Mood:  don't ask

In the wake of the controversial BDS campaign the loyal supporters of Israel based in Australia represented by Vic Alhadeff of the Jewish Board of Deputies has called for a list of property for restitution to evicted Palestinians the victim of the predatory 'settler' movement.

Vic said: "We can't condone the historical rewards allowed to a movement that has assassin Yigal Amir as it's poster boy. We support a restitution of properties stolen from their legal owners since the boundaries of the 1967 war."

"There are between three and four thousand Palestinian survivors of the 1967 war in Australia who may have legal claims to return of their property."

Mrs Meyer of Bellevue Hill said: "We would never support appropriation of the Holocaust as PR cover for predatory settlers, as a justification for land theft from our Palestinian brothers and sisters."

[This story is a fiction. It never happened. The quotes were never given.]

Posted by editor at 3:58 PM NZT

Updated: Saturday, 7 May 2011 7:17 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  sad

Picture: Peter Gray shown here at right, 3rd from the top. His funeral is this Saturday in Newcastle NSW.

We are advised Peter died after a long struggle with cancer over the
Easter weekend just past. The editor of SAM met Peter once at the pictured Marrickville Town Hall meeting over a coal mine at Anvil Hill on 24 June 2007.

We got his picture after chatting, aware that he had won a famous legal precedent as the plaintiff against the NSW Government, a case which was not appealed and can be found here:

Gray v The Minister for Planning and Ors [2006] NSWLEC 720 (27 November 2006)

with costs order in Peter Gray's favour here:

Gray v Minister for Planning & Ors (No 2) [2007] NSWLEC 91 (27 February 2007)

We received this email recently:

Posted by editor at 4:13 AM NZT

Updated: Saturday, 7 May 2011 7:18 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  energetic

   [unsolicited email received recently, SAM is agnostic about the balance of competing interests both within and against the green movement on this issue.]

 “Democracy Betrayed –Tasmanians Betrayed” 

Saturday May 14^{th -} 11.30 AM. Royal Park, Launceston. 

TAP Into A Better Tasmania is organising a rally and march in Launceston, Tasmania. We are working with all like minded groups State-wide to send a clear message to the State Government that they have betrayed Tasmanians and democracy in our state. Are you disappointed with the way in which “your” government and the opposition continue to support Gunns Limited’s proposed Tamar Valley Pulp Mill? Are you “sickened to the stomach” when you repeatedly see organised covert assistance and resources being given, in so many ways, to prop up this 7 year old proposal?         

 If so, please join us on Saturday, May 14^th at Royal Park Launceston. This protest will not only prominently feature the anti pulp mill campaign, but it will also focus on the relentless destruction of Tasmania’s environment - the poisoning and increasing toxicity of our rivers and drinking water supplies - the dreadful damage done to our ancient forests - the utter contempt being shown towards the treasure house of precious Aboriginal artifacts, plus the abysmal standard of representation, state governance and management of our money and resources being shown to our young people. We are very concerned with the steady deterioration in our health services and hospitals; the increasing neglect of the education of our young people - the disgraceful poker machine corruption, and a government that increasingly ignores the needs of the disabled and elderly. We are demanding an end to the relentless tendency to place the profits of foreign and mainland owned corporations ahead of the health, future and well-being of all Tasmanians. If you share these concerns, please join us on Saturday, May14^that Royal Park Launceston, Tasmania.           

TAP- Needs and asks for your support, assistance & donations. 

Support:  Please come to the Rally, car pool, hire a bus, keep up to date on TAP’s website, Twitter, Facebook or at our next fortnightly TAP meeting 7.30PM, Thursday May 12th at the Riverside Community Centre at Riverside High School – off Brownfield Lane -West Tamar Hwy, Launceston, Tasmania. Assist:  Please assist us by telling all your family members, friends, acquaintances, colleagues and your social club or organisation about the rally – and by forwarding this email to every person you know, to your club or your organisations members and particularly to young people. 

Donations:   If you can not attend, could you please consider making a donation either by:-                      

1) By Pay Mate on the TAP website.                     

2) By Direct Transfer to –Tasmanians Against the Pulpmill INC,                         BSB. 067 022 A/C. 10022503.                     

3) By cheque and mail – Tasmanians Against the Pulpmill INC.                         PO. Box 200. Exeter, Tasmania 7275.                    

 4) At the next fortnightly TAP meeting.               

All donations will go towards these typical expenses. * $20   =printing of 20 rally bumper stickers that will be seen by thousands.* $50   =funds 200 brochures delivered to households by volunteers.* $100 =funds the hosting of this website for 1 year.* $200 =funds one third of the meeting venue hire for informing 600 people.* $1000 = one quarter page advertisement in one daily newspaper.    

 “We thank you for your help - together we can make a difference." 

This rally will draw attention to the long, appalling history of lies, bribery, cronyism and arrogance by the very people elected to                                                 represent us.                             

 TAP Into A Better Tasmania is a non-party political community group fighting Gunns’ proposed pulp mill.                                         

For more information AND TO RECIVE UPDATES  email  tapcontact@gmail.com, see  www.tapvision.info and      www.tasmaniantimes.com and    www.tamarpulpmill.info Or on  Twitter # tapvision  or  FaceBook: Tasmanians Against The Pulp Mill (TAP)    

Posted by editor at 3:48 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 5 May 2011 3:55 AM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  blue

Ironic headline front of the Corporate Cartoon Book aka Sydney Daily Telegraph today?

Greiner hounded out of politics for a slick attempted deal to entice indy MP Metherell off the cross benchers in 1991-2 to be head of the EPA. Blocked by senior public servant and upright Neil Shepherd who wouldn't step aside. Minister Tim Moore and Premier Greiner both investigated by ICAC and reversed on appeal, but the damage done.

Not well known that Metherell went indy, after difficult tenure as Education Minister, to block Greiner destroying NSW wilderness areas under the then bipartisan 1987 Wilderness Act.

The damage done too in Greiner's career of wrecking the world's lungs and atmosphere as his party refused to have him back in a sensitively balanced parliament.

Associated way back with Big River Timbers in the old growth forest destruction game. Another reason Metherell rejected him. Note the professional association still to this day in the picture above.

Then Chairman of British American Tobacco criticised by academic Prof Chapman at Sydney Uni. Refer AAP story copied here

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-74915018.html

Deeply involved in the car domination of Sydney with the Lane Cove and Cross City Tunnel project. Refer article and word search  on this pdf here

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/a318edb11e8d3b07ca25714f000d6b2b/$FILE/060412%20corrected%20proof.pdf

As Australians consume a million new cars a year, arguably f*cking the planning system for Sydney: http://www.themotorreport.com.au/3323/record-year-sees-more-than-a-million-cars-sold-in-australia

Deeply involved in escalating the burning of coal via higher exports from Port of Newcastle. 

http://www.railpage.com.au/news-5505.htm

Mr Fixit? Only if you don't want to breathe, or don't give a fig about the atmosphere, in a NSW Govt that rejects a carbon tax.

Oh dear.

Posted by editor at 10:30 AM NZT

Updated: Monday, 2 May 2011 4:50 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  lyrical

[under construction]

 

 

From: 

Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 7:53 PM

Subject: [chipstop] new plans from FNSW

Hey all

new harvest plans issued by FNSW have been received:

• Nullica 654/655
• Bombala 1325
• Yambulla 422

they are a couple of Mb each so please ask if you want them forwarded to you

tony

 

Posted by editor at 10:04 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 5 May 2011 4:43 AM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  a-ok

 "4.2.6 Palestinian civil organizations, as well as international organizations, NGOs and certain religious institutions call on individuals, companies and states to engage in divestment and in an economic and commercial boycott of everything produced by the occupation. We understand this to integrate the logic of peaceful resistance. These advocacy campaigns must be carried out with courage, openly sincerely proclaiming that their object is not revenge but rather to put an end to the existing evil, liberating both the perpetrators and the victims of injustice. The aim is to free both peoples from extremist positions of the different Israeli governments, bringing both to justice and reconciliation. In this spirit and with this dedication we will eventually reach the longed-for resolution to our problems, as indeed happened in South Africa and with many other liberation movements in the world."

 http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/other-ecumenical-bodies/kairos-palestine-document.html

Posted by editor at 7:53 AM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 17 April 2011 8:33 AM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  don't ask

Foreign minister Rudd want's to save 1 million people in Benghazi from Gaddafi's military predations, but he and many others are happy to see 1.5M people in Gaza rot away in poverty, in an open air prison, picked off a few at a time by a predatory Israeli government. Not dying in a fire fight, but slowly over years, in arguably a much crueler fashion.

So much for the Bonhoeffer thing from Kevin Rudd.

It's a sobering lesson of local Sydney Jewish politics to recall that when Yigal Amir as an Israeli 'settler' assassinated peacemaker prime minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995, that there was no real condemnation of Yigal Amir of significance from the local worthies. Because half of Israel were glad of the murder apparently and it nearly tore the country in half. At that moment I would say Israeli democracy died.

Indeed the predatory settler cheer squad are stronger than ever now holding crucial numbers in the present fascist Israeli Government, powered up with 100-200 nuclear weapons according to estimates of the Federation of American Scientists. This cheer squad also hold the numbers in their own local institutions in Sydney and seem to have strong ties with the other institutions of Australian society. But it doesn't make it right. It just makes it morally worse. 

Keep in mind what this cheer squad for the 'settler' land thieves are barracking for. The settler movement generally believe the only good Arab is a dead one. That's why they have Yigal Amir as a poster boy - because he killed the PM of Israel who was going to make friends with the Arabs over Palestine.

If one looks closely at the diaspora here in Sydney it becomes clear that these folks are in a paranoid and neurotic loop about their tragic history. If one steps back it becomes apparent they can't accept peace, because they have been fighting seemingly forever. It's become their comfort zone. If the Palestinian conflict didn't exist, for many of these folks it would have to be invented. They are suffering a collective post traumatic stress disorder. So unlike say the Irish who have had a 150 years to come to terms with 1.5M dead in a 'guided' famine courtesy of the British, the Jewish diaspora are acting out their family bereavements in Palestine, nursing it along with all the misery they can get away with hiding behind the narrative of the victim country surviving the Holocaust and existential angst.

Existential angst while harbouring 100-200 nuclear weapons while North Korea with barely a handful has stood against the whole world for years. That's not existential risk, that's self pity over WW2 foisted on the politics of the whole world.

So that's who Big Media and Big Politics are getting in bed with on the Marrickville council controversy. The cheer squad for Yigal Amir who have no interest in peace, embrace cruelty and prejudice as they live out their post Holocaust right wing fantasies. This would be bad enough until you add in the nuclear arms race dimension that could take the whole world down in a nuclear winter in which case this cancer becomes totally intolerable.

So yes I support a boycott, divestment and sanction campaign against Israel until it changes it policy on human rights in Palestine by showing it can squash the predatory settlers. And I will until the Israeli Govt policy changes for the better, whether jelly backs in the Greens stand fast or not , or it damages my career, or Marrickville Council is sacked, or until the settlers set off a nuclear weapon fueled war, in which case my last words will be "I wish I was wrong".

Posted by editor at 1:11 PM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  cool

Harriet Swift.

 Who?

Greens candidate in the seat of Bega who polled 12.5% of the vote, highest on record for that seat and above the NSW average for Greens in lower house seats apparently. 

Subject of front page attacks for weeks in the Eden Magnet and Bega District News.

So what distinguished Harriet as a local candidate? Her staunch opposition in and outside the courts to the Eden chipmill owned by our Japanese industrial friends. 

There's a lesson there for the Greens in Marrickville campaigning against the ALP minister for asbestos, Carmel Tebbutt.

Also amusing to note federal MP's worried about hacking of their email. Mutterings about foreign interests like China. Or would that be News International? Or Israel?

Finally, who knew that Holden supports the Israeli right catspaw, predatory 'settler' land theft movement in Palestine? Or a host of other companies? Maybe these companies might want to reconsider getting into bed with the assassin of Israeli PM Rabin, a vile criminal by the name of Yigal Amir. Yigal is the poster boy of the settlers, currently serving a  long stretch in an Israeli gaol despite a campaign for his release. 

 Who indeed knew that Israeli murderers are allowed to marry in gaol and beget a son for the settler predatory movement? Mmm. That's a real witches brew of right wing politics The Australian is associating itself with.

But morals was never News Corp's strong suit.

Posted by editor at 10:03 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 14 April 2011 10:08 AM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Mood:  accident prone

A state political reporter is supposed to talk to state MPs. So Imre Salusinszky chatting to "Carmel" late last week is no big deal.

But one wonders, based on our telephone conversation late last week with Imre, working for the Holt St Harlot, given a factual error by Imre in a report that day in The Australian about Lee Rhiannon, also his focus again today.

He took a second call during the conversation, muffled sounds, then dulcet tones of "thankyou Carmel .... [rustle rustle]" as presumably his hand went over the telephone hand piece.

It doesn't take a genius to know he is being fed by Carmel Tebbutt MP for Marrickville at risk of the Greens Party in that seat.

And the factual error in the piece? Ben Oquist sought preselection for the upper house of the Greens and was beaten in a competitive process, not blocked by Rhiannon per se, as argued by Imre.

My mail at the time some years back was that despite Ben being an excellent pollicy and back room guy working for Senator Bob Brown (and I know with media degree from UTS because he beat me for the state campaigner job at The Wilderness Society to leave after 2 months or so in 1993), he did not perform very well in the public speaking events in front of the Green branches statewide. This comment was made by Dietrich Willing a long time campaigner for Friends of the Earth, Sydney at that time around 2002 at a meeting of the Inner West Greens - then based around Concord.

Whether this is fair to Ben is another question again.

Given the article in today's The Australian by Imre, it is pretty clear he is desperate to distract the audience from the dissembling by the Israel lobby in bed with assassin Yigal Amir murderer of PM Rabin. Far better to promote a narrative of dissembling by The Green, admittedy with a grain of truth in it too, like all politicians.

I put it to Imre in a "personal" conversation - his word, that The Australian lacks credibility until they report financing of the predatory 'settler' movement, catspaw for a right wing Israeli government, from diaspora business interests in Australia, and report the cheer squad for assassin Yigal Amir.

 Imre's reply was stuck on Yasser Arafat failing to provide a partner for peace which is like - pretty old history in a fast moving diplomatic momentum to recognise Palestine in a unilateral declaration of statehood in 2011, virtually endorsed by the IMF recently as economically viable. He also noted people here can donate to anyone they like. 

Our view remains not if it's a breach of Australian law to promote terrorism, including 'settler' terrorism, quite apart from the immorality of a theocratic blank cheque for expansionist nuclear armed Israel.

Posted by editor at 10:43 AM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 13 April 2011 10:59 AM NZT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink