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sydney alternative media - non-profit community independent trustworthy
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Holocaust guilt porn and political blank cheques
Mood:  lazy
Topic: big media

As  a secular Jewish colleague tells this writer, the Holocaust must never happen again.  And one presumes for that, it must never be forgotten.

But arguably it has happened again in many places to many people to a lesser or maybe greater degree. West Papua, Rwanda, East Timor, 27 million dead russians in WW2, 50-78 M dead worldwide in the same war.

Certainly the Holocaust should never be forgotten.  Certainly I will never forget the history now understood of the 1.5M Irish who died in the 1845-1852 famine under UK jackboot while a net exporter of food.

However one does get bored seeing more features in the weekend Sydney press about Anne Frank letters and book reviews of the week for my old environmental law lecturer based on a painting with a Holocaust back story.

And outright offended by the hypocrisy of the local Jewish Board of Deputies last week promoting a restitution list for WW2 victims of the Holocaust while effectively silent apologists for predatory settlers and an Israeli government riddled with corruption dependent on the same exponents of creeping conquest - the latest being Israeli Foreign Minister charged by the Israeli Attorney General no less, according to Haaretz mid April 2011.

This writer agrees wholeheartedly the Holocaust should never be forgotten, but where are the voices in local English Big Media press for the several million Palestinian Arabs, or indeed Arab voices for that 250-300 million section of humanity? The balance? It is of course unrealistic to expect loyal supporters of Israel to talk the book of their enemies or rivals but what about the alleged journalists? When are the press going to get over their inherited guilt or perhaps over compensating for (their own?) residual sub conscious anti semitism/racism, and treat Israeli conquest and predation on it's modern merits and lack thereof. Indeed treat Jewish politics according to their common humanity, rather than special or chosen or a people apart?

When indeed will Big Media here see through the gulling of their analytical faculties on the current middle east and in particular a clique of expansionist ziono-fascism leveraging Holocaust porn and guilt in the West. Like some Catholic sin of scruples for a terrible thing and obsessive compulsive hand washing of a black spot they actually have no reason or even right to adopt as theirs to be guilty about?

Israel is a world power with world impacting military, not least nuclear weaponry. The days of Israel as a victim country at existential risk are long gone, notwithstanding the tub thumping about existential risk and suitcase bombs on donkey carts. Indeed that old story is so over whether one comes at it from an Arabic or Jewish perspective. Where indeed is the story about Israel's 100-200 nuclear weapons as estimated by the Federation of American Scientists via simple google of their website?

One gets the distinct impression by the tone and slant of general big media English press coverage in Sydney that there is a moral and political blank cheque to the Israeli government, and the predatory creeping conquest of the alleged 'settler' (who glorify political assassination of PM Yitzak Rabin). Presumably some of it has to do with Australia's own black history of creeping conquest and terra nullius of the 'settler' myth here. That is murderous land theft of the 40,000 year previous owners. That's one great big shameful motive for denial about other so called  'settlers' more akin to land predators pleading a theocratic mandate.

It was however heartening to see all 4 worthies in the moral feature in the Sydney Morning Herald demolish the case for Marrickville Council staying out of the international Boycott Divestment and Sanction campaign, as some balance at least for the Holocaust guilt porn.

 


Posted by editor at 9:38 AM NZT
Updated: Sunday, 8 May 2011 4:13 PM NZT
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Spoof warning: J*wish Board of Deputees call for restitution list for Palestinians - not
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: big media

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
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Imre getting into bed, so to speak, with Carmel, raising questions of bias?
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: big media

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
Saturday, 9 April 2011
How PM Menzies nearly sabotaged the Petrov defection, first hand account
Mood:  sharp
Topic: big media

The Corporate media are so biased to their political heroes - like long serving Prime Minister Robert Menzies - it is virtually axiomatic.

Today Menzies features prominently in The Australian's coverage of the old saw of the Petrov spy defection 60 years ago (!).

Talk about old fish wrapping.

If The Australian's research was any good they would quote from the first hand account of the spy who actually turned Petrov. Not haughty Colonel Spry head of then ASO. The actual spy who spoke Russian. The author, doctor and musician Michael Bialoguski, assisted in his account of the affair by the grandfather of this blogger at the time in 1955 (Sydney Morning Herald's Eric McLoughlin).

Some quotes regarding the incompetence of both Spry and Menzies by Bialoguski in The Petrov Story, (1955, publisher Mandarin Australia) at p137

"When I parked my car at Parliament House on this second call, I found myself within twenty yards of a Soviet Embassy car, just as the Ambassador, Lifanov, emerged from it. He was on his way, I discovered later, to pay his official farewell visit to the Prime Minister before his departure from Australia. All the time I sat in Yeend's office I could hear Lifanov's voice as he talked to Mr Menzies in the adjoining suite."

In this way the incompetent Menzies and his staff almost blew the cover of Bialoguski who was a regular at the Russian embassy functions with Petrov and other functionaries and a trusted member of the Russian speaking diaspora in Sydney. Suffice to say Bialoguski was disgusted his dangerous work and his life was treated with such contempt. No wonder he wrote a book about it.

And this again at p140, referring to a messenger for Spry taking petty revenge on Bialoguski for going over his head to Menzies about the penny pinching and ham fisted support he was getting in his work of turning Petrov. Note Bialoguski's work, not Spry's. The quote:

" "He wished me to tell you that your services with the Department have been terminated and that you are to cease your activities forthwith. He also asked me to tell you that he is in charge of Security - not the Prime Minister."... [at p141] ...The fact that Colonel Spry could, with seeming casualness, say to me "get out", was in my opinion an admission that he had no clear idea of the complexities of the situation. 

By using some ingenuity, I could have gradually extricated myself no doubt, but the more thought I gave the matter, the more certain I became that my contact with Petrov and the Soviet Embassy should be continued. Personal pride entered into the situation to some extent, but there was also the overwhelming conviction that in the national interest it was necessary to succeed with the plan I had in mind. 

Something of what I felt ... is reflected in the following letter:

To the Director General, Secuirty ..."

Suffice to say Bialoguski remained on the Petrov case, and his motives may well have been more than pride (refer below) and he left for the UK after the Royal Commission.

At page 200:

"I was sincere when I spoke in these terms to Petrov. A new role had been thrust upon me, that, as it were, of Petrov's advocate, in the sense of counsel representing a client. In Petrov's mind I was the only person on whom he could depend. My duty, as I saw it now, was not only to see that Petrov defected, but also to see that he got a satisfactory chance to start his life anew."

In other words Menzies and Spry came within a whisker of sabotaging a defining moment in their own political and professional careers due to their arrogance and incompetence in relation to matters of intelligence. They almost blew the cover of the spy who turned Petrov because they had no sense of his key role.

So much for the heroes of the cold war lauded by The Australian newspaper today in a clumsy attempt to drag an ALP figure through the mud. This first hand account makes the cold war 'heroes' look like clods and fools.

And why was Bialoguski so committed to his infiltration of the embassy and turning Petrov? Refer page 10:

"I dislike fanaticism of any kind. This is why I'm ready to fight Communism, Fascism or any other totalitarianism built on fanaticism. ... in western democracies ... one great right remains - the right to raise one's voice in protest without fear of a bullet in the back."

 and page 12 of his young adult life in Vilna, Lithuania in 1940:

"The number and frequency of arrests grew, and many of those arrested were never seen again. Fear began to creep into daily life. Every one began to wonder who would be next on the list of the NKVD (the secret police, now the MVD).

... It did not greatly surprise me, therefore, when one autumn night the dreaded knock came on my door, and I was taken to the headquarters of the NKVD. 

I was seated facing the wall ... the "softening" process lasted several hours. ...[13] ...I knew, however, that this experience was the first, and possibly the last warning of things to come, and I made up my mind to waste no time in getting away from the Soviet occupation."

And particularly note the profound motivation for chameleon Bialoguski by deduction from this at page 56:

"The last few months of 1949 were a bad time for me personally.

I received a letter that my mother was dead. She had died with none of her family around her .... my father... was unable to be with us ...and he died sometime before her in a concentration camp.

My brother Stafan, too, had gone. ... he had escaped the German occupation and was in the Middle East. ... Now I knew that if ever my activities were revealed, there was no need to fear reprisals."

 

 


Posted by editor at 6:24 PM NZT
Updated: Saturday, 9 April 2011 6:50 PM NZT
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Fairfax frippery and other (Gerard Henderson) joke journalism
Mood:  lazy
Topic: big media

One question - who funds Gerard Henderson?

Supplementary: If you don't know because the Sydney Institute funding is secret - how can you publish him prominently in the opinion pages and claim you are a real newspaper and not simply a propaganda sheet?

The truth is Fairfax opinion editor is a professional joke.

 


Posted by editor at 10:16 AM EADT
Paul Monk, creepy spooky scared weird little guy, on wikileaks
Mood:  energetic
Topic: big media

What can you say about ol' Monky eh?

There he was back in the day slumming it at Ursula College residential hall at ANU in the mid 80ies, like a barely concealed ASIO recruiting officer.

2 doors down from Burgmann College were KR Rudd was holed up some 5 years earlier.

Monky had a reputation amongst what Sister Scholastica (RIP) referred to as the elite: One a maths professor today, another a uni medal winner destined for Macquarie Bank, another who got more HDs than credits or distinctions. And this humble cynic - even at that age. I spent too much time envying Rodney Day listed as world record holder of Pengo arcade game in Wikipedia, earnd in the Ursula common room.

Back in the day when it was a religious Catholic institution. And I confess I ought not to have stolen the bottle of alter (!) wine and am just about a teetotal these days.

We had another name for ourselves - The Sloth Club. Which was so not true - all ambitious and quite hard working in private. But in the common room to join our 'club' there was only one rule - you didn't care if you were in our club! Suitable social apathy was the evidence required of a strong identity and self confidence that eschewed vain double talk.

Hence Monky was never going to cut it. And now we read his prose yesterday in The Australian dated 4 January 2011 attacking Assange as literally Daniel Ellsberg endorses Assange. WTF? Monky tries to turn that endorsement around while ignoring the revelations on the Iraq war count, the Right to Know agenda, the effective rescue of the relevance of the 4th estate from their own craven compromises with Big Govt/Big Corp Donors, peace dividend from what Gandhi calls the role of 'openness' in his profound 10 principles of non violence. And so on.

Monky hasn't changed - short of stature and short of principled prose. No one doubts the Big Media aka conservative press will both exploit wikileaks and proceed to their 'little murder' of the source being Assange and wikileaks. The 5th estate well know the deconstruction. But it won't work.

For the same reason gold Walkley winner Laurie Oakes staunchly defends the role of wikileaks in boosting the public's right to know, so Monk has only made an intellectual and moral fool of himself - again.

 


Posted by editor at 9:49 AM EADT
Updated: Wednesday, 5 January 2011 10:08 AM EADT
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Verrender, Van Onselen display their $15B stupidity on power asset profile
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: big media

On the issue of the sale (sell out?) of NSW power assets we keep reading the cannard of the 1997 sale proposal being worth $30 /$25 billion then only $15B under Iemma in 2007 and now only $5B (or $3B after the coal mine).

These are not the same asset bundle. As pointed out by John Kaye MP (Greens) some years ago the 1997 proposal included the poles and wires which may be Transgrid authority.

 No doubt there are other variations in the asset profile for the 3 DIFFERENT sale proposals.

For so called professional journalists or opinion writers in Fairfax and News Ltd in the space of 2 days to get their articles wrong by a mere $15B while promoting their critique is an outrage of public misinformation, probably as bad as the performance of the NSW Govt itself.

No wonder the Govt is so bad. The 4th estate is a sad projection of incompetence. The irony is that this makes the case for Wikileaks regarding actual sourcing of information to cross check the dopes in the big media.

Van Onselen's story may not be online but it appears at p100 today of the Sydney Sunday Telegraph.

Verrender's piece in the weekend Sydney Morning Herald is here:

Seller's remorse hits as power station buyers jump for joy

One stupid quote here:

"At just $5.3 billion, with maybe another $2 billion to come, NSW taxpayers have been royally shafted, ripped off and taken for a ride. At least, that's what the critics would have us believe. And, superficially at least, it's difficult to argue with them.

In 1997, those same assets were in the books at $25 billion. But within two years, the value had plummeted to $16 billion."


Posted by editor at 8:34 AM EADT
Updated: Sunday, 19 December 2010 8:35 AM EADT
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Wikileaks pioneer targetted for exposing more truth of Iraq death count
Mood:  loud
Topic: big media

 


This cartoon above ran on ABC Insiders on 31 October 2010:

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2010/s3052972.htm

They are by David Pope, also referred to in this report:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/07/3059284.htm

Pope honoured as Cartoonist of the Year

Posted Sun Nov 7, 2010 11:13am AEDT

Canberra cartoonist David Pope has won one of Australia's top cartooning honours, taking out the 2010 Cartoonist of the Year Award in Melbourne last night.

He beat five other finalists to take home the top award.

Pope has been drawing cartoons for the alternative press in Australia since the mid-1980s and for The Canberra Times since 2008.

He says former Canberra Times cartoonist Geoff Pryor created the space in the paper for his brand of political cartooning.

"I've been very lucky to follow in the footsteps of Geoff Pryor at the Canberra Times, who really created the space at the paper where you are given free rein to make political comment about the news of the day and social events," he said.

"It's a terrific space to have and he created that space in the paper over 30 years."

 Over to Insiders comment here:

JASON CHATFIELD: Yes, oh it was a godsend, incredible. It was a slow news day and then just a shoe flew in and every cartoonist in the country stood up and applauded.

There's two reasons that I'm excited that John Howard is back on the scene. One of them is that I get to draw John Howard again.

The other one is that I get to hear Mike Bowers do a John Howard impersonation.

MICHAEL BOWERS (in John Howard voice): Oh not tonight!

JASON CHATFIELD (in John Howard voice): Oh stop it Mike, yeah!

(Referring to Paul Zanetti's cartoon, www.zanetti.net.au):

MICHAEL BOWERS: The shoe throwing incident just gave so many visual metaphors and visual puns for you guys. It was just fantastic.

JASON CHATFIELD: It was amazing. Yeah we've got a Zanetti here with "three shoes?" and then Tony Jones here saying, "Oh the third one is from Costello."

Very good. I'm surprised it's an actual shoe and not a fluffy slipper or something.

(Referring to Jason Chatfield's cartoon, jasonchatfield.com):

MICHAEL BOWERS: You've picked up on it as well.

JASON CHATFIELD: I did. Yeah I mean it was just the fact that that week it got so much press for the book.

He's written everything that's happened to him and then this happens.

And you know I can imagine him just sort of sitting there thinking, oh "Damn, I could have put that in the book."

MICHAEL BOWERS: If they go to a second printing I'm sure it will be in the book.

JASON CHATFIELD: There'll be an addendum yeah, Lazarus writing still.

MICHAEL BOWERS: Me and the shoe.

JASON CHATFIELD: Lazarus reeling.

(Referring to David Pope's cartoon in the Canberra Times):

MICHAEL BOWERS: David Pope from the Canberra Times has really gone for the jugular.

JASON CHATFIELD: Yes. This is one of the sharpest gags I've seen all week.

MICHAEL BOWERS: "The legacy resurrected."

"Sorry is this a bad time?" coming from the skull as they pour out of the Iraq War with the Wikileaks man opening the door on it.

JASON CHATFIELD: This is such a good cartoon. And he's just hit it straight on the head.

The deeply cynical attempts to smear Assange of Wikileaks in the big media remind of the devastating critique of some in the big media - like Fox News today - in a re-run of the 1986 Olive Stone movie Salvador whitewashing massive fatalities by a right wing dictator convenient to the USA fascist influence in Central America.

Director Oliver Stone, a Vietnam War veteran, talks about the movie here:

http://videos.apnicommunity.com/Video,Item,3543752332.html

The movie cast included such notables as:

Truly I say to the Big Media in their coverage of Assange this is their Bonhoeffer moment in terms of professional morality: They can reflect the facts or self censor and sanitise in the face of seemingly overwhelming power of the USA military machine. And yes the death rate in Iraq is comparable with Nazi Germany if not as great.

*    *     *

Which all reminds of the sly Cut & Paste in The Australian yesterday, scolding the Greens (as if the criminal News International have any moral stature on such things) for referencing climate change/global warming as akin to coal trains as death trains in the Holocaust.

Ironically The Australian is 'correct': Inundation and changed monsoonal rainfall patterns from Africa to South East Asia and the Amazon will affect hundreds of millions of people as well as diverse species in nature. Which means the comparison to the Holocaust is inappropriate. The death rate from climate impacts of coal trains will be far, far worse than the Holocaust.

Which of course is anathema to the death cult like worship of the Holocaust as the greatest evil that man has ever been capable of.

Regretably not.


Posted by editor at 7:27 AM EADT
Updated: Sunday, 21 November 2010 7:54 AM EADT
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
SMAGE enviro writer plays catch up on tired Wilderness ruction
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: big media

 

Picture: Alec Marr, Director of The Wilderness Society 3rd from left, taken off a collage in the TWS Sydney office wall display.

We briefed colleagues yesterday on a page 3 story rudely interrupting our Easter Monday holiday (doing the ironing actually). It refers to Alec Marr so called out of the loop in Canberra, pictured above next to Albanese, Garrett etc in the lead up to the federal election. The politicians know where the weight is, as we do.

We wrote before about the central role Lyndon Schneiders has played as a rival for Marr's job, an ambition missing from the Age stories in February. The SMH have to that extent updated. But they also failed to get to the history of perverse manipulations by one Judy Lambert, a senior figure in TWS with in our view some terrible impacts on forest policy in Australia, not least as former policy fixer for discredited ALP Enviro Minister of yesteryear Ros Kelly.

We believe J Lambert has some major conflicts to explain, and accountability for past job review fraud cutting a swathe through the national organisation of TWS in the 1990ies. We understand J Lambert is involved again in the rebel group in 2010, having requisitioned a town hall meeting in Melbourne.

Here is our update to colleagues given the beat up by the SMH yesterday:

Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 4:29 PM
Subject: TWS will be fine, 45K members etc

I have no private interest or connection with any of the stakeholders which becomes important given many undeclared conflicts in this dispute.
I had a call from a member of the national executive regarding Lyndon Schneiders resigning early last week. From what I can see there is nothing really new in the story in the SMH from the coverage in The Age over a month ago other than Lyndon spitting the dummy. That earlier story is here
I spoke to that Age journalist for half an hour last month after the story about a common sense approach needed regarding democratic empowerment of the 45,000 membership which often is not the same as the admin functionary cliques that develop in branches of TWS (read below 1994 primary doc with figure involved in 2010) sometimes with no understanding of campaigning imperatives (like current death struggle with Gunns Ltd). 
In my time it was functionaries thinking TWS was a shallow PR factory existing to employ them while activists out on the line put their lives at risk. Marr on the other hand has been on the front line many times. #1 defendent in the Gunns Case.
The recent New Matilda story #1 
and #2
and comment string covers the situation.
What the SMH story today and Lyndon's quotes don't reveal is that he apparently is the long time ambitious rival candidate for the director's job, with alleged destabilisation campaign to achieve that. Also the national campaign committee attack on Marr was after an IR dispute involving the attempted sacking of a talented, dedicated individual arguably implicated indirectly in breach of intranet privacy obligations of national management team.
(I consulted the IT manager for ACF who is an old school friend of mine and he noted there are legal consequences of hacking private email, let alone national management. That sacking was overturned in the Tas IR Commission, but is itself being appealed by the national body. I read the lengthy judgement at first instance and there are some problems with the decision - failure to make a glaring finding of fact regarding burnout of the individual, somewhat perverse finding about the attitude of Alec Marr arguably lacking evidence.)
Also in the SMH today the notion that AGMs of the national meeting of TWS are held in a national conference plenary is not what I recall back in the early 90ies. They are held at the same event in parallel but always a very small private affair for security of the organisation. The idea that 150 or 200 would be at a national AGM of TWS during the national conference sounds like fantasy to me. For instance anyone who pays their dues might stack the AGM - infamous redneck Jennifer Marohasy being the most extreme case (in print quoting Wilderness News via subscription one assumes).
Also significant in the ructions is the conflicted role of an old fixer exposed here
with a degree of fraud to her record from way back in 1994 (again in 2010?) when she effectively helped remove the previous national campaign team. Advisedly. The primary documents are there and a long time coming out 15 years later. The fact this person was previously a fixer for ALP federal environment minister Ros Kelly (who was sacked in a funding scandal) before returning to TWS machinations is not lost on this writer.
It may be this posting with hard evidence of fraud national management job review process in 1994 has scattered the rebellion in 2010 given the implications. Same person requisitioned the rebel meeting in Melbourne in February.
Lyndon while achieving great things in Qld is a marked man over the Qld Wild Rivers controversy so the notion he could take up the national directorship is fairly fraught, with fierce critic Pearson likey to meet Obama later this year in Australia, and Garrett refusing to progress world heritage without such as Pearson's approval. That's a snooker.
The best thing for Lyndon in my view would be to get involved in the NSW state election campaigning not least Eden deal koala power plant. This would empower TWS locally and help everyone to move on including his spouse Felicity Wade as NSW campaign co-ordinator for TWS.
All in all, the most significant news is that Lyndon has resigned which indicates he is no longer a rival candidate within the main national organisation, but possibly remains so outside. The best way forward is mediation with an expert wilderness supporter like former federal court judge Murray Wilcox who is available apparently. 
Meanwhile Gunns Ltd is on the skids and the share market is calling for the head of the CEO for alleged insider trading before the share price crashed. Alec Marr was #1 defendant against Gunns Ltd for good reason.
Regards, Tom McLoughlin (state campaigner TWS 1993-94)

 

Meanwhile here some nice pictures of the koala forest campaigners, also supported by The Wilderness Society here in NSW, as per the large laminate Koala poster (their materials from the 2003 state election if memory serves):


 


 


 

 

 

 


Posted by editor at 6:07 AM NZT
Monday, 15 February 2010
Glenn Milne's strangest non sequitur yet?
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: big media

 

The insulation controversy marches on, sadly. (The picture above is more to symbolise the role of greed in this situation than anything else.)

But we almost choked to read Glenn Milne run this opening line today in The Australian:

"more Australians have died as a result of the Rudd government's home insulation program, "administered" by Environment Minister Peter Garrett, than lost their lives in the Iraq war"

Now what the hell is the point of this weird compare and contrast?

Put aside 500K -1M deaths in Iraq, human beings but not Australians: The grotesque insensitivity puts xenophobia on a whole new level. Indeed 250-500K Sydney residents marched against the Iraq war in Feb 2003 exactly because they feared this disgusting outcome.

So what about the war 'in Iraq' that visited Australia with terrorist bombings in Bali #2? Jakarta hotel bombings? How many Australians killed there?

[Bali #1 with mass fatalities of Australians was in October 2002 some 5 months before the Iraq war commenced in March 2003. Bali #1 is probably better understood as Australia's 9/11 - attacked by Islamist fanatics, but then PM Howard was loudly posturing too about invading Iraq with POTUS Bush so one wonders the dynamic there. Refer Opposition leader Crean here 26 Jan 2003 : in "Crean Says Howard Has 'Gate-Crashed' Iraq War And Ignored UN" some 2 months prior to the invasion].

Australian blood has being spilled copiously have no doubt. At least in part, and arguably mainly, because of the Howard-Abbott Govt eager participation in the mad Iraq war.


 

 


Posted by editor at 9:17 AM EADT
Updated: Monday, 15 February 2010 11:01 AM EADT

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