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The areas in Australia where most of us live are changing so rapidly that we can see it on a day to day level. Building and road works are ubiquitous. Every day you see another house demolished and a sign up advertising generic "architecture" townhouses to be built. Yesterday I saw a huge shadow that I had never seen before covering a road cast by a new 16 sorry apartment building where previously all was low rise, no more than 2 storeys. Trees in the city are being felled like ninepins for road widening. The prospect of giant road projects dangle in front of Melbournians, promising to ease their daly struggle to get to work. These road projects come at enormous cost to the environment; compulsory acquisition of houses, loss of parkland, loss of bushland. One cannot help but be aware of it every day. It is all because of Australia's very high immigration which more than doubles what would be its population growth if it only had to cater for its own natural increase. We are paying dearly for this.

The ANCOLD guidelines that now cause local retarding basins to be treated as major dams are based on the premise that increased urbanisation, with more hard surfaces, will cause more intense flooding. (See /node/5401.) The scale of flooding they seem to be anticipating is an indicator of the horrendous scale of population growth and urbanisation of which most Australians still have no inkling, due to the gross negligence of programs like Q&A which minimise the frightening reality of our governments' betrayal of Australians.

I read Hildebrande's article and found it highly emotional and tangled up in a network of his own classifications and labels.It appears to have closed the discussion on that forum for now. Reading Mark Allen's excellent response here and then the article it refers to made me go back to what my own long held concerns are regarding an high population for Australia, especially if it is achieved in in a very short time. My concern arose from my appreciation of nature and strong belief that other creatures apart from humans have their right to a place in this country. It would appear from Hildebrande's closing sentence which had something to do with the inconvenience of trying to preserve a tree in the midst of urban transport infrastructure that nature is not one his concerns. We're all different! However, those who care, I would argue surely have more rights with respect to nature than those who don't. As it turns out much of our wildlife live exactly where we are putting more people and the beloved infrastructure that they thrive and operate on. One would think that we could take it as a"given" that it is important that we have an environment (essential, really). Now, the environment in Australia is deteriorating and this is due to population pressures and human activities. This is documented in various state of the environment reports. Here is just one example from the Australian State of the Environment report 2016 "The outlook for Australian biodiversity is generally poor, given the current overall poor status, deteriorating trends and increasing pressures. Our current investments in biodiversity management are not keeping pace with the scale and magnitude of current pressures. Resources for managing biodiversity and for limiting the impact of key pressures mostly appear inadequate to arrest the declining status of many species. Biodiversity and broader conservation management will require major reinvestments across long timeframes to reverse deteriorating trends." https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/biodiversity Just to put things in a wider context.

IMPORTANT NOTICE The Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc draws notice to a Public Forum at 7pm Wednesday 21 March at Brunswick town Hall, 233 Sydney Road, to advance a state-wide community based campaign to create a sustainable and integrated transport system. Something that has long eluded elected office-holders. The forum sponsor is the Moreland Community for Action on Transport (MCAT) that worked with PPL-Vic and many other community organisations and individuals to defeat the deeply flawed East-West Link. It will provide an opportunity to hear from and discuss with academics, experts and residents actively campaigning to stop or alter the latest bad road plan ideas being foisted on local communities. You will hear and engage with University of Melbourne Professor John Stone on the need for a new approach for an integrated transport system, from academic Clare Walter on the health implications of failing to do so, from Western Suburbs activists engaged in efforts to stop or alter plans for the West Gate Tunnel and others. You are invited to attend and to help spread the word on this important Public Forum. MCAT contact is Pauline Galvin who can be reached on mobile 0421 828 742. A flier is attached to send on to others. Brunswick Town Hall is easily reached by Tram 19 (Stop 21) and Jewell Station. There is free parking is available on Edwards Street car park, just off Sydney Road two blocks from Brunswick Town Hall. Best regards, Michael Petit, President Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc Mobile: 0417 354 169

Candobetter.net Editor: This timely comment has been republished as an article, here: "Diversionary tactics, smokescreens and the Electoral Funding and Disclosure Bill 2017". ........................ My first glimpse of the political gravy train (game of mates) in Australia was back in 1992 prior to Jeff sacking Victoria’s councils. As a bastard from the bush in the State seat of Rodney I’d joined the National Party who at the time was doing some good work for the farming community. The local branch had called an open meeting for all members and prospective members to attend to hear from speakers Noel Maughan (MLA for Rodney) and Bill Baxter (MLC for North East Province) regarding the forthcoming election. The spectre of Council Amalgamations was in the wind and at the meeting we were informed by Bill Baxter with great emphasis that the National Party would not tolerate Council Amalgamations in any shape or form whatsoever. Within 2 years Council Amalgamations were rammed through parliament with the National Party’s blessing. At a subsequent meeting of the local branch of the Nashos when it was put to Bill Baxter regarding the obvious about-face, flip, sell-out, he refuted (lied) that he had ever given the aforesaid commitment. The meeting degenerated into a farce with Bill being ushered out the back door and many members including yours truly resigning their membership in disgust! I came to realise over the ensuing years that all of the major political parties carried political baggage similar to that of the National Party. The (once) Liberal Party had morphed into a conservative organisation taking the nashos with them (or Vicky Verca), the Labour Party sold out the workers, both parties adopted neoliberal principles and the Democrats were on a hiding to nothing trying to keep the bastards honest. The neoliberal mantra under the Hawke/Keating Federal Government and the Kennett State Government redefined the political landscape dramatically during this time. Today the landscape has only changed in the fact that the Demos have gone and have been replaced by the “Greens” who are also neoliberal despite somewhat honourable beginnings. Politically Australia has become a backwater of neoliberalism similar to North America and most of Europe and is suffering under the yoke of American hegemony, Chinese influence, neo-classical economics, overpopulation driven climate change and political indecision on all facets of the home front. Much of what passes for legislation at federal level today is aimed at putting out spot fires or shoring-up community/electoral support for the Turnbull Government. Similar to the State Governments of both Baillieu and Napthine, the Abbott and Turnbull Federal Governments have been do nothing ministries. There has been no significant legislation that these Premiers/Prime Ministers could or can hang their hats on, nothing, nought, zip, zilch!! They have gone from proposing the ludicrous to the unworkable, shoring-up their support as they go! As spot fires break out around them their time and energy is consumed putting them out. In an effort to achieve this, diversionary tactics or smoke screens are often employed to take the community’s/electorate’s eye off the ball. The classic here was the “Same Sex Marriage” bill which was always going to get up, being taken to a (“referendum”) postal vote. This took some of the heat off the Feds for 6 months wasting time and money. In the meantime, Australia, as a nation, just drifted along with the Yanks pulling us one direction and the Chinese the other. I read with interest the excepts from Clive Hamilton’s book “Silent Invasion” in Saturday’s Age and am currently reading Robert Macklin’s “Dragon & Kangaroo” and I’m beginning to understand an aspect of Australia’s history they I hadn’t grasped previously. Unfortunately, there is not much to like in what I’ve read so far and combined with our colonial sycophancy and our current obsequiousness to the good old USofA, we are sadly lacking especially when it comes to leadership of the nation. To me the “Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017” is more of the same – putting out a spot fire/diversionary tactic. The bill may be aimed at so-called charities that provide political advocacy while at the same time accommodating such advocacy through the back door, the bill may claim some smaller fry that are, to the government, collateral damage. Instead of addressing political donations head-on, we pathetically tinker around at the edges. As the dust settles the sharks that were dominating the pond are still there while the sardines have been thinned out! However, I do believe that any bid to curb the right of individuals to collectively provide alms and benevolence or to protest by either the Federal or State Governments to be an infringement of our civil liberties. This where the Australian constitution is an absolute dodo. Similar to the constitution not recognising First Australians, it doesn’t recognise the civil liberties of all Australians. As the constitution continues to fail all Australians and it will increasingly do so in the future, the more ordinary Australians and groups of Ozzies including charities will come under the spotlight. These individuals and groups will then be put under the microscope while those with money, power and political clout will able to evade this bandaid legislation and carry on as if nothing has happened. Meanwhile the yawning gap between the haves and the have nots widens appreciably. As the middle class become trapped by the zombie neo-classical economics, climate change tightens its noose, environmental degradation continues unabated, resources become depleted, civil unrest mounts as people go hungry, fresh water diminishes and spills over into war and mass migration. This is the leaderless society that is being thrust upon us. Overpopulation is a killer!! John Bentley

I posted the following in response to the article Syria, Turkey, Russia and the Kurds: the struggle for Afrin (25/2/18) | The Duran by Alexander Mercouris:

As the article shows, an all-out invasion by Turkey would be a mortal threat to the Syrian government.

Even if Sultan Erdogan now claims to be hostile to the United States government, how can we assume that the United States would disapprove of the Turkish Army's efforts to achieve what the United States' terrorist proxies have failed to do since March 2011?

Possibly the only way that lasting peace can be achieved in Syria is for the regime change to occur in Turkey (and elsewhere).

But, by helping Erdogan defeat the attempted coup of July 2016, supposedly orchestrated by the United States, and by its endorsement of the rigged constitutional referendum of April 2017 which gave President Erdogan more power at the expense of the elected Turkish Parliament, the Russian government helped further entrench Erdogan in power.

Sheila, your post is an eloquent, beautiful and heart-wrenching piece of writing. Thank you for expressing what so many of us feel, and yet which somehow does not enter the consciousness of many highly educated, intelligent professionals who still think it is ok to feed the growth megamachine, using the justificatory tools of economics in particular. I also loved the video which was part of your post -- really outstanding. By the way, does the candobetter site have a facility to share via FB and to Tweet your posts? It would make it easier to get the message out.

Don't forget Foran and Poldi's Future Dilemmas: Options to 2050 for Australia's population, technology, resources and environment, 2002. http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/33785/20030616-0000/www.cse.csiro.au/research/program5/futuredilemmas/index.htm Commissioned by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigeneous Affairs(DIMA), it predicted all our problems, and the government ignored it.

Just with reference to Peter Cook's recommendation that "The Australian Government should fund the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to publish projections of the likely impact of varying rates of population growth on the built and natural environment. This analysis could form part of the CSIRO’s National Outlook publication. The release of this analysis should be synchronised with the release of the Australian Government’s Intergenerational Report," I wanted to remind people that the CSIRO provided such a report just before it was largely privatised. Economists actually distorted the expression of the scientific conclusions in their editing, which was largely forced on the scientists. The report, by Barney Foran and Franzi Poldi, was called, Future Dilemmas: Options to 2050 for Australia's population, technology, resources and environment, 2002.

About the Report
What impact will the size of Australia's future population have on the environment, the physical economy, the national infrastructure and our quality of life?

To gain insights into what the future might hold for Australia, researchers at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems have developed new tools and approaches to modelling Australia's dynamic physical economy.

Future Dilemmas is a technical report that encapsulates the results of this research, which was commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA).

It explores the future effect of three population/immigration scenarios on infrastructure, resources and the environment out to the year 2050.

The first scenario considers what would happen if the net immigration rate was zero persons a year (described as the low scenario in the report).
The second considers what happens if the rate was 70 000 a year (the current policy setting, and described as the medium scenario).
The third examines the consequences of an immigration rate set at two thirds of one percent (0.67%) of the current population per year (described here as the high scenario).
The low scenario (zero immigration) represents the policy position of some environment groups. Based on current population growth, it would see a domestic population of 20 million by 2050. The medium scenario gives a population of 25 million by 2050. The high scenario (0.67% growth pa) is a position advocated by many business interests. It gives us 32 million people by 2050.

Future Dilemmas explores the consequences of these three scenarios for people, urban infrastructure, the natural environment, energy, water and a broad range of other issues.

Future Dilemmas: options to 2050 for Australia's population, technology, resources and environment was officially launched on Thursday 7 November 2002 by the Hon Philip Ruddock, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs.

So the Greens are not even prepared to enter into debate or discussion on this issue - they threaten you with expulsion for raising 'heretical' ideas? There would be no need to 'license' the having of children in Australia, as the birth rate is about replacement rate of deaths. And the reason for this is precisely because WE DO control women's bodies - via 'The Pill'. Matt

The early settlers of Melbourne came in many cases from London. They were as greedy as people are today, but they were appalled at the squalid and cramped living conditions of London and were determined not to recreate this. Thus Melbourne was designed with wide streets, vast park lands, and good public transport. In these respects Melbourne was a Utopia. Now all that is being dismantled, and Melbourne is being replaced with the worst of 18th Century 'London'.

The following are excerpts from Orthodox Christmas in Southern Serbia, Oaks and Casual Cruelties (9/1/18) by Dr. Binoy Kampmark | Global Research. As well as this terrible instance of neglect and cruelty to animals, this article is about the threat of ethnic strife and renewed war between Muslims, Serbs and other ethic groups in the Serbia Town of Bujanovac.

The man, gristle and all ... was spotting a particularly agitated dog, udders swollen and heavy, with disdain. The word was that he had hit that same animal the previous day. The memory stung; the dog, barking with helpless fury, wanted a revenge it could never have, a dish it could never savour.

As the barking continued with increasing agitation, a set of strangled yelps were released, followed by a sequence of piercing howls. The man had deployed his stick once more, having gotten off his perch and metamorphosed into a mobile being. No longer still statue, clothes animated and moving with the corporeal form, this mass was now directing his stick with committed viciousness. The dog, beaten, fled again, its cries weaving through the pot-filled streets of Bujanovac like lengthy stretches of pain.

The scene of casual cruelties in the town of Bujanovac alight along the potted road to the village church in neighbouring Rakovac, a village of Serbs in an area also replete with Albanians and the sound of mosques in prayer.

A puppy blackish and brown, its pygmy presence barely a few weeks old has been abandoned, its doomed cries as it vainly struggles in the damp grass defrosted from the night, bruising to the heart. Some pass by without a glance at this blur of colour, the animal struggling to find his bearings, legs giving way; others register a sorrowful regret at not being able to take the animal home. There are priorities, and the dog as pet is less valued as the dog as guard, soldier and functional protector. Animals shelters where these creatures can be saved are not thought of; the grim reaper shall have his feed tonight.

...

I would like to believe that, if I had been a resident of Bujanovic, amidst the cold, lacking food, firewood and fearing a further outbreak of ethnic strife and war that has been endemic to the region since NATO destroyed Yugoslavia in 1999,that I would have still rescued that dog or at least given it some food and and water and taken the time to show it a little kindness.

"We feel we are making every effort towards a better, more vibrant, more diverse, society. We are having some successes and some failures but all the while making progress as people speak out." Yes, thanks Barbarella. Such changes are allowed, anything that doesn't threaten the powers of the elite. By allowing these changes, and on such scant evidence, the narrative of 'progress' and 'life getting better' can be continued, as the world burns. Matt

Also James, consider what has become of the Trotskyist movement under any of its names - and of just about every communist or socialist organisation today. The elites learned their lesson from a near miss and they simply infiltrated the entire movement, with paid organisers who recruit youth and then teach them to go round in circles, until they grow up figuring that revolt is not possible. One thing I don't understand is how the 'cell' concept failed to prevent this. Any ideas?

Ah, yes, the AIM network .. cough cough.. :-) (which, sadly, is full of defenders of Soros which presumably means they are financed by him). I'm glad you got some comments. So, there is obviously nothing wrong with your idea. People have to choose to dedicate themselves to it. When I think of the number of organisations I am mixed up with and how hard it is to get anyone to actually look after them. It needs publicity and something for people who don't read, such as a youtube rundown. I looked on youtube and there was nothing like it. Please try to continue to promote this. It is the best idea I have heard.

Thanks Sheila - yes you did support that idea when I published it.

There were a few comments here.

I don't think change can come from the system that benefits from the status quo - the Catholic church is perhaps a good example here - change from outside - from a grass roots movement started by mainly one man who tapped in to popular sentiment and people felt strongly enough about the issue to risk being killed (often by burning).

Thus I feel a similar process will eventually happen now in relation to our current power system - only much worse, as we are now dependent on the system for all our food and other needs, whereas once this power was much more decentralised and democratically distributed.

As an intermediate approach I have proposed the following:

An alternative planning approach

But I think it will be too late soon, if not already. Not too late for change, but too late to avoid massive suffering.

Do you have any ideas on how to make change happen? Not being able to make change happen could be described as not knowing what is wrong or what to do about it, too. It all reminds me of the problems ordinary people have in trying to get our Flora and fauna guarantee act enforced; we do not have 'standing'. We do not have 'standing' in our own country to be represented. Citizens do not have standing here. They do not have standing even to say how many members the citizenry here should have. It's like being dictated to by the Catholic Church in the Middle ages.

See:

Out of the Wreckage

There are links forward and back to causes and solutions. At least he is trying. But reality seems to be that no matter how many books are written on the causes, problems and possible solutions, not much seems to change. The sticking point seems not be knowing what is wrong, or what to do about it, but rather making any change happen.

This is just the latest symptom of a system that is fundamentally unsustainable. And I would argue, almost unrecoverable. Our reliance on fossil fuels is the root of all this (and switching to batteries will not help). Fossil fuels underlie the sprawling separation of work and home, allowing services to be centralised and concentrating us around city centres. Fossil fuels allow our unsustainable food and transportation systems, which will persist even in the face of global warming, as more energy is bought to bear, until a horrible climax is reached. What is the solution? Not something that anyone, or any government is likely to do. That is to move back to localised systems, wean ourselves off fossil fuels. This would require a massive, carefully orchestrated effort by everyone. And much sacrifice by all. An effort akin to that put into preparing and winning a world war would be needed, and is needed. But a rallying of the troops for this war is a very unlikely event. Most people are either oblivious to the problem, or prefer to pretend it doesn't exist. But more and more people will become marginal participants in the system as their poverty increases.

It's 2 minutes to midnight. This is not a matter of "investigating" or "working with the owners", it's a case of emergency food drops required immediately!

Simon. please post your email. That is a very generous offer of yours to return to Croatia. If I could return to my ancestral origins and if I thought it would help i would too. Please consider though that as an apparent advocate for Australia's native fauna, it is probably better that you stay!

If the 1955 commuters walked in a straight line from the top of Collins Street they would have found themselves at what was then Spencer Street Station, but if they came from the top of Collins Street and turned left at Swanston, they would have found themselves facing Flinders Street Station as they would now! Walking in Collins Street doesn't mean they weren't headed for Flinders Street Station! They could also have been headed for Spencer Street but it was more for country and interstate travel.

I posted this comment beneath the YouTube video which was embedded below. Those who read this and who have already read previous comments will find that much of what is in this commen has already been posted above.

The talk appears to have omitted the underlying cause of the conflict between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK aka 'North Korea') and the United States.

North Korea was devastated in the war of 1950-1953. US Air Force General Curtis Le May perversely boasted how 25% of the population of North Korea was killed by his B29 bombers and how no building more than one storey high was left standing. The DPRK suffered this bombardment because they refused to surrender to the United States and its local proxies who had been imposed upon the southern half of Korea in 1945.

In 1945, the new US President Harry S. Truman turned on the Soviet Union and many of the United States' other war-time allies including the ELAS partisans in Greece, the communist partisans in Italy, the Viet Minh in Vietnam, the Chinese communists and the DPRK in Korea.

In the southern half of Korea the United States' occupation forces put into power a government largely composed of Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese occupiers. This government was named the "Republic of Korea" (ROK aka 'South Korea'). The US Army and its local ROK puppets savagely repressed supporters of the DPRK in the south and DPRK supporters resisted this repression. This civil war became a conventional war on 25 June 1950. Had the United States and its allies not massively increased the size of their intervention, the army of the DPRK could have easily beaten the army of the hated ROK. The subsequent invasion of the North was stopped, but at a terrible cost to the DPRK and to its Chinese allies. Peace was never signed in 1953. Officially that war continues. The DPRK leaders know that any one of the annual joint military exercises of the US and ROK, which resemble practice invasions of the North, could easily turn into a real invasion should the US be able to manufacture a pretext. Accordngly, the DPRK has repeatedly asked at the United Nations that these exercises cease.

THe DPRK leadres saw that they had no choice but to create weapons which could deter the United States should it ever again attempt to do what it failed to do in 1953.

Kim Jong-Un shamed Trump (Ruslan Ostako)

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