Reviving this blog

Like many bloggers I lost energy when nothing ever seemed to happen with the blog entries I had made.

Today I have made the search to remember how I made entries (yes I had forgotten) and this is the result.

Government's slippery slope.

These letters come from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Power without review a tool of dark democracy
October 18, 2005


By his outrage at the public exposure of his "anti-terrorism" legislation, the Prime Minister shows us the Howard vision of democracy: unseen legislation, drafted after closed-door briefings, rammed through a rubber-stamp parliament. How long before we have a fully fledged secret government, with rule by decree? Oh, and just to make sure everything goes smoothly, there'll be a new crop of ASIO spooks to keep tabs on those who dare question power.
Geoff Saunders Jamberoo

If I appear in public carrying a placard that condemns Australia's continuing military presence in Iraq, what action may be taken against me when the anti-terrorism legislation is passed? What - and who - will constitute or define the fine line between my right as a citizen to protest about government action and the possibility that my actions may be construed as giving succour to the "enemy"?
Jacqueline Lublin Balmain

The contempt John Howard shows in muzzling debate on such a crucial issue as anti-terrorism laws is chillingly familiar to those of us who lived under undemocratic regimes in other parts of the world.
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In my native South Africa I saw the dark side of detention without trial and a government able to quash opposition to unsavoury political objectives under the guise of state security. Democratic rights to strike or protest become a threat to national security (Howard's new industrial relations laws). Next go freedoms of association, speech and debate, like debate over the fine print in the bill Mr Howard wants to keep from Australian eyes - thank you, ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope ("Islamic recruits to bolster spy force", October 17).
Isn't it ironic that it was the very vocal protests of Australians and their government in the 1970s and '80s (before Howard's time, clearly) that helped dump F.W. de Klerk's undemocratic regime?
I may have grown up in a country starved of democracy, but my Australian family deserves better and I will exhort my fellow citizens to speak up loudly to ensure my adopted country never sinks into the same abyss.
Michael Johnson Balmain

What happens when the police make a search under the anti-terrorism legislation, find they were mistaken on the terrorism aspect but find evidence of other illegal activities, which they would not otherwise have been able to obtain without appropriate warrants? It seems that the bill allows them to keep anything likely to result in a two-year jail sentence.
Is this to be acceptable "collateral damage" to an otherwise innocent suspect?
William S. Lloyd Denistone
Michael Burd (Letters, October 17), a Brazilian electrician in London didn't "belong to, finance or support any terrorist organisation", didn't "sell literature, DVDs or videos inciting hatred or violence against any individual or group", didn't "praise the September 11 or Bali terrorist attacks" and didn't "have anything to hide". He ended up with eight bullets in his head.
Rob Parkhouse Kellyville

I always enjoy an irony. Margaret Morgan (Letters, October 17) complains of the draft anti-terrorism legislation "we have the right to an opportunity to object to it". Of course you do, Margaret. Section 30A states: "Seditious intention means an intention to … (b) urge disaffection against … (ii) the Government of the Commonwealth."
This letters page is going be looking a bit spare, isn't it?
Shayne Chester Potts Point

Michael Burd, do not take anything for granted in a police state. There is no guarantee that even a Caucasian with an English-sounding name would not become a victim of gossip, hearsay, revenge or retaliation by a person who dislikes him or her. Before supporting the new anti-terrorism laws, think twice.
Nahid Kabir Churchlands (WA)
When they lock you up for no reason, Michael Burd, none of the rest of us will ever know.
Andrew King Mungindi

There is little, if anything, I can do about the legislation which has been brought to Parliament on the security and industrial relations fronts. So as small as this is I would like to put into print my saddness at watching the needless and retrograde changes being pushed by the Howard G0vernment. I say retrograde because generations of working men and women worked hard to establish the basic rights of working people. Basic rights such as sick pay, holiday pay and overtime rates will be under direct attack.

Still the IR proposals do not sadden me as much as the anti-terrorist proposals. Those who recall history will remember similar moves in Europe during the period of fascism. Historians will point to more than Europe for the slippery slope starts with the introduction of legislation such as detention without charge or trial. This is where it starts.

Have we been under the cloud of terrorism in this country? No. We had the incident in the 1980's aimed at the Indian P.M. and that is it. Is there any evidence that such legislation reduced terrorism? No. Will it heighten a sense of fear and insecurity in an otherwise peaceful land? Yes.

Oh sad day for this is the world my children will inherit.

Government's slippery slope.

These letters come from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Power without review a tool of dark democracy
October 18, 2005


By his outrage at the public exposure of his "anti-terrorism" legislation, the Prime Minister shows us the Howard vision of democracy: unseen legislation, drafted after closed-door briefings, rammed through a rubber-stamp parliament. How long before we have a fully fledged secret government, with rule by decree? Oh, and just to make sure everything goes smoothly, there'll be a new crop of ASIO spooks to keep tabs on those who dare question power.
Geoff Saunders Jamberoo

If I appear in public carrying a placard that condemns Australia's continuing military presence in Iraq, what action may be taken against me when the anti-terrorism legislation is passed? What - and who - will constitute or define the fine line between my right as a citizen to protest about government action and the possibility that my actions may be construed as giving succour to the "enemy"?
Jacqueline Lublin Balmain

The contempt John Howard shows in muzzling debate on such a crucial issue as anti-terrorism laws is chillingly familiar to those of us who lived under undemocratic regimes in other parts of the world.
AdvertisementAdvertisement
In my native South Africa I saw the dark side of detention without trial and a government able to quash opposition to unsavoury political objectives under the guise of state security. Democratic rights to strike or protest become a threat to national security (Howard's new industrial relations laws). Next go freedoms of association, speech and debate, like debate over the fine print in the bill Mr Howard wants to keep from Australian eyes - thank you, ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope ("Islamic recruits to bolster spy force", October 17).
Isn't it ironic that it was the very vocal protests of Australians and their government in the 1970s and '80s (before Howard's time, clearly) that helped dump F.W. de Klerk's undemocratic regime?
I may have grown up in a country starved of democracy, but my Australian family deserves better and I will exhort my fellow citizens to speak up loudly to ensure my adopted country never sinks into the same abyss.
Michael Johnson Balmain

What happens when the police make a search under the anti-terrorism legislation, find they were mistaken on the terrorism aspect but find evidence of other illegal activities, which they would not otherwise have been able to obtain without appropriate warrants? It seems that the bill allows them to keep anything likely to result in a two-year jail sentence.
Is this to be acceptable "collateral damage" to an otherwise innocent suspect?
William S. Lloyd Denistone
Michael Burd (Letters, October 17), a Brazilian electrician in London didn't "belong to, finance or support any terrorist organisation", didn't "sell literature, DVDs or videos inciting hatred or violence against any individual or group", didn't "praise the September 11 or Bali terrorist attacks" and didn't "have anything to hide". He ended up with eight bullets in his head.
Rob Parkhouse Kellyville

I always enjoy an irony. Margaret Morgan (Letters, October 17) complains of the draft anti-terrorism legislation "we have the right to an opportunity to object to it". Of course you do, Margaret. Section 30A states: "Seditious intention means an intention to … (b) urge disaffection against … (ii) the Government of the Commonwealth."
This letters page is going be looking a bit spare, isn't it?
Shayne Chester Potts Point

Michael Burd, do not take anything for granted in a police state. There is no guarantee that even a Caucasian with an English-sounding name would not become a victim of gossip, hearsay, revenge or retaliation by a person who dislikes him or her. Before supporting the new anti-terrorism laws, think twice.
Nahid Kabir Churchlands (WA)
When they lock you up for no reason, Michael Burd, none of the rest of us will ever know.
Andrew King Mungindi

There is little, if anything, I can do about the legislation which has been brought to Parliament on the security and industrial relations fronts. So as small as this is I would like to put into print my saddness at watching the needless and retrograde changes being pushed by the Howard G0vernment. I say retrograde because generations of working men and women worked hard to establish the basic rights of working people. Basic rights such as sick pay, holiday pay and overtime rates will be under direct attack.

Still the IR proposals do not sadden me as much as the anti-terrorist proposals. Those who recall history will remember similar moves in Europe during the period of fascism. Historians will point to more than Europe for the slippery slope starts with the introduction of legislation such as detention without charge or trial. This is where it starts.

Have we been under the cloud of terrorism in this country? No. We had the incident in the 1980's aimed at the Indian P.M. and that is it. Is there any evidence that such legislation reduced terrorism? No. Will it heighten a sense of fear and insecurity in an otherwise peaceful land? Yes.

Oh sad day for this is the world my children will inherit.

Government shows its colours (again).

Ther Australian Government has had a record surplus in the 2004-05 tax year. Hardly a suprise when one considers the social and medical spending which has been cut. Now the purse is the largest its ever been will the Government spend on society, reduce GST so the lowest income people can enjoy the achievement, or fund public education or the medical system so they become the envy of the western world? Well, don't hold your breath, it looks more like there will be tax cuts which again will reward those who don't need it and will again ignore all those who were ignored last time. There can be no doubt about the consciousness of this Government.
Here are some thoughts from the SMH Letters page 26/9/05:-
[Blockquote]'Biggest ever surplus' has come at huge expense

Why are tax cuts the best thing to do with a surplus ("Biggest ever surplus: now for the tax cuts", Herald, September 24-25)? The surplus exists because this Government cut funds to health, education, and infrastructure. Tax cuts give more money to those who need it less.
If there is a surplus, why the push to move people off the disability pension? What's the pressing economic rationale for that?
Perhaps all those funds that go to private schools could be reduced, and the money used instead to help those that need it.
Tax cuts are the least effective and the least equitable use of public money.
David Ashton Orange

The size of the budget presents an opportunity to make some real investment in the Australian environment, the basis of our economy and society. Without a healthy, resilient environment there is no future for either.
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David Creevey Lane Cove
Have our political masters no shame? They continue to claim an enormous budget surplus as a sign of sound fiscal management while under-resourced schools and hospitals cry out for funds.
Peter Spencer Newtown

Strange old world isn't is. The numbers and the view by such agencies as Standard and Poors are more important than the wellbeing of the people, their health and social fabric. Somehow I would not care to be one of the ministers in this Goverment, their karma will be difficult to bear.

Our Mysterious Consciousness

O, what a world of unseen visions and heard silences, this insubstantial country of the mind! What ineffable essences, these touchless rememberings and unshowable reveries! And the privacy of it all! A secret theatre of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries. A whole kingdom where each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may study out the troubled book of what we have done and yet may do. An introcosm that is more myself than anything I find in the mirror. This consciousness that is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet nothing at all – what is it? And where did it come from? And why?
(The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Julian Jaynes, 1993, Penguin Books, London.)
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In this introduction Jaynes succinctly describes the problem of consciousness. Indeed what is it
and where did it come from and why? Perhaps there are no greater questions for modern
humans for we have so vanquished the physical world, risking reducing it to the unsustainable;
and now we run the risk of global meaninglessness, a descent into a new dark age from which only consciousness can deliver us.
----------------------------------------

From Jung we learned about the collective unconscious, that shared state which underlies culture and generates archetypes. Also we know a little about some of the states of consciousness from ordinary waking consciousness to deep sleep; and neuroscience continues to give us glimpses of brain activity; but really these are about characteristics and not knowledge of consciousness itself.
------------------------------------------

As soon as we raise the question of consciousness we are faced with a serious question;
if 2000 years of philosophy cannot resolve the question then what can we achieve?
Or, how is it that the question is still with us? What is it about consciousness which keeps returning and refusing to submit to a solution? And how are we to make progress?

Perhaps we have been asking the wrong questions or using inappropriate methods to investigate them. Clearly consciousness is not a feature of the body-mind, or any feature based in physicality. Neither is it a problem to be solved. It is a glorious mystery to be expereinced and as we grow in our experiential knowledge so the need for mechanistic explantion falls away.

-------------------------------------------
But aren't we experiencing consciousness every day? Isn't it always with us? Well no actually to both questions. Most of us have had the expereince of driving home and no being aware of the passage of time and the detail of arriving home. Like driving on automatic most of what we do every day can be done without consciousness. The first awareness which we share with all the animals is adequate for most of what we do. And no, consicousness is not always with us.
It appears that just as we have a blind spot in our retina so too we have a blind spot in our awareness.

There is so much we just do not know about consciouness however the subject will continue to resist study by the standard scientific means for it is not some complex to be broken down and analysed. It is a mysterious state of life itself and it will open only to our actively experience.

For more in this vein please visit the articles page at the School of Human Ecology.

Abuse of Power an old story.

There are security concerns about Scott Parkin, such that it takes six immigration officers to nab him mid-cappuccino in a Melbourne cafe ("Outcry over plan to deport activist as a security threat", Herald, September 12).
A history teacher from Houston, Texas, is involved in non-violent action like street theatre (dressing up as Halliburton executives with their snouts in troughs). What is his weaponry? Artline markers on butcher's paper hanging on a wall, filled with ideas of engagement and dialogue. He has given workshops on non-violent methods of suggesting there might be moral dimensions to the behaviour of governments and corporations.
Against him the US Government (and then, naturally, our own) invoke security so they don't have to explain anything to us. This is how they use the powers they have now, and yet Howard and Ruddock ask us to trust them to give them more.
The war on terrorism has extended to a war on dissent.
Paul Wilson Annandale

When it's an African country like Zambia then the entire Commonwealth comes together to condemn what President Mugabe is doing in using his power to crush dissent. When a friend of George Bush does it in Australia it seems that in the short term there is nothing we can do. We must await the next election to show our feelings about what is starting to look like fascist control. Too strong a word? Well that's how all the fascist regimes of Europe began, with small matters like removing protesters or exiling intellectuals. Once it has taken root this disease will grow until an entire nation is cowed in fear and black shirts patrol the nights knocking down the doors of dissenters.

The writer felt this in a small way this week on an American computer forum. A moderator, who himself seems to enjoy ranting and raving against others, is too thin skinned to take any criticism of his own behaviour so he removed my post and had me banned from the forum. Neat, no need to explain anything to the others, no need to justify an action, just use old favourite of all despots, removal.

May Australians wake up quickly to this dastard development. We are loosing our civil liberties far too quickly and now is the time to stop the process before it takes root.

aWhat will Katrina mean for the USA?

The tragedy which hit the three southern States in the form of Cyclone Katrina will have more impact on the USA than the physical damage done in the South.

Clearly the analysis must show that the response by Federal Government was at best far too slow. In Australia an unexpected cyclone hit Darwin, a remote city, at Christmas 1974. The city was literally flattened. Within a short space of time and despite the distances involved there was movement in and out of Darwin. So there is no excuse for the tardiness of the US response. Sadly it is beginning to look as if there are questions of racism inovolved.

While American people of colour might well see the desertion of the South as a racial matter; and frankly when bodies are left in public and individuals are left without food and water it seems a fair claim; other middle class Americans might suddenly feel less safe. An idea has been destroyed in this disaster, the idea that the homes of the free and brave are sacrosanct and safety can be taken for granted.

(View more articles at http://www.humanecology.com.au/articles.htm)

Suddenly neighbouring States are drawn into the disaster by having to act as hosts for misplaced 'refugees' and it seems few are happy about "recieving the worst and poorest of the South". Other States, even those far enough away not the have felt any direct effect are experienceing another, slower reaction. This one is the result of the destruction of the sacred idea of the safety of the American home. What with the huge cost of the war on Terror, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and now the recovery process will there be enough money to keep the USA free and brave? Foriegn debt is at record highs, the Chinese are knocking at the door of essential industries like oil refining and in this view there appears a new vulnerability, a new question of security.

The fall out for George Bush and his Republicans must be severe. Will Americans ever forgive this Administration for its mishandling of the crisis? Early signs indicate that this is doubtful and that after the clean-up and resettlement process has been completed attention will turn like a great searching light onto the Administration of George Bush. Leaving American citizens to die for lack of food and water will not be an easy charge to overcome. It's said that the second term of any US President is marked as 'lame duck' because there can be no third term and so bureaucracy awaits a new president and new allocation of jobs. Before long it may be that Bush's term will be viewed as closer to 'dead duck' for citizens will foget what is happening in far away deserts where the people seem to be more interested in killing one another than achieving democracy; and their fury will remain domestic as wounds from this massive disaster are slow to heal.

When is too much Information too much?

"It took two centuries to fill the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. with more than 29 million books and periodicals, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 57 million manuscripts. Today it takes about 15 minutes for the world to churn out an equivalent amount of new digital information. It does so about 100 times every day, for a grand total of five exabytes annually. That's an amount equal to all the words ever spoken by humans, according to Roy Williams, who heads the Center for Advanced Computing Research at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena.

While this stunning proliferation of information underscores the ease with which we can create digital data, our capacity to make all these bits accessible in 200 or even 20 years remains a work in progress.

In an era when the ability to read a document, watch a video, or run a simulation could depend on having a particular version of a program installed on a specific computer platform, the usable life span of a piece of digital content can be less than 10 years. That's a recipe for disaster when you consider how much we rely on stored information to maintain our scholarly, legal, and cultural record and to help us with, and profit from, our digital labor. Indeed, the ephemeral nature of both data formats and storage media threatens our very ability to maintain scientific, legal, and cultural continuity, not on the scale of centuries, but considering the unrelenting pace of technological change, from one decade to the next."

For an ecology of mind goto: http://www.humanecology.com.au

Brazil’s Amazon Deforestation Worsens-Despite a "Green" President
The total area deforested in Brazil between 2003 and 2004 totaled 10,000 square miles, an area the size of Massachusetts and the second-highest figure in history. The pace of deforestation has increased every year for the last decade. The situation actually got worse-at least six percent worse-during the young presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, as he is widely known, took office in 2003 as Brazil’s first left-leaning president in nearly four decades.

There comes a point where there is little more to say other than perhaps it's time to section a large part of humanity. Section on the basis of lunacy and throw away the key. These (foresters) madmen are attacking earth's lungs and it seems no one can stop them. Weep!