claims in effect none of the assembled political action or wisdom of others matters because only he is the authentic greenie, and only he can bless a deal and we all should tug our forelock and let him sort it out. We submit the guy has become a monster sucking the very life out of the green movement for his own self agrandisement. He is a real and present threat to the Green Party let alone future green orientated government. He is literally the greenwashing servant of the endless economic growth fetish championed by Iemma because the profits of the energy sale will go straight to a $5B truck tunnel under Sydney.
Never forget the true accounting of our State of the Environment underr self appointed impertinent Angel leadership of the NSW green movement since 1996 on the death of fiesty independent Milo Dunphy. For 11 years until 2008 we have experienced in this state:
- record levels of land clearing for agriculture up to 2 million ha at least
- record levels of woodchipping of native forests out of Eden topping a million tonnes a year
- record levels of tollway road and car fleet intensification.
- very high levels of waste going to landfill still
- promotion of racist biobanking tradeoffs of areas with native title woven in to the mix.
- record level of highly green house gas embedded shipping container imports
- record level of greenhouse emissions by NSW and via our coal globally
- record level of economic immigration (regardless of refugee obligations) urged on by growth fetishists like Harry Triguboff and Frank Lowy and many others at the top end of town;
- the same or worse air quality in the Sydney air basin
- death of much if not all of the Murray Darling river system (with recent death of Prof Peter Cullen a sad metaphor for his life's work)
Are green people starting to get the message? Should we change something in this picture? Do you think Angel might actually be part of the ALP destruction industry rather than a provider of solutions that perhaps the Green Party might promise with it's ground breaking work on political donations?
The truth is Treasury officials follow the direction of government ministers and the real politik forces on the premiership. The truth is no premier can stand against the species survival instinct manifested by state, national and international imperatives on structural economic reform demanded by the threat of dangerous climate change. Unions are well alive to the level of this threat as per Stern, Garnaut, Gore, Garrett, Wong, John Robertson's Unions NSW alliance with the NSW Nature Conservation Council, with this article just one strand in that theme:
Climate a worker's right | The Australian 6 Mar 2008 ... UNIONS plan to broaden their workplace rights agenda by pressuring employers to reduce the impact of climate change in individual workplaces
It doesn't depend on one captured Angel, democracy never does depend on one. Is this why he doesn't trust democracy and never unlike Dunphy sought to work for and with the public masses? Always behind the scenes chess playing? Compare Cohen and Kaye above actually working up political capital under their own steam and the facts behind their own case. And going to the people in a vote.
Our very collective survival depends on a mass process of change like the existential threat of WW2. The truth is these so called nameless treasury officials will follow the will of the people like every other time and the rest is sophistry. It will certainly be worse under a CEO legally obliged to maximise profits with no govt public interest handbrake at all.
Angel's hollow claim that he is indispensible to getting action on climate is just that. Self aggrandising rubbish. Rather he is the bottleneck on a spontaneous evolution of a far more ecologically sustainable polity because he prematurely draws down everyone else's hard work. What a blood sucker.
The truth is there is no Iemma premiership if the democratic base of the ALP conference rejects the sale privatisation. He will be replaced, and so what? And with him may well go Angel's patronage machine. The truth is there may not even be any ALP Right controlled government either because if Iemma doesn't order economic restructure then a new social semocratic force in NSW politics will replace that style of ALP including removal of current brown ALP MPs. All to the better.
Even taken with a grain of salt, it's interesting that ex Premier Nick Greiner is talking 'warm and green' in his recent 20 year anniversary speech having evolved his thinking on environmental imperatives in this 21C, and soft pedalling on rampant privatisation:
Time to stir up the wooden spoon state - Opinion - smh.com.au
And thank heaven for that. The next generation of Liberal Party aparchiks need to be ecological conservatives too to have any credibility.
Because dangerous climate threat is that big. All this bogus posturing about extra billions from asset sales for economic growth fetish infrastructure will be a waste of good money after bad as the new ecological limits further grip our way of life. Whether it's massive carbon pricing, or taxes and import bans on high greenhouse gas embedded products from such as India and China. All of this will and must happen over the next few years.
Before the oceans really start to rise.
And Angel thinks that key energy assets are better in the hands of anti union corporations, who would have run the place with asbestos if they could have got away with it, when it is the unions who actually hold the real democratic social capital (via their coverage if not their membership) to facilitate such massive social restructuring. As if tinpot autocrats like Angel or Iemma could ever achieve such a social revolution of sustainability. All they are good for is sterile games of chess.
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This is what John Kaye MP stated recently about trusty Jeff Angel, getting in the queue behind all the other gazumped idealists this last 15 years:
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 3:15 PM
Subject: [Greens-Media] Environment movement not heard in Unsworth report
Environment movement not heard in Unsworth report
Media Release: 10 March 2008
The Greens are gravely disappointed that Total Environment Centre (TEC) Director Jeff Angel has supported NSW Treasurer Michael Costa's scheme to sell-off the electricity industry.
Greens NSW MP John Kaye said: "It's not surprising that the Premier's hand-selected supporters signed off on the privatisation.
"It is quite shocking that Jeff Angel ignored the arguments of the overwhelming majority of the environment movement.
"The only opposition came from the three union representatives. Their dissenting report captured the key environmental, economic and social arguments against the sell-off.
"Selling off the retailers removes an important ingredient in the move to greater energy efficiency. Public ownership is essential in protecting household energy bills in a time of rising prices.
"The generators are responsible for 37% of the state's greenhouse gas emissions and which ever way it is packaged, handing them over to the private sector is bad news for the climate.
"In return for a handful of recommendations to consider or investigate various environmental options, Mr Angel lent his authority to Treasurer Michael Costa's disastrous scheme.
"Jeff Angel has been prepared to trade off the environmental and social benefits of public ownership for the flimsy chance that some of his suggestions might be adopted.
"Mr Angel has fallen for the beads and blankets trick. On the hope of getting something useful, he has signed on to the sell-off.
"The campaign to protect public ownership and control of the electricity industry will continue regardless of the outcomes of the Unsworth committee," Dr Kaye said.
For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455
Posted by editor
at 9:19 PM NZT
Updated: Monday, 17 March 2008 5:58 PM NZT
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8 comments:
Update: Thanks to those who have written to lend their support, and thanks also to Matt Norman, the nephew of Peter, who has thrown his weight behind the campaign to have the mural repainted.
I'll make sure to keep you posted on any progress.
well done nosey in newtown activist!
You are on top of everything! I am so impressed with this blog.
aha! i have been hoarding this news article meaning to scan it in for ages. i loved cruising by mcd town station and seeing that mural, and was mighty annoyed when that ugly wall went up.
here's the dodgily scanned in news article. tis a bewdiful story:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bilateral/476455530/
and here's the detail of the image which the mural artist must have worked from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bilateral/476462368/
I did always wonder what that was all about, during my hornsby via strathfield years...
UNREAL. I had noticed the mural's obstruction on the train and was disappointed, especially as I'd only recently discovered what it was all about (thanks to coverage of Peter Norman's death... what a champ). Those dudes are heroes. Meanwhile could you imagine Thorpie taking such a stand for anything other than a pink party shirt? Bah on modern athletes. And hooray for you for agitating.
Good on ya enjoying your blog newtown and area is the suburbs of my wellspent teens -> 20s.
Heard about your site on FBi... I too was extremely saddened when railcorp decided to cover up one of the most important pieces of street art in Sydney...