Mark Stapleton

I agree that wealth redistribution and improvements to global education and healthcare will make the planet more harmonious, but while we wait decades, or even centuries for this to happen, species are becoming endangered and extinct at an ever increasing rate: http://environment.independent.co.uk/natur...icle3098853.ece One of the main causes is habitat loss. In countries like Indonesia and Brazil, rainforest clearing is the problem. Human population growth is causing the extinction of other species, pure and simple. Species which have taken millions of years to evolve. It's easy to dismiss those who claim the planet is overpopulated as doomsayers, but what then is the optimum human population level which would guarantee relative prosperity and sustainability for the planet's inhabitants? Nobody ever seems to focus on this question. Governments don't want to investigate the issue because they see their future national prosperity as being directly linked to endless population growth. You claim Australia can potentially sustain a population of 250 million (I disagree), but why is a tenfold increase in our population desirable or necessary? And what happens when the population reaches that level? Will it then become necessary to expand it even further for economic reasons? Will we then require an even larger gene pool to save us from disaster? There doesn't seem to be any reason or logic behind our apparent desire to cover the surface of the planet with only one species. It's seems that religion has seared this madness into mankind's psyche.

Really? Since you're sure the expiration of the patent is not the reason for heroin being declared illegal, then maybe you can tell me the real reason why it is illegal.

No. The private sector reponds to consumer spending patterns and markets its goods and services in order to maximise potential profits. In this respect the private sector 'knows' the public, but it doesn't answer to the public--it answers to its shareholders. The public get to vote on the Government every four years in your country. Does the public get to vote on who governs private companies? Your distaste for Government involvement in the economy makes me think you would prefer pure free market ideology with no Government involvement at all. It would be interesting to speculate how you would fare under such a system. Complete marketplace rule with no statutory protections for the consumer. It would be a disaster, imo.

It sounds like you're worried about Government waste and mismanagement. If so, look at the US Government Defence Budget. Those dopey wars. There's corruption in Governments but there's also corruption in the marketplace, as demonstrated by big pharma. It comes down to how highly you value the provision of health services. The Government ostensibly answers to the people but the private sector owes nothing to the public. Which one do you want to trust if things get tough?

Why use heroin? Did you say 'why use heroin'? Because it's more effective than morphine by many orders of magnitude (6, I think). So what are you saying? Morphine should be legal and heroin illegal? Why? Where's the logic in that?

Government systems are never perfect. However, as Pat Speer points out, somethings are too important to be left to the market: "we have socialized Fire Departments, socialized Police Departments, socialized garbage pick-up in most major cities...why not socialized health care? There is no reason whatsoever beyond one reason...GREED." The problem with the market is that it is motivated by the profit motive. For example, fifteen years ago I hurt my back. I went to see the doctor who booked me in to see a consultant. The only trouble was that I had to wait a couple of weeks to see the back specialist. A friend suggested I went to see a chiropractor. There was no waiting list for him and I was invited over to his surgery straight away. Within a few minutes he had diagnosed my problem and spent twenty minutes manipulating my spine. It did not bring immediate relief. He argued that to solve my problem I would have to pay for a long course of expensive treatment. Although I could afford this treatment, I found it difficult to trust the man. After all, it was in his financial interest to promote this treatment. I therefore decided to wait until I saw the back specialist in my local hospital. He also identified the problem. However, instead of prescribing a long course of treatment, he showed me some exercises I needed to do everyday to correct the problem. His diagnoses was correct and I still do those exercises every day. This example shows the problem with the private medical system. It is in the financial self-interest of the doctor to “over” treat the problem. The market cannot be trusted with medical care. It might be the best method for producing popcorn but health care is too important to be left to the capitalist system. I don't think your really identified a difference between private or socialized medicine with your example but rather a difference in practice and treatment. I'll take the market any day, given that as long as I can pay I can choose who, when and where I can receive treatment. One only needs to look to Canada to see how the lack of competition due to the total socalized system reduces choice and service. You can get a cat-scan for your pet at will but try it for a human and you wait. I would have no problem with a two-tiered system, as long as I could choose which system I prefered and did not have to pay for both. What I'm not interested in is single, government run system that locks in my choices. Healthcare is far too important to be left in the hands of some governmental agency. Craig, I think what John Simkin is saying , if I may be so bold, is that healthcare, which in some cases may be a life and death situation, requires at the very least strong regulatory control of the market. It can't be totally left to the market like popcorn because the lives and welfare of people are at stake. The market doesn't recognise this fact--it recognises the profit motive only. And by the way, some markets fail--with spectacular consequences. As John and others have said, the massive profits involved in healthcare--primarily the pharmaceutical industry--have corrupted the healthcare system. Doctors are wined and dined by drug companies and kickbacks fly around like confetti. Personally, I doubt if regulatory bodies like the Food and Drug Administration are fully corrupted but I suspect that they are sometimes 'encouraged ' to drag their feet. I note the FDA last year granted permission for the drug known as Thalidomide to be used in limited cancer cases: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/thalidomide/HQ01507 This drug caused many cases of birth defects in the 1950's in children born to mothers who had used the drug as a treatment for morning sickness. It was banned in Australia with much controversy as the doctor who discovered the drug's role in the birth defects was an Australian, Phillip McBride. I read about this new revelation concerning Thalidomide and its potential cancer curing qualities at least five years ago. It starves cells of oxygen. So it kills cancer cells. So why hasn't it been mass produced by the Government and rushed into service in treating terminal cancer patients, who have little to lose in taking the risk? Because 'big pharma' and its soldiers in the field would rather prescribe chemotherapy--costing the patient thousands of dollars--which has a low success rate and debilitating side effects. You'll get the wonder drug, but only when big pharma figures out a way to make a buck out of it. They're not keen to discard a juicy earner like chemo. There is another wonder drug. Heroin. It's highly addictive but it's the most powerful pain killer ever discovered. It's used in British hospitals as we speak for a multitude of conditions. Unfortunately, Bayer's patent expired some years ago so it could potentially be mass produced generically--hence no profit for big pharma. And it would cut into the profits of synthetically manufactured alternatives--big pharma loses again. Redressing this potentially disastrous state of affairs was simple---it was rendered illegal. I know this must sound like a scary tale, but it's true.

I'm currently reading Dallek's bio of LBJ ('Flawed Giant') and it's full of fascinating tidbits about this enigmatic character. Of course, the book covers LBJ's career from 1961 onwards so the author doesn't have to delve into such matters as the deaths of Henry Marshall and John Kinser and other seedy aspects of LBJ's career. Also disappointing is the lack of detail regarding LBJ's relationship with characters like Billy Sol Estes, Bobby Baker and the Senate Rules Committe hearings which threatened to end his career. It seems to me that LBJ's biographers have given him a very easy ride (earlier writers like Haley and Joesten excepted). They obviously knew that Ladybird and Jack Valenti would be reading with interest.

Good call, Ron. How good could the book be when he's already demonstrated that he is plainly wrong about an issue like JFK's murder.

I like your optimism, John. I don't know about the viability of using the artesian basin as a water source. I haven't read much about it, but I assume scientists are considering it. The problem, as I see it, is really a global one--although at present the dillemma of overcrowded cities is a natural consequence of global overpopulation. The world's population has gone from 1.5 at the start of the 20th century to 6.5 billion now, and is projected to grow to 9 billion by 2050. (I haven't got the figures handy so I apologise for inaccuracies). These additional people require water, power, food, housing, roads, jobs and many other things besides. Carbon emmissions from burning fossil fuels is a problem as is the vast quantities of waste generated by an average western household (I have read the figure of one ton of dispoable nappies is used by the average western baby). There's also the issue of human habitation encroaching on the habitats of other species. Again, I don't have the actual numbers handy but I know that species are becoming extinct at the highest rate in history. How will they survive if the vast majority of the planet's surface is designated for human habitation, food and energy production? What gives us the right to crowd out many of the other species which share this planet and cause their extinction? The endless growth paradigm supporting capitalism is unsustainable. I think the global opinion leaders already know that. We'll need to switch to more sustainable and less environmentally damaging lifestyles, if we are to avoid economic and environmental disaster. While we're in the process of doing that, I think we should look at curbing the growth rate of our own species. It's too dangerous for the planet and its occupants. Sustainability rather than growth for growth's sake.

An interesting idea. The trouble is the unions might become as addicted to high immigration as the capitalists are.

The potential exists in Australia for opening up new areas of settlement in the north, where rainfall is plentiful but the major cities like Sydney are overpopulated, imo. Anyone who lives in Sydney knows the infrastructure is groaning under the strain. As well as the ageing public transport and health care infrastructure, there other problems like the housing crisis, traffic gridlock and potential water and power shortages. It's nowhere near as bad as cities like Paris or London but it's heading in that direction. The immigration issue is one easily manipulated by those elites who are determined to stack the cities to overflowing as a means of ensuring a pool of cheap labor. During the election campaign, I learned that the Mining Council of Australia was demanding that the Government increase immigration even more. OK for them--they don't have to live in the overcrowded parts of these cities. Immigration is generally a good thing and Australia has always relied on it, especially when major infrastructure projects like the Ord River and Snowy Mountains schemes were under construction. However, it is quite irresponsible of Governments to allow wholesale immigration in the absence of the necessary infrastructure improvements required to satisfy the increased demand on services. If Australia was to decentralise--and I think it's a good idea--then Governments must lead the way in establishing the necessary infrastructure to make increased settlement of these areas possible. You can't force immigrants to settle in non-urban areas--they will go where the jobs are. There's also a limit to Australia's potential population level--despite idealistic notions of greening the outback--and this is dictated by the lack of rainfall and available water in vast areas of Australia's interior. Australia does indeed have a lower carrying capacity than many of our Asian neighbours. We just don't have the water.

Did none of the politicians deal with this issue during the recent Australian election? No. Not a word. It's taboo, especially during an election campaign where one can be easily smeared with the racist carnard. Now the election is over, I hope new PM Rudd has the balls to face the issue. Australia has only 20 million people but because of the lack of water, vast deserts and soil infertility caused by years of land clearing, our carrying capacity is just about at its peak, imo. We can't sustain populations like those of our near neighbours.

Immigration is a subject that the leading political parties are unwilling to discuss. I think this is partly for historical reasons. The right-wing of the Tory party have used the subject of immigration to get votes. Cameron is desperate to portray himself as leading a party in the "centre". The Labour Party is in favour of large scale immigration because it keeps down labour costs and prevents inflation. Immigration plays the same role as unemployment. It encourages workers to be more productive in case they lose their jobs. It is also popular with the business class for the same reason. The middle-classes who get cheaper services (plumbing, bricklaying, etc.) are also happy about this arrangement. The labour movement is being undermined by this inflow of workers. Especially skilled blue-collar workers. However, trade union leaders are reluctant to raise it as an issue because they are frightened of being called "racist". It is only the BNP that argues that we have a problem with immigration. As a result, they will get more votes than they deserve. Ditto in Australia. Immigration talk is taboo, under threat of being labelled racist. The global strategy of stacking the cities with millions more people is great for the wealthy elites, as the Waldron articles states, because the social costs of overcrowding don't concern at all. They are shielded by their wealth from the less pleasant consequences of overcrowded cities. They want the convenience and cost savings which accrue from having a large pool of cheap labour on call. The ever rising property values, as more people compete for housing, is another tasty byproduct of this strategy for the elites. It looks like we'll have to drag the heads of our elected leaders out of the sand (once again) and get them to face the public debate on this issue which is urgently required. Once again, we'll have to show them that their binding contract is with us, not the Rupert Murdochs of the world. If the politicians continue pretending that there's no problem, a lot of single issue nationalist candidates are going to be elected.

I don't understand what you mean by this. In any case, Israel and Mossad are prime suspects, imo. It's not scapegoating, it's trying to figure out who were the parties involved in assassinating JFK. That they profited handsomely from the accession of LBJ is beyond doubt. Some of the mining magnates and right-wing agitators in the south may have participated in the planning for DP as they were connected to the military and intelligence communities. I think a few might have put up money in support of the plan but I doubt they were the principal instigators, and despite the wealth of people like Hunt and Murchison, I don't think they had the necessary influence within the Government and media to ensure such a long lasting coverup.

There's no chance Bush will attack Iran now. The whole world knows he's a halfwit. What will Israel do? They must be concerned that advancing rocket technology will, in quick time, make them vulnerable.

The fanatical right made only one tangible gain from JFK's murder---a stay of execution on the oil depletion allowance. On the other side of the ledger, they got civil rights legislation for their trouble. If you want to focus on cui bono, there were bigger winners than southern right-wing church groups: 1. The MIC got a decade of profitable warfare. 2. Israel had their military aid from the US increased from zero to over $200 million by 1967. They also recieved a cozy nod and wink deal from the US about Dimona (in fact, they were so confident that LBJ would not press them on this issue, they offered to host an American inspection team a few days after JFK's death). They got a free pass on the Liberty in 1967. They got to surround LBJ with advisors and confidantes. Jack Valenti even got Hollywood. 3. LBJ got an eleventh hour reprieve from humiliation and prison and a bonus prize--the White House. These are the front runners, imo.

An excellent little piece by Glenn Greenwald. Thanks for that link, Greg. Do you really think Andren might have been the victim of foul play? Even if he had won a Senate seat, I can't see him as so serious a threat as to warrant elimination, although the ill feeling harbored towards him by some of the Nats was visceral. Now I would like to get Evan's opinion about the issue of John Howard's defence spending priorities. The link below outlines Howard's purchase, for $539 million, of second hand Abrams tanks from the US in 2004. The tanks are useless for Australian purposes and were destroyed en masse in Iraq. Was it a requirement of our alliance with the US that we serve as a second hand junk store for obsolete US weaponry? And if that doesn't convince you of Howard's slavish sycophancy towards Bush and his MIC buddies, then read about the absurd circumstances surrounding Howard's purchase of the JSF in 2002: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6665 Howard has put us in a very dangerous situation. And Indonesia hasn't forgotten East Timor. And we're not in the good books within the wider region after Howard's prolonged and grotesque display of US buttsucking. Kevin Rudd has a huge pile of rubbish to clean up, don't you think? Lucky for us he speaks Mandarin.

Thanks Peter. I see it as a win for rational policy over free-market dogma and hope the policy agenda will be followed. And yes, you're right. I'm fairly sure the CIA lent assistance in Gough's removal. There's a good thread on that somewhere in this section. In that respect, he may share something in common with JFK. Also, Whitlam was our greatest leader, and Kennedy was America's, imo.

Regarding the latter question, John, the union movement funded the Labor campaign, with some corporate money thrown in. Transport magnate Lindsey Fox is a friend of Labor and I'm fairly sure a savvy billionaire like Frank Lowy would have hedged his bets. But the bulk was from the unions, although I believe there are some suspicions that one or two of the big superannuation funds may have been tinkled for assistance. That's pure rumour though. It must be remembered that the campaigns of both parties were also largely funded by the taxpayer. Your concern that Rudd may follow Blair down the path of Thatcherism is quite valid, imo. Rudd has promised a more healthy foreign relations policy but I fear the prospect of Rudd booting Howard out of the way so that he can suck up even harder to America than Howard did. However, I don't think it will happen. Rudd's a different animal. He's familar with Chinese culture and speaks fluent Mandarin. He'll push Australia closer to China and the rest of Southeast Asia. It will weaken America's influence in the region. Some of this could turn out to be wishful thinking on my part, but I'm going to back Rudd's new agenda and hope the Labor Caucus will keep him honest. Turnbull will.

I'm not. Despite his political inexperience, Turnbull is an incredible campaigner. I remember he had to endure a messy fight to win his preselection against some ensconced tryhard yuppie (whose name has thankfully slipped into the hazy annals of mediocrity). Turnbull had some luck in this campaign in that his Labor opponent George Newhouse became embroiled in a dispute as to the legality of his preselection. Newhouse also missed an important community debate in the week before the election and was tormented by an apparent succession of jilted lovers including the journalist Caroline Ovington who slapped Newhouse in the face at the polling booth. Any goss on superstud Newhouse's extra curricular activities will be greatly appreciated However, despite the nationwide swing to Labor, if you check the seat by seat analysis in the link from post #7, you'll see Turnbull's seat of Wentworth actually returned a 1.2% swing in his favor and he argues that his new cushion of 3.7% is progress in his mission to make the seat safe for the Conservatives. One thing I have noticed about Turnbull is the lucidity and clarity of his words and arguments. He is clearly a highly articulate and persuasive debater and seems to possess boundless energy. Unlike many of his parliamentary colleagues, he is not yet effected by pollie-speak. Unless the Conservatives' defeat has adversly effected their judgement, they will choose Turnbull over a mumbling recycled dunderhead like Tony Abbot. You can bet the Labor Party is watching Turnbull like a hawk. Turnbull is political dynamite. One term Governments are very rare in Oz but this guy is capable of making Rudd a one-term PM, imo. He's capable of connecting with the public over the heads of the pundits because his plain language needs no journalistic translation. The corporate media won't assist Labor in smearing him because he's already wired into the big end of town. That said, I'm in agreement with John Dolva on Turnbull's politics. Turnbull's a passionate free market advocate and his proposal to privatise the Snowy Mountains water supply was thankfully quashed by Howard on the advice of Bill Heffernan. Privatising water on the planet's dryest inhabited continent is a recipe for disaster for all but the very wealthy. The corporate profit imperative would quickly ensure that all but the wealthy would need to greatly restrict their water consumption and it would, once again, redistribute wealth in the wrong direction.

It's a great result for Australia. It seems the electorate is not politically illiterate after all. PM elect Kevin Rudd will face a hostile Senate when parliament resumes in February because most of the the newly elected Senators don't take up their seats until July, but he has already indicated that some changes will be immediate. Signing the Kyoto protocol on climate change and a phased withdrawal from Iraq are at the top of the list. The Workplace Legislation was the real killer for Howard. This legislation was aimed at lowering the cost of labor by stripping away rights such as penalty rates, overtime, annual holidays and collective bargaining. Howard claimed he was the workers best friend because he presided over a large reduction in the official unemployment rate---at present around 3-4%. However, there were a couple of problems with this. Firstly, the figures were rubbery as many part-time workers were considered to be employed for the purposes of the statistics--a person who worked one hour per week was considered to be employed. More importantly, the vast bulk of jobs created by the Howard Government were part-time jobs in the service sector, mostly low paid with a minimum of conditions such as holidays or superannuation. My son's girlfriend, who is only 17, worked for a week in a childcare centre and didn't get paid at all, despite the intervention of her father. Employer groups keenly supported the Howard Government's dismantling of the IR system and the removal of unions from the process. Some employers behaved badly and used the changes to demand greater effort, such as unpaid overtime, under threat of dismissal. To me it looked like Howard was trying to emulate the American system of marketplace rule with no mandated protections. This would have resulted in Australia copying the American phenomenon of working poor and working homeless, where the pay rates in some sectors are so low that many are employed yet homeless, with the worker being little more than an indentured slave. Howard should have realised that the boast of low unemployment is in itself not necessarily a great thing for working people. There was very low unemployment in Charles Dicken's day, too.

Yes, Hilary's getting her knickers in a knot about this. If the circumstances of the rape were as reported, it's a ridiculously harsh penalty for the victim. Theocracies are the dopiest form of Government and a crazy way to run things. God's your ruler and the new rules are contained in some centuries old scripts, written by who the bloody hell knows.

I will be watching. Over the last few years, the advocates of the invasion of Iraq have lost office in Spain, Italy and the UK. Only Australia and the US to go. Yes, but right wing governments have since been elected in France and Canada. And the Bush-Blair-Howard team's parties are all still in power. I'm hoping this will be the first public repudiation of the stinking interventionist mindset which this ultra-right trio represents. Glad you'll be watching, John. If Labor doesn't win I'll be inconsolable.

David, Thanks for those comments and links. Unlike objective researchers who would, imo, consider the issue of Daniel Lewin, his intelligence connections and his sudden death highly suspicious, Len simply jumps in and tells all and sundry that there is nothing suspicious and we must not think such things. He's blown his cover (well, some time ago actually).

Antony Green is regarded as one of Australia's top election analysts. I consider him a walking computer of election facts and figures. His analysis can be found on the ABC's election 2007 website, which provides readers with realtime results, swing analysis and other interesting stuff. http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/