The Concrete Apocalypse : Melbourne Indymedia

The Concrete Apocalyse

Prelogue

On the day a young gum tree was killed for no good reason

As a million thoughts swamp through my mind, today is the day that I mourn the young gum tree cut down over my back fence. Like the many people being cut down in the prime of their life, so are the young trees planted in places that we eventually don't want them in.

The gum tree would have been planted after the land was sold to property developers probably only a decade ago. Who decided to plant the gum tree in the small backyard and then cut it down as the young healthy tree became established?. I am not sure of the species of gum, (which I can't verify now as it has been demolished in the chipper) but I believe it was a lemon scented gum. The foliage of these gums is high up the trunk, making it too hard to climb.up. The high fence between our backyard and the former tree's position a metre away never allowed my treehugging tendencies to eventuate.

Perhaps a pair of honeyeaters relying on the Merri Creek nature corridor for survival could of nested their in the future. That is if the Indian Mynas didn't bully them out like in the oak tree next door this summer. (For a study of modern human behavior, comparisons can be made to that of the Indian Mynas in the bird world.)

The tree gave our backyard a presence of health, joining with the other native trees and our backyard garden and the house and garden next door in creating a semi-oasis on a main road surrounded by blocks of flats, petrol stations and car repair yards. The only saving grace is the tramline for those of us living carless in car culture and the park in front of the commission flats.

The tree is an anti-thesis of the culture surrounding these two houses joined together as an island in Melbourne's gentrified inner city. Our island is surrounded by places now dedicated to car culture. Petrol stations on either side of the road that have no one responsible or knowledgeable about the history of soil contamination. Across the road the majority of business are car repair yards. No community gardens, food outlets or art or cultural centres, no places for people to gather

Next to us is a cemented car park for the residents of the flats. Telling signs of the people's lifestyle is when it is unsafe to walk your dog off lead past the car park driveways during peak hour traffic times. The little boxes called flats on impervious concreted areas of land is what they now call home. A fair percentage of the space they rent in these housing developments is their car space.

Gardens, the one thing that can allow people to reconnect to nature and natural cycles are not included in their housing package. Everyone gets a car park but not a garden plot. On one of the minority of roads in metropolitan Melbourne that gets a decent tram service, the developers deem that it is car parking, not food growing that they need.

Whose fault is it if people believe that all they need is a two or three roomed box and a car park to live in, when they have been immersed only in the technology culture, with 'the office', 'the bar', 'the flat' and 'the road' being the main theatres of life? How can they scratch the earth with their toes and smell the flowers when the trapped in the prison of the Concrete Apocalypse?

The flats behind our house have balconies that were rarely sat on during our long, warm summer. The gum tree killed today provided shade for the residents on the balcony, and no branches of this young gum threatened anyone. How can branches fall on people who don't even spend time in their small backyards anyway? Why are they not thankful for the sunsets they could witness under the shade of this small gum tree on their balcony?

Why do trees get chopped down under the fear of public liability claims when no one even takes the time to sit under them anyway? Why does every description of reality under capitalism sound so ridiculous to common sense? Why did this have tree have to suffer and die due to this bullshit? Why are the reasons to these questions also responsible for the destruction of life around the globe, epitomised in the destruction of the giantly vast Amazon rainforest, described as the 'lungs of the earth'?

My connection to the Earth feels the loss of the gum tree over my back fence. Likewise the loss of ancient forests all over the planet affects the collective consciousness of humanity everyday.

If you can't feel the loss of the ancient forests, and the ancient landscapes of every ecological variety from deserts to oceans,, and the loss of ancient human cultures that lived in synchronicity with the land, then you have been deadened.

You have cut off yourself from your heart because it hurts to much to face the destruction that surrounds you. You are hiding behind the lies that are presented to you conveniently everyday, because what is being destroyed, from down the street to around the world is connected to you. Ultimately.

On a sunny day the log trucks are being filled up with log after log, every day of our lives, and now the industry is able to log longer into the winter due to the draught and due to ignoring the health and safety of workers. The hundreds of football ovals of ancient forest lost every day are a byproduct the same as the thousands of starved to death children living in impoverished nations are everyday. The dominant economic system, capitalism, the pursuit of power dictated by money is the cause.

You will also know that you are being attacked by the same thing. Greed and money and the corruption of power. The war that dominates the news is over oil, the oil that we need to run our cars and systems. More cars and less trees make every human lung system sick. Perhaps cars need warnings like packets of cigarettes. Your car harms others, your car harms your unborn baby, your car gives you lung cancer.

There are so many alternatives. Bioregionalism of production, which comes with the knowledge granted through democratic and consensual debate in a community. Everyone has an ability to voice their needs. That way everyone has a job that the community needs as a whole to have done. Everyone has a job worthy of respect in the community because the community works together and plays together. A community that talks to each other has inbuilt support networks naturally in it. Those who are in the need of care receive it collectively from the community.

The pressures of the outside world that can lead to domestic abuse is eroded by a community of people looking out for each other's health and stresses, and each other's kids. Included in a bioregional community is the recognition of the needs that people have in relation to land and having the need of sanctuary, and the needs to sustainably survive at their disposal.

Bioregional community co-operation and production reduces the need of transportation. We can also be less reliant on oil by turning to renewable and less ecologically damaging fuels. SUVS taking up people's lives? Make cars smaller to fit on the paths that what would be more dominated by bicycles. Help people who don't have the ability to get around on bikes get around. The sustainable energised mobility of people just takes a little common sense.

Decision making is not fair. The decision making is being done by those who champion the free market, and the decision makers who champion the free market benefit out of the outcomes of the 'free market', which they devised to reflect their interests in money and power.

The departments and authorities that are filled with everyday people always (with exception of revolution), answerable to the minister, who is answerable (and related) to the monarch or the president?

Why are the same families in control of everything, with owners of corporations and US presidents related to the European aristocracy, which in turn goes back to the ancient worlds of Egypt and Rome? The evidence is in their palaces.

Why aren't the people that have looked after the land for an ancient amount of time listened to?

Most of us live in this southern continent as descendants of migrants. Why is the same monarch of England in control of this land under the Australian constitution, when she is responsible for all the genocide that occurred in her name here and across the world, just like her relation, the US president is also responsible for?

When someone is said to have supreme power, but does not exercise it, as it is merely symbolic, you know you've been told a wobbly.

Getting people just trying to feed their kids to implement your authorita, who never realise the centralised, fascist state they live under. IT can be hard to wonder who the fuck gives you queen or president the right to decide who lives and dies at the flick of a switch, when you're just trying to survive?

How can we avoid the red tape of the system that tangles the youth of today like the young tree cut down?

Let there be no illusion to the colour of red in red tape. Red tape as a concept of incompetence and regulation with no jurisdiction is symbolic of the red blood it spills. It forms a system that cannot deny its' sole purpose is the pursuit of money.

A healthy community requires community decision making, not community consultation by government and its bureaucratic arms. Consulting people about decisions you have already made to the dictates of those making the money out of it is not a consultation process. It doesn't work if you don't listen. When no-one in this system can hear because their ears are wrapped in the bearuecratic red tape of 'what can be achieved under the current system', it shows that the system we live by is mad.

We live under its control, and we are identified by Centrelinked incomes, taxes and bank accounts as essentially nothing more than worker ants at some point in the chain of command, or as mechanised cogs in the wheels of capitalism. The market rules because the market forces rule us all.

The controllers of the tyrannical free market do not barter, they erect bigger and bigger fences and more dangerous weaponries and mind controls to keep us down. They starve us while they benefit from their planetary destruction. This planetary destruction is personal. This destruction is of our collective homelands and cultures and can be felt at a personal level and on any local and global scale you care to measure it on.

Like any hierachial structure, those bringing in the New World Order have a hierachial structure to the top chain of command. Those leading the resistances to the new world order around the world know that they all fight as equals, thus making their success much more likely. It is the kind of equality that is like looking someone in the eye, knowing that they will stand by you, giving you the respect to offer you support and protection if needed.

To break the chains of lies we must speak the truth

We are all sick whether we understand it or not, and are trapped in this system. My liberation is wound up in the people's liberation in the housing commission flats next to the park down from us. At least some of them hang out in the park sometimes.

What of the neighbours in the 'yuppie flats' Are they really selfish yuppies that deserve to go to hell or are they disconnected to the nature of life? Neighbours looking after each other's kids is an example that community still occurs, if briefly in this kind of modern living.

Why can't we have a gate in our backyard fences, so they could have access to our vegie patch, and sow a crop of beans or broccoli of their own? Why is even the dismantling of fences tied in bureaucratic red tape?

Property boundary disputes.

What of the property disputes that have never seen any justice, the original property dispute of this between the property LAWed English army anda the environmentalist Indigenous nations of this continent? Who ever asked them about whether these fences should be erected? Who stole their land and erected these fences that continually encapsulate smaller and smaller areas?

Why did the Mabo judgement recognise the lie of Terra Nulius (making the Australian constitution invalid under international law) but was based on the fences that were put up by the Indigenous people of Mabo Island near the beginning of the European invasion of their land?, and can't be applied in the same way on mainland Australia.

Why as Robby Thorpe (Gunai) argues, is this finding of law (the Mabo case) then liquidated down by the Howard government to be under the jurisdiction of pastoral leases, which is for the white man's cattle and sheep? Why are the most ancient cultures on the planet disrespected so much?

With this re-understanding of the significance of what land is to us, comes the recognition of the Indigenous people's connection and sovereignty of land. Indigenous people's families are the longest locals in town by an eon of time. Why do we not even grant them the average spoils of the average white person in society?

Why don't we recognise that we live in a Western first world enclave in the southern Hemisphere, usurping cultures of people that were mass murdered by the English army, beginning in the 18th century, by both biological terrorism (small pox, plaster of paris, poisoned waterholes) and the gun.

It is time to learn the laws of genocide. It is time to break down the fences that fence people and nature away from each other. It is time to reconnect. We can make a difference in this world. To begin with is requires listening. Respect is the word shouted in hiphop for due reason.

The eucalypt need not be chopped down because of branches falling on places we no longer sit

Respecting yourself and all that is outside of yourself will lead to "the interconnectedness of all being the protection of all"

Sustainable Snail Archives 2004
Deprogram and Avoid Microchipping Productions 2004

Oh God, that was good to read.

More of this MORE MORE MORE. Don't stop writing, Sustainable Snail. Keep pouring our your rage on everyone everywhere you can. Everything you say is true.

There is an answer though as to Why.
The answer is that by dividing land smaller and smaller for a larger and larger population, land owners make more money due to the fact that demand drives inflation. The reason hunter gatherers are always put down is because you cannot speculate on land that cannot be sold.

We should never sell land. And you should have the right to claim the head of the person who chopped your tree down. I wonder if anyone tried to stop the Easter Islander who chopped the last tree down.

You write beautifully and passionately.

Sheila N

The Financial Times

Original URL: http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?
pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373954996

Rapeseed oil to generate power for 1,000 homes

By Andrew Taylor, Utilities Correspondent
24 July 2004

Rapeseed oil, used 2,000 years ago by Romans to light their lamps, will be harvested next year to generate electricity to power homes under a scheme backed by Syngenta, the Anglo-Swiss agricultural company.

A pilot project, capable of generating enough electricity to power 1,000 homes, is to be built this autumn at Springdale Farm at Driffield, Yorkshire. The first electricity is due to be produced after next July's harvest.

UK Coal, the biggest coal producer, has also agreed to burn rapeseed oil at former collieries, currently producing electricity from methane gas, if the trial is a success.

Syngenta, one of the world's biggest agricultural suppliers, was formed three years ago though the merger of AstraZeneca's agrochemicals business and the seeds and crop protection business of Novartis.

Oilseed rape, used mainly for animal feed but also by the food processing industry, is the fourth most widely grown crop. Smartest Energy, a subsidiary of the Japanese Marubeni Group, has agreed to buy the electricity which it will then sell to green energy purchasers.

It will be able to take advantage of financial incentives under government rules requiring electricity suppliers to buy at least 10 per cent of their power from renewable sources by 2010, rising to 15 per cent by 2015. This compares with about 3 per cent currently.

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee warned last week that over-reliance on wind - which does not necessarily blow when most needed - could dent the government's climate change aspirations.

It recommended increased financial assistance for wave and tidal schemes and for so-called biomass crops, such as oilseed rape, which could be burnt at power stations at any time.

The German parliament building is powered by rapeseed oil. Syngenta said yesterday the Springdale project represented the first time the crop would be used in a commercial scheme. It could also be mixed with recycled vegetable oil from food processing and fast food outlets to produce electricity.

Some 1,500MW, enough to power 1m homes, could be generated if the country's entire rapeseed harvest were used.

http://www.hullocentral.demon.co.uk/site/biomass.htm

The Snail Rocks
by Possums On The Roof In Abbotsford Tuesday July 27, 2004 at 01:55 AM

Yep, a warm welcome to the Snail. Lovely concise prose. Keep writing and posting contributions. You rock.

And Simon shits me too. Boring twunt.

And shall I not squeal for pleasure. Lets all grow rape seed as long as its not crude oil, lets give sugar cane a go or distile from pines, that'll fix the ozone hole.

Lets think of ourselves for a change, we have surplus agri land, we can aford to divide and harvest, what about those who can't?.
There's not enough food in some countries, who reley on our surplus, given in aid, what should they eat?
What about all the forest that need to be cleared for your new world?

If you cannot change the cause for greed then your still wasting.
Try burning something which does not make CO2.
Yeah and OK my stuff ends up depressing but at least I'm not fooling anyone...just say it as I see it.
And thats honesty my friend.

That's just the point. We don't have surplus agricultural land. We have already stolen what we have from aboriginals who lived with other creatures on the land without damaging it.

We only have 20% arable land; the rest is grazing and desert, not fit for crops. jBetter for hunting and gathering, and fishing in a healthy nomadic lifestyle. Without fossil fuel (which is what causes extra CO2 emissions bringing about super warming = greenhouse, we would probably not be able to cultivate more than about 4%.

But without fossil fuel we could not travel around the interior of this continent nor transport food from the cultivated areas, nor farm the huge areas our poor soils require in order to produce much less than European or North American soils.

At the moment we are covering our most accessible and our best, most well watered land in houses and roads. Meanwhile climate change promises to extend our deserts and reduce the land we currently continue to crop. Oil peak and decline, when it occurs, will mean that we have to rely on the ocean for transport, since most of our rivers do not extend very far at all from our cities.

Have a look at the CSIRO Report, "Future Directions", which will inform you better.

I am curious to know where you get the idea that we have spare land to chop up for housing (which only makes speculators rich and does nothing to help the poor, for it makes their lives harder).

Where did you hear, who told you, that we have so much land?

Sheila N.

I didn't write that. I didn't post that. It's a forgery.

For more about forgery, click here:

http://www.sfimc.net/news/2002/12/1555696_comment.php#1692248

She is an ARP cronie and continually uses divide and rule tactics agaist the victims of racism. Turn Aboriginals and migrants against each other... It's not a new tactic Sheila! Some of the of the neo-nazi groups here used it before you.

You have still not answered our charges Sheila...

----------------

SHEILA IS A DANGEROUS DOG!
by ! Sunday July 25, 2004 at 10:35 PM

You and your cronies in the ARP disgust me Sheila. You truly do. White invader using the people they stole the land off in the first place as an excuse to seal off the borders and lock people in concentration camps. Truly nothing changes.

Aboriginal people mixed regularly with Indonesians (Maccassans), Timorese and Chinese. Some aboriginal people traveled to these parts of the world too. Many Indonesian and other languages are mixed in with Aboriginal languages in the NT and WA. Indonesians traded valuable goods and tech with Aboriginal people. Elements on Islam have also mixed in with Aboriginal culture.

It was Europeans who tried to stop this mixing using the excuse that the Maccassans were "corrupting" Aboriginals with alcohol and hemp. In reality they were terrified of Maccassan trade competing with their domination of Australia and Asia.

Seems like the more things change the more they stay the same... Divide and rule.

vote your local eco-fascist
by oj simpson Monday July 26, 2004 at 01:34 AM

republican party of australia eh! geez they look like they'll go far. NOT. the only difference between you and one nation is that you think you're not racist just cause you say so and you've got a few blacks who agree with you (as if they represent indig people as a whole). Did pauline line up a couple of indig "advisors" as well.
There's plenty of indig mobs who support migrants and reckon the whole concentration camps could be shut. sheila wields her politics through division and a stupid arrogance that she has all the answers. it all comes down to people burning fossilised dinosaurs doesn't it sheila. you only need one lense to look through to understand the world.
hurry up and piss off to the one nation forum or something and realised just how elitist your politics is.

This latest bullshit rant getting completely out of perspective. Then whats new on MIM?

pr is off his meds, Simon is a passive aggressive retard and nessies full of shit, as usual.

Joy oh joy. Now where was that read without comments function....

Dear Sustainable Snail fans

Have you checked out the amazing article just like Concrete Apocalyse about what is happening in Moscow and other parts of Russia at http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2004/07/74712.php

This is an international push for speculative development that rides roughshod over citizens' rights and corrupts democracy.

Sheila N

Sheila says "Better for hunting and gathering, and fishing in a healthy nomadic lifestyle".

So why don't you do that then Sheila? Rather than sitting back in your comfortable suburban home demanding that others do what you won't. Better yet why don't you help the population problem by taking some direct action starting with yourself.

When the rest of the world goes down the gurgler so will we.

But some of us are working on educating and informing the public and coming up with solutions like permaculture and green technology. Some of us are trying to bring down the system. Your just sitting back spreading racism, hate, lies, division and throwing stones.

You show your prejudices when you assume that agriculture is the only reasonable and pleasant lifestyle. You seem to think that you have some kind of innate right to impose it on the rest of the world and to subdivide land and turn it to your own ideology. Your presumptions that I am racist are based on nothing except an assumption founded on ignornance of alternatives to your own very narrow point of view.

You are cowardly unjust in your personal attacks on myself.

Permaculture is fine, but it is not the answer to the alienation of land through subdivision and speculation. Nomadic lifestyles are superb and have been the most enduring, along with pacific islander garden-cultures of any societal organisations in the world. Both go back 40,000 years.

I don't like bandying the world racist about, but I think you are racist in your paternalistic desire to impose subdivision and western social patterns on everyone. Your naive faith in your 'revolution' is amazing. You are anything but revolutionary. You are running with a small pack that assists the corporate sector by attacking anyone who stands up to their land-stealing shennanigans. You do this by reinforcing their ability to speculate on land through constant subdivisions and artificially induced population increases.

The people who dispossessed the aborigines in the first place were people who came here thinking they knew better. Equipped with fossil fuel they were able to subdue the continent. This will only last as long as the fossil fuel. After oil and coal there will be a precipitous fall in population. Better we deal with the problem now.

As for trying hunting and gathering; that would be a little difficult in this built up city, where about the only animals in oversupply would be long-pig.

Sheila N

As usual she completely ignores the questions and talks about what she wants to instead. So I put it to you again Sheila... Why is your organisation such a bunch of racist hypocrits?

The ARPs astounding hypocrisy!
by ! Tuesday July 27, 2004 at 10:11 AM

Sheila says "Better for hunting and gathering, and fishing in a healthy nomadic lifestyle".

So why don't you do that then Sheila? Rather than sitting back in your comfortable suburban home demanding that others do what you won't. Better yet why don't you help the population problem by taking some direct action starting with yourself.

When the rest of the world goes down the gurgler so will we.

But some of us are working on educating and informing the public and coming up with solutions like permaculture and green technology. Some of us are trying to bring down the system. Your just sitting back spreading racism, hate, lies, division and throwing stones.

SHEILA IS A DANGEROUS DOG!
by ! Sunday July 25, 2004 at 10:35 PM

You and your cronies in the ARP disgust me Sheila. You truly do. White invader using the people they stole the land off in the first place as an excuse to seal off the borders and lock people in concentration camps. Truly nothing changes.

Aboriginal people mixed regularly with Indonesians (Maccassans), Timorese and Chinese. Some aboriginal people traveled to these parts of the world too. Many Indonesian and other languages are mixed in with Aboriginal languages in the NT and WA. Indonesians traded valuable goods and tech with Aboriginal people. Elements on Islam have also mixed in with Aboriginal culture.

It was Europeans who tried to stop this mixing using the excuse that the Maccassans were "corrupting" Aboriginals with alcohol and hemp. In reality they were terrified of Maccassan trade competing with their domination of Australia and Asia.

Seems like the more things change the more they stay the same... Divide and rule.

vote your local eco-fascist
by oj simpson Monday July 26, 2004 at 01:34 AM

republican party of australia eh! geez they look like they'll go far. NOT. the only difference between you and one nation is that you think you're not racist just cause you say so and you've got a few blacks who agree with you (as if they represent indig people as a whole). Did pauline line up a couple of indig "advisors" as well.
There's plenty of indig mobs who support migrants and reckon the whole concentration camps could be shut. sheila wields her politics through division and a stupid arrogance that she has all the answers. it all comes down to people burning fossilised dinosaurs doesn't it sheila. you only need one lense to look through to understand the world.
hurry up and piss off to the one nation forum or something and realised just how elitist your politics is.

you spiteful Venomous vermin, don't we all live in nice suburban homes, can't rember the last time I saw hardware in a humpy.
You guys want a nice simple answer, its got to be simple for you to understand and its got to be nice so that it fits in with your hypocriticle rules...oh and above all its got to be so complicated that it gives you the endless arguement.

Plane English
by We need another Merlin like a hole in the... Wednesday July 28, 2004 at 01:31 PM

The argument that any discussion about immigration is racist is complete BS. We get around 200,000 migrants a year, most are economic migrants. That's why we can't take a decent humanitarian quota, we need to keep topping up with these economic parasites.

To talk about sustainability without addressing population is farcical.

If we want to maintain, let alone improve, standard of living and ecological processes we cannot encourage or tolerate the expanding plague of humanity sweeping the planet.

It's the simple mathematical reality of a finite planet.

People like Richard Pratt are the ones that run the big population line and brainless, fascistic "anti-racism activists" enforce it. Don't you ever stop to wonder why the likes of Pratt want a huge population base?

We can limit immigration, with a view to being sustainable and preserving remnant ecological processes, and still fulfill our obligation to accept a fair share of refugees.

So, cut the emotive bullshit quotient and deal with physical reality.

Sheila is a typical pollie.
by ! Tuesday July 27, 2004 at 10:37 AM

As usual she completely ignores the questions and talks about what she wants to instead. So I put it to you again Sheila... Why is your organisation such a bunch of racist hypocrits?

The ARPs astounding hypocrisy!
by ! Tuesday July 27, 2004 at 10:11 AM

Sheila says "Better for hunting and gathering, and fishing in a healthy nomadic lifestyle".

So why don't you do that then Sheila? Rather than sitting back in your comfortable suburban home demanding that others do what you won't. Better yet why don't you help the population problem by taking some direct action starting with yourself.

When the rest of the world goes down the gurgler so will we.

But some of us are working on educating and informing the public and coming up with solutions like permaculture and green technology. Some of us are trying to bring down the system. Your just sitting back spreading racism, hate, lies, division and throwing stones.

SHEILA IS A DANGEROUS DOG!
by ! Sunday July 25, 2004 at 10:35 PM

You and your cronies in the ARP disgust me Sheila. You truly do. White invader using the people they stole the land off in the first place as an excuse to seal off the borders and lock people in concentration camps. Truly nothing changes.

Aboriginal people mixed regularly with Indonesians (Maccassans), Timorese and Chinese. Some aboriginal people traveled to these parts of the world too. Many Indonesian and other languages are mixed in with Aboriginal languages in the NT and WA. Indonesians traded valuable goods and tech with Aboriginal people. Elements on Islam have also mixed in with Aboriginal culture.

It was Europeans who tried to stop this mixing using the excuse that the Maccassans were "corrupting" Aboriginals with alcohol and hemp. In reality they were terrified of Maccassan trade competing with their domination of Australia and Asia.

Seems like the more things change the more they stay the same... Divide and rule.

vote your local eco-fascist
by oj simpson Monday July 26, 2004 at 01:34 AM

republican party of australia eh! geez they look like they'll go far. NOT. the only difference between you and one nation is that you think you're not racist just cause you say so and you've got a few blacks who agree with you (as if they represent indig people as a whole). Did pauline line up a couple of indig "advisors" as well.
There's plenty of indig mobs who support migrants and reckon the whole concentration camps could be shut. sheila wields her politics through division and a stupid arrogance that she has all the answers. it all comes down to people burning fossilised dinosaurs doesn't it sheila. you only need one lense to look through to understand the world.
hurry up and piss off to the one nation forum or something and realised just how elitist your politics is.

Nothing on this thread about ARP but your repetitive rantings.

So why don't you deal with substance rather than histrionics? God knows we get enough of that!

"So, cut the emotive bullshit quotient and deal with physical reality".

Tell us why Richard Pratt & Co. are right.

You can't answer them can you you pathetic racist DOG?

Noel/Simon?
by Smells like Leon again... Wednesday July 28, 2004 at 04:47 PM

Spot the woman hater!

And obviously you are the emotional type who can't discuss issues without resorting to rank personal abuse.

Are we to conclude that the last post is the argument for not having a population policy?

As indigenous opinions are of such obvious importance to you, have you tried asking Aborigines what they think about unlimited immigration?

Do that, then get back to us and tell us again what racists we all are.

From.......

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2004/07/75157_comment.php#75172

>Oh really?
>by ! Tuesday July 27, 2004 at 12:55 PM

>Womens rights are being pushed back too.

So cnuts like you can refer to them as dogs?

Refers to police informers, agents etc. It is equally used for both male and female pigs. And I am a woman you dimwits!

But you STILL have not answered my charges!

Many Aboriginal people support refugees and immigration. Just like many Aboriginal people have all kinds of opinions about politics. I have spoken to Aboriginal people who have all kinds of different opinions. It says a lot about you that you claim to speak for ALL Aboriginals (you aren't even one yourself) on this issue. Me, oj and several other people already outlined this in our posts. But you are deliberately ignoring our arguments because you have no reply. You keep using Aboriginal people as an excuse to justify your own pathetic and cowardly racism. YOU DOGS DISGUST ME!

"Noel/Simon?
by Smells like Leon again... Tuesday July 27, 2004 at 02:47 PM

Spot the woman hater!"

Gee, now Leons a woman-hater is he? That's funny because I've never known him to show signs of misogyny. Could you show us a few examples or is this another embarrassing attempt by Morons for Zion at character assassination?

Leon has never shown any signs of mysoginy that I am aware of. But then these dickwads here accuse me (a woman) of being mysoginist because I call them the DOGS and PIGS that they are!

Here is a further list of just a few of the crimes commited against women in the name of population control:

Forcible sterilisation of menatlly ill women (I know someone who this happened to as recently as 10 years ago here in TAS).

Forcible sterilisation of aboriginal women - imagine going to hospital to get a routine check up and waking up with no womb?

Forcible sterilisation of East Timorese women. They were payed to have depo-provera inplants in their arms like human guiney pigs. Then when the implants leaked or they decided to have kids doctors would not remove them.

Forced sterilisation and forced abortion in China.

"But you are deliberately ignoring our arguments because you have no reply."

And what are your arguments exactly?

Anyone who questions immigration levels or population policy is a racist?

And, by defending Sheilas right to participate in a discussion I am a racist?

Or is it that you are deliberately trying to twist this thread into an attack on someone in an attempt to silence them because you are the font of all knowledge and anyone who can't see that must be a racist?

Also let's be clear about this point too, I did not invoke Aboriginal Australia to defend my position, you did. I simply sought clarification from you on your authority on the matter of Aboriginal opinion.

But since you've made an issue of it, name one Aboriginal who supports higher immigration levels?

Any wide ranging discussion on sustainability will ultimately and inevitably include population policy. It is an entirely different discussion to the one about our governments appalling treatment of refugees. So please, cast your shrill and ill-informed rantings aside and let the adults talk.

You obviously haven't been following the discussion. Either that or you are deliberately covering up my charges against you with a meaningless load of drivel. Sheila has used Aboriginal people many times to justify her racist anti-immigration crap. I was replying to your statement. And no... I'm not going to name names here. Because the people I talk to are my friends. Not some politicians who want their names posted all over the place. If you wan't to do that then post under YOUR REAL NAME and I might consider it.

------

Here is a further list of just a few of the crimes commited against women in the name of population control:

Forcible sterilisation of menatlly ill women (I know someone who this happened to as recently as 10 years ago here in TAS).

Forcible sterilisation of aboriginal women - imagine going to hospital to get a routine check up and waking up with no womb?

Forcible sterilisation of East Timorese women. They were payed to have depo-provera inplants in their arms like human guiney pigs. Then when the implants leaked or they decided to have kids doctors would not remove them.

Forced sterilisation and forced abortion in China.

Bloody deluded Northern Tasmanians.

For years a running joke was that they believed themselves to be "Mainlanders" and hence morally superior to anyone south of Ross. Hence confused folk like Ms ! developing in isolation. Get out of Melton Mowbray and discover the world.

What skeletons' in the closet have you got?

Kissing cousins from Irish Town?

Dear !
Your comments on these matters present a very polarised and rhetorical view. To help me to better understand the reason you are using to reach these conclusions can you please provide more dimension to your views on the following:

How does discussion of the annual national intake of 135,000 planned immigrants and its impacts upon sustainable national population and ecology, have any basis of connection to the situation surrounding 12,000 irregular foreign arrivals, their processing and detention?

Traditional Aboriginal lore across the continent contained very clear identification of clan territories and exercised very precise and selective protocols for passage and re-location of individuals across these territory borders. You say that all the aboriginals you know are in favor of open borders and unlimited immigration. Can you please tell me whether these aboriginals have renounced their traditonal clan lores, are simply ignorant of them, or whether you are distorting their positon for the purposes of your argument?

Do you think that Australia's ecology and natural resources can support unlimited numbers of people?
If so, can you perhaps explain just where the water will come from to securely support any increase beyond current numbers?
If not can you suggest how we might identify those safe levels and manage population numbers to stay within them?

I look forward to your rational response to these genuine questions.

Indymedia server protocols and my computer do not communicate well.

I will hereafter not believe the message that tells me the server has not responded.

"How does discussion of the annual national intake of 135,000 planned immigrants and its impacts upon sustainable national population and ecology, have any basis of connection to the situation surrounding 12,000 irregular foreign arrivals, their processing and detention?"
Let everyone in. Tear down all borders everywhere. That is the only way this world will ever be just. If people are free to move wherever they like their can be no Authoritarian regimes. Haven't you ever noticed that the more a government fucks it's people the more desperate it is to stop them leaving or others coming in and seeing what is going on?

"Can you please tell me whether these aboriginals have renounced their traditonal clan lores, are simply ignorant of them, or whether you are distorting their positon for the purposes of your argument?"
What are YOU saying? That if aboriginal people don't agree with your views it is because they are "ignorant" or have "renounced" their herritage? That is too sick and racist.

"Do you think that Australia's ecology and natural resources can support unlimited numbers of people?"
Do you think that we are living in a bubble domb? Do you really think that sealing off the borders to keep out the world will save us from ecological disaster? You are mad! And worse - you are causing a distraction from the real issue and promoting a false solution of hate and isolation. Environmental destruction is a global problem that can only be solved globally.

"If so, can you perhaps explain just where the water will come from to securely support any increase beyond current numbers?"
Maybe we could start by not giving it away free to the big corporations who are wasting most of it. There is plenty of water in the world and it is completely recyclable.

"If not can you suggest how we might identify those safe levels and manage population numbers to stay within them?"
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the world can sustain 10 times it's current population. But whatever the case - education, food, healthcare and liberty are the only things that work.

Or, "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong".
Two polarised, simple, neat solutions = conflict and potentially war.

On to your simple solutions !

Let everyone move where they wish and that will deliver equity.

So tell me what you think about a situation where corporate capital can purchase and develop land beyond the need of local demand, and then rely on local population growth, via local immigration, to profitably sell that land. Do the local people have a right to resist this growth that will destroy their own traditional way of life and economy? Should they just yield to the 'justice' of open borders?
If they don't like these changes, should they just become refugees and move somewhere else?
Is this how your 'open borders' policy delivers justice?

When I ask about your indigenous friends' view of their traditional lore, I am quite clearly not asking that they agree with me. I ask how they view the meaning and importance of their own culture's traditional principles of border management.
Do they view these cultural values as wrong and redundant, or do they still respect those traditional values?
If the former, is it because of a compliance to your view of social justice and open borders.
If the latter, how does that traditional indigenous view compare then to your open-border view?
Why are you right and a 40,000 year management system wrong.

Regarding ecology and natural resources, can you please tell me how local resource owners, of any locality and culture, can manage those resources reliably if they have no control at all over how many people will be using them?
What should local communites do when large capitalist forces seek to gain from increasing those local population numbers which will then put demand on local usage volumes and security of access?
Remember, people = markets. There is a powerful capitalist incentive to have local populations increased.

You say "Environmental destruction is a global problem that can only be solved globally".
I'm not too sure that you have a very firm grasp of ecology.
If local people do not adequately look after distinct local parts of the global ecology, ie local catchments, bio-regions, etc., how do we deliver global improvements?
If local people cannot control the inputs and outputs to those distinct local ecological units, how do they adequately manage and care fo them.

Are you suggesting a simulataneous global response to this global problem?
Who plans and orders this global response. What does it target? How is it delivered?

Are you confused?
You confuse me.

! and my other accuser, whose name escapes me for the moment, Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and ATSIC both wrote submissions criticising rapid population growth for the Australian Population Carrying Capacity Enquiry in 1994. I influenced neither author, since I knew neither at the time. One author was Lowitja O'Donahue, who is also currently a trustee for Sustainable Population Australia's Sustainable Population Fund, and the other was Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. I am cutting and pasting the second one here, for your edification. You could look up Lowitja's in Vol 5 of the Enquiry report.

Some other remarks below this cut and paste.

ABORIGINAL BLACK DEATHS IN CUSTODY WATCH COMMITTEE PO BOX 65 Broadway NSW 2007
Submission to the Australian Population 'Carrying Capacity' Enquiry'
Received by the House of Representatives Standing Committee for long Term Strategies on 15 April 1994

(Addressed to The Hon Barry Jones)
Inquiry into Australia's Populaton Carrying Capacity
The Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee makes the following comments which we hope will assist the Standing Committee for Long Term Strategies in reaching a compatible solution to the Inquiry into Australia's Population Carrying Capacity. Compatible to the Australian Aborigines and the greater mass of non-Aborigines who must share this land now and in the future.
Paul Coe wrote in 1986 that "Australia is still a State based on dispossession, a State based upon mass murder, a State based upon the principle of might is right".

This view is still extremely relevant today. The Mabo decision merely highlights the facts stated above. We hope to coherently relate to your Committee the views of the Watch Committee. We stress that we do not speak for or on behalf of any other Aboriginal group, community or individual persons. We believe that this submission fits comfortably within the second of your Terms of Reference.

We are the traditional owners of this land. The land is our total being. We have lost enough.

We believe that before your Committee considers any other recommendations for higher population growths and carrying capacity for Australia, the Governments of this country, at all levels, must settle the major social problem of the rightful ownership of this land. We believe that before your committee considers any other recommendations that you first take the time to read and consider Chapter 19 Land Needs pp467-500 in Vol.2 of the National Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (printed May 9,1991). And further, Chapter 37 Addressing Land Needs, pp47-55, Recommendations 334-337 of Vol.5 of the same Report.

Only when this recognition is belatedly made can relevant consultation take place on future population studies. Since 1788 the non-Aboriginal powers within our lands have taken it upon themselves to increase the population by many millions, meanwhile our population became near to extinction. Historically irrefutable is the fact that many, many tribes were exterminated and hundreds of thousands of our people suffered the near-final solution of the invaders.

To the absolute shock of many - we survived. What did not survive was our recognised sovereignty over our lands. This must be given to us. Our land needs must be settled before future millions disinherit us from our human rights as the original inhabitants. The morality of our claim is unquestionable.

The obligations of the Governments of Australia and its peoples is to our right to land holdings - including tribal use - the right to run cattle stations, farms for produce and the production of native foods, or bush tucker, in all its forms. This would be both for export and home use. A necessary adjunct to the land being returned is the need for proper housing, of appropriate educational facilities, for totally adequate health services, work schemes to be relevant to our needs, rehabilitation centres, among other requirements.

Constitutional recognition is also a vital factor. It will be mandatory that our land needs be inviolable from future encroachment by any non-Aboriginal population, so also our cultural needs, especially hunting and fishing rights.
With the world's population of some 5.3 billion people, and being increased by 95 million per year, the equitable need for land and its resources is easily identifiable. Australia's population is bearable at this point in time but further ecocide of this country will leave nothing for no-one. Land degradation caused more by greed than ignorance has seen the environmental resources of our land pack-raped into uselessness in many areas. Ecologically our land is on its knees: with help it can survive and resuscitate itself, but with any major increase in population this land will die, and we will die with it.
Time is needed, not only for our land, but for ourselves to establish an economical base, producing traditional foods and proper land management. Land management that caressed this country for more than 60,000 years. Our communities need the provision of land to not only redress past crimes but to restore self esteem.

Dr Brown, Head of the United Nations Environmental Programme stated: "At 5 billion people we have now become a full occupancy planet!"

It is to the individual to gauge the veracity of this statement but what we do know is that as was pointed out in a recent Australian Population Study, our population will increase to about 300,000 -350,000 by the year 2001. Non-Aboriginals are expected to increase to about 30 million by the year 2055. This is totally unsustainable for this country. The population carrying capacity of this country must factor into its calculations the amount of land needed to be set aside for the Aboriginal Peoples.

To continue to ignore our rightful claims will only further denigrate the Governments of Australia in international forums, but to overload our land until it is no longer viable is to participate in a most heinous crime against all humanity.

We end our submission with two quotes.

Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the laws of England, Vol.2. 1766, London, states:

"There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property ... and yet there are very few that will give themselves the trouble to consider the origin and foundation of that right. Pleased as we are with the possession, we seem to be afraid to look back to the means by which it was acquired, as if fearful of some defect in our title; or at best we rest satisfied with the decision of the laws in our favour, without examining the reasons or authority upon which those laws have been built ..."

Paul Keating, Prime Minister, on December 19, 1992 at Redfern Park stated, inter alia:

"It begins with recognition.
Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing.
We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life.
We brought the diseases. The alcohol.
We committed the murders.
We took the children from their mothers.
We practices discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice.
And our failure to imagine these things being done to us.
With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds.
We failed to ask - How would I feel if this were done to me?
As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.
Social justice must come first, long before a population increase.
for and on behalf of
THE WATCH COMMITTEE

RAY JACKSON

As for my not having answered your questions or challenges or some such, well, you made a bunch of statements which were more opinions than evidenced argument. I personally support contraception and abortion, but I do not think they should be imposed. However I must say I find infinitely worse the idea that women could be deprived of contraception and abortion, since I believe there is nothing more nightmarish than forced pregnancy. Forced pregnancy is an issue all over the world.

Once contraception and abortion were women's prerogatives and well accepted. They should remain so, IMHO

I also support RU486.

Were you both display your profound racism is the assumption that aboriginal people all think the same and that those who don't have "renounced" their culture. Aboriginal society - like every other society - is made up of many individuals, nations, groups... And because it is a LIVING culture it changes. Only dead cultures stop evolving, changing and adapting.

There are many aspects of aboriginal culture in different parts of australia that were suited to a subsistance lifestyle or certain conditions which no longer exist and wouldn't make sense anymore. Marriage laws make sense when you are living in very small communities and need to prevent inbreeding. They had them in almost all (including European) societies. But they don't make sense when applied to new and totally different circumstances. For example one of my neigbours a while back had been married to someone who died. Under law she was supposed to marry his brother. Neither her nor the brother wanted to get married and ended up forced to leave their community and end up homeless in Darwin.

"Traditional" law is also regularly distorted to suit the purposes of the government and vested interests. Some local Darwin Larrikea are now being used by the NT government to try and chase out refugees and traditional living people (like my neigbour) on the basis of these "immigration laws" you love so much. This is the kind sneaky underhanded way that the police, government and racists like you use to reinforce the brutal oppression that goes on against Aborginial people and migrants. It is a very clever and evil trick to use a distorted version of "traditional" law to turn Aboriginals against Aboriginals and migrants against migrants. Activists should do all they can to expose these lies.

!,
You have responded in a fashion to one of the three relevant scenarios I posed. A comment on the other two would be appreciated, particularly the one regarding local rights in the face of corporate land development leading to population growth.

In respect of your comment on the diversity of values held by modern aboriginals, I have no disagreement that this is fact. What is curious though is that you choose one form that you claim to be familiar with and present it as the arbiting standard on the notion of free borders. I am merely citing another set which is well documented, still very proudly subscribed to by many who are still aware of those codes, and is proven to be responsible for the successful management of the Australian landscape for over 40,000 years.

Yet you claim my position to be one of racism because it ignores a diversity in the opinion that you have found. However yours is OK even though it overrides and actively disrespects traditional land management principles that were both successfull and sacred, and are still held to be so by many elders.

Your reference to subsistence lifestyle shows an innate disdain for the Australian indigenous cultures and a lack of understanding as to what they in fact were.

Your comment that the conditions that these cultures were suited to do not exist anymore and much of it no longer make sense is quite ironic. It could well be that our complete disregard for the basic conditions that nurtured those behaviours will soon have us seeking similar by necessity and in some panic rather than by our intelligent and timely choice.

At the core of your writing is an insistence toward individual freedom. Yet I'm sure you also see yourself as a collectivist, proclaiming the need for solidarity against the greed and corruption of private capitalists. You really need to think a bit about the reality that lies within collectivism, and the areas where individuals might need to conform to meet the just and necessary needs of social survival.

You might also reflect upon your bold embrace of the modern standards of individual freedom delivered via such fruits as discretionary mobility and hi-tech communications. Consider these in conjuction with the massive capital and corporate strutures that enable it to be so. Think about what there is to protect us against these destructive monoliths that deliver these fruits of our choice. It is only our social glue, our sense of common identity, locality and ownership that can forge and maintain our common interest in the face of their predations. Yet you want to pour thinners on that glue in the name of freedom.

Your title indicates that you much prefer exclamation to enquiry. Do you think is true?

You spend about three pages here distorting my views and making a lot of assumptions. You do the same with traditional law. I call you a racist because you are not an Aboriginal but you use Aboriginals to justify your own racist policies, and say that any who dissagree with you have "renounced" their traditional values (a statement many would find extremely offensive). I DONT claim any use of Aboriginal culture or any agreement from Aboriginal people to justify my own views and don't think that I need to. I am only trying to point out that you don't have any right or justification for doing so either. Infact for a white pollie to claim to speak for all Aboriginal people and traditional law shows what a sleazy, opportunistic and racist little politician you are.

I posed a number of queries as they point to the basic contradictions in your position. In your evasion of these you leap quickly to denounce others as racist. Yet in calling me a racist you are willing to ignore and discredit lore systems that have stood for millenia and are still respected and yearned for by many who still understand their power.

You do this in the name of cultures needing to move on and be adaptive. That is the exact same rationale that the corporate culture invokes to strip people of their heritage. You can't stop progress is the catchcry. Isn't that what you are saying in discounting the lore of millennia in favour of the trends of just 2 centuries. Are you not imposing the imperatives of your race upon them? You are instilled with those imperatives whether you bark loudly about some things or not. Change is fine, but are you being drawn and are you helping to draw in a meaningful direction, or are you just caught up in the hustle whilst wearing a clever T-shirt?

You have to crawl out from under the slogans and, without their weight upon your mind, think deeply about the actual meanings and implications of things. This is essential if you are to resist being an unwitting pawn advancing strategies that you think you oppose. The techniques of oppression are far more subtle and pervasive than I think you have yet noticed.

You claim I am racist because I am not an Aboriginal but use Aboriginals to justify my own racist policies.
I did nothing more than highlight indigenous land management principles and asked you to comment on how your proposals matched those laws.
If you deem as racist behaviour the respect and citation of such principles as valid benchmarks to be accounted for, then we are most certainly working from different dictionaries.

You further claim that I say that any who dissagree with me have "renounced" their traditional values.
I did not say that. I asked you to compare the positions of the traditional principles of country and the open border views of your claimed aboriginal friends and you say how they reconciled?
To put a point on this, please help me to understand me how an open-borders policy reconciles with indigenous land rights? Seems to me that was the very beginning and continuing nub of the problem - occupation without mutual agreement on principles.

I am not claiming the support of any indigenous people. I am simply looking with respect at their established land management principles and valuing the critical elements that kept the country productive and healthy for so long. Such things are very good guides to decision making, regardless of issues of respect and sovereignty.

If you want to invent, occupy and defend a patchwork of unreconciled positions, fuelled and directed by your emotional porridge, that is your perogative, although democracy demands that it is also everyone's loss. I am not trying to convince you of anything. We can either deal intelligently with the dialectics within the matter, or you can stick to your tedious treadmill of namecalling and oversimplification and be marginalised and ultimately ignored accordingly.

Just because you write 500 words full of smarmy lies, distortions and underhanded attacks on aboriginals who do not support your views, doesn't mean that your arguments actually make any sense or contain any (progressive) substance.

!
Your 'argument' now stands as a vivid picture of where you are coming from. It needs no further response whatsoever.

And all your "dielectical" doublethink and newspeak!

k8-O k8-O k8-O k8-O k8-O k8-O

! We've got your number. You're working for the party. Darth told us you'r job is to make everyone distrust everyone else, so no-one will stick up for themself.

Sye

Yeah. I'm working for the Australian Republican Party.

Its amazing.. As soon as I start arguing against immigration control and pointing out how racist the ARP is (which is really obvious anyway) on this site, and as soon as I say that the government here is fascist. I start getting called a "government agent" etc by anonymous people. Normally people here don't give a shit about me or what I think. But I have noticed that as soon as I touch this issue all the trolls attack. And not just on these threads but all the threads where I post anything no matter how benign. Why is that?

Would you like to put these accusations to me? Do you have any evidence? Of course not. That is why you would you rather just give out my IP adress and send slanderous, lying emails behind my back to discredit me in an underhanded way rather than take up the argument honestly.

So let me ask you...
Do you support free speech?
Or do you think that MIM should be used as a place for you to gather information on activists so you can give it out to your mates?
Or to the AFP?
Are you against immigration?
Do you support white racist parties using their own twisted version of "Aboriginal Law" to promote racist hatred and scapegoating?
Do you perhaps think that sex-workers are stupid sluts who should not mess with real white male activists?

Why do you want to discredit and isolate a real activist who is facing a lot of charges, harassment and probably prison?

Who do you serve?

Sheila N: I also support RU486.

As do many eugenicists, Sheila. Why do you think that is? What do you think about the eugenics agendas I raised in a thread you initiated at http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2004/07/72956_comment.php#73039 ?
Are you aware that the US patent for RU486 is held by the Population Council ( http://www.popcouncil.org/ )? What are your views on that organisation?

The following article reveals some of the agendas I've mentioned.

Population Control and RU-486: The Hidden Agenda

By David C. Reardon, Ph.D.
Population control advocates insist that expanded access to abortion is essential to improving the status and health of women throughout the world. Indeed, this message was tirelessly promoted by Hillary Clinton and U.S. officials at a long series of recent U.N. conferences dealing with population growth and women's rights.

Pro-lifers are obviously opposed to any effort to expand abortion access around the world. In the current battle over the foreign operations appropriation bill, they are seeking to reinstate a policy that banned the distribution of funds to organizations that perform or promote abortions. If they succeed in adding this restrictive language, the White House is threatening to veto the bill.

On the surface, this would appear to be just another battle over abortion rights. Should women, of any country, have the right to abortion or not? In reality, the issue is much more complex.

Many proponents of population control honestly believe that these programs will expand the rights of women and improve their lives. In contrast to these humanitarians, however, there is another group of population controllers who want to reduce individual rights at the expense of women.

These are the zealots. They are the ones who make excuses for programs that involve coerced sterilizations, forced abortions, or the withholding of food or medical care unless poor women "voluntarily" accept IUDs or Norplant insertions.

Some zealots, such as Paul Ehrlich, are doomsayers who believe that population growth threatens the survival of humanity. "Injustice is preferable to ruin," is one of their most oft-repeated quotes.

Other zealots are not afraid of ruin; they fear loss of privilege. This latter group believes that higher birth rates will actually improve the political and economic power of developing countries -- but at the expense of U.S. and European dominance.

In short, these zealots are not seeking to advance the rights and welfare of the poor. Just the opposite. They are actually elitists who see population control as a means of keeping the "rabble" in their place.

Naturally, these elitists are rarely so blunt. They are a civilized bunch, after all, and generally take care to sound remarkably like their humanitarian friends.

That is one of the problems in this debate. One can never be sure of a population controller's motives. Humanitarian? Doomsayer? Elitist? Or a mix of all three?

Population controllers of all stripes tend to gravitate toward humanitarian rhetoric. For example, Professor Garrett Hardin is one of the most enduring and preeminent proponents of population control. In the early 1960s, before the modern feminist movement was born, Hardin popularized the argument that abortion is part of a "woman's right to control her own body."

But in publications for population control specialists, Hardin argues that "freedom to breed is intolerable." He believes the reproductive rights of women and men should actually be subservient to public policy. Like many zealots, he has defended and even applauded China's brutal one-child policy.

Unfortunately, many overseas population programs are run by zealots of a similar stripe. They are fluent in humanitarian lingo but are actually hostile to individual freedom. While pledging to advance women's health, they advise clients to use dangerous birth control technologies without even informing them of the risks. As true elitists, they believe the poor are too ignorant to make an informed choice, so they make it for them.

For example, dangerous IUDs that are banned in America are freely distributed in developing countries, often as a requirement for obtaining basic health care. For true believers of population control, even a dangerous contraceptive is better than none.

Human Guinea Pigs
The poor are also the primary targets for experimental programs. In a recent documentary "The Human Laboratory," BBC journalists found that population controllers had tested Norplant on women in Bangladesh without the proper disclosures necessary to obtain informed consent.

Furthermore, when women with serious side effects asked to have the Norplant inserts removed, they were refused on the grounds that their withdrawal from the program would upset the test results. Some investigators have concluded that the complaints of many Bengali women were omitted from the final data in an effort to minimize the perceived risks of the drug.

After using these test results to receive FDA approval in the U.S., Norplant manufacturers now face several class action suits brought by American women who are making the same complaints alleged by the "guinea pigs" of Bangladesh. Unfortunately for Norplant promoters, American women have more legal recourse than Bengalis.

The same BBC documentary reported that women in the Philippines and Mexico have also been used as guinea pigs for a new experimental pregnancy vaccine. The HCG vaccine makes a woman's body reject new pregnancies. According to human rights activists, it has been administered, without the consent or knowledge of patients, as a "piggyback" vaccine in a series of tetanus vaccine programs.

Many Filipinos were initially curious as to why only women of reproductive age had been eligible for the free tetanus vaccine, especially since tetanus is more common among young men. But when women who had recently received the "tetanus vaccine" began having an inordinate number of miscarriages, this bureaucratic curiosity turned into charges of conspiracy. Subsequent lab tests of the tetanus vaccine confirmed it had indeed been laced with an HCG vaccine.

Population control zealots who have little or no regard for individual rights could hardly be expected to respect local customs, religious beliefs, or national sovereignty. They are especially frustrated with the governments of predominantly Catholic and Moslem countries where abortion remains illegal or strictly limited.

Many leading population control organizations, such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation, have adopted policies that aggressively promote abortion even in countries where it is illegal. They argue that illegal abortions may be "part of the process of stimulating change."

The Mad Rush Toward RU-486
The FDA's recent approval of the abortion inducing drug RU-486 may make it even easier for population control zealots to "stimulate change."

Five years ago, presidential candidate Bill Clinton promised population control advocates that he would hasten FDA approval of the new abortion drug. He kept his word.

Following Clinton's election, the FDA urged RU-486 manufacturer Rouessel Uclaf to submit the drug for approval. After much foot dragging, the company declined, expressing its fear of product liability claims and bad publicity from anti- abortion activists. Then in May of 1994, the administration announced that it had convinced the company to "donate" the patent to the Population Council, one of America's most zealous promoters of international population control. This agreement would let Roussel Uclaf off the hook and give the administration its abortion drug.

To further grease the skids, the FDA agreed to lower the standards for testing and review which are normally required before approval of a new drug. The Population Council would be able to obtain approval by spending only $8 million in drug testing trials, compared to the $100 million or more that drug companies must usually spend. In addition, the target date for approval was reduced to six months. The approval time for most pharmaceuticals, ranging from migraine treatments to chemotherapy drugs, typically requires six years or more.

In July of 1996, an FDA advisory panel recommended approval of RU-486 even though the American clinical trials were still not complete. Most shocking of all, this recommendation was made despite the unimpeachable testimony of Dr. Mark Louviere, a physician who treated a woman for a life-threatening hemorrhage two weeks after the RU-486 was administered. The woman had lost one-half to two- thirds of her blood. But what really bothered Dr. Louviere (but not the committee, apparently) was even though he reported the complication to the Planned Parenthood clinic which administered the experimental drug, a representative of the same Planned Parenthood clinic subsequently told the media that there had been "no complications among the 238 women" they aborted in this manner.

Normally, one might expect the FDA to immediately reject an application for approval in the face of such incontrovertible evidence of poor record keeping, public deception, and even outright fraud. But this was a special case. This was an abortion drug.

Risks Versus Benefits of RU-486
Why did RU-486 receive the "most favored drug" treatment? While there may be reasons for accelerating the approval of potentially life-saving or life-extending drugs, (such as in the case of AIDS treatments) no such reasons apply here. RU- 486 is clearly intended only for non-therapeutic, elective abortions. There is no health crisis demanding this treatment before its risks are properly established. Even as an elective treatment, patients already have a surgical option, which abortion proponents insist is already safe, effective, and inexpensive.

The rush to approve RU-486 is even more puzzling in light of the European experience with this drug. Ru-486 abortions have actually proven to cost the same as a surgical abortion, in part because it requires three or more visits to the clinic or hospital, more staff, and careful monitoring.

These precautions are necessary because of multiple side effects, including heavy bleeding, cardiac arrest, and frequent incomplete abortions. Even the Population Council anticipates that the rates for hemorrhaging, hospitalization, and surgical interventions to stop bleeding will each fall into the range of one to two percent. Projecting these rates on 1.5 million abortions per year, each of these "rare" complications would effect 15,000 to 30,000 women per year. Combined with the problem of cardiac arrest, which has resulted in the death of at least one woman and heart attacks for several others, these complication rates suggest that Roussel Uclaf's decision not to market the drug in the U.S. may reflect greater concern about litigious Americans than about pro-life Americans.

Nor is this procedure less stressful than surgical abortion. Most Ru-486 patients experience severe cramping, nausea, vomiting, and bleeding. Also, according to Roussel Uclaf spokesman Lester Hyman, "there is considerable pain attached to the procedure.

The emotional drain can be even greater. Rather than being "over with" in ten minutes, an RU-486 abortion takes days, sometimes a week or more. Even if the woman can ignore the nausea and pain, she is still faced with days of anxiety. She must worry about whether the procedure will work. (For up to one in ten women, it does not.) Plus, she will be inevitably plagued with questions about whether her fetus is alive or dead, or suffering at any particular moment. Finally, if the aborted human fetus is expelled into the woman's sanitary napkin--with its head, arms, and legs clearly intact--this self-incriminating sight may be burned into her memory for the rest of her life. In this last respect, the emotional impact of such chemically induced abortion may be even more pronounced than it is for women undergoing "blind" surgical abortions. It is no wonder, then, that even Edouard Sakiz, former president of Roussel Uclaf, admits that RU-486 abortions involve an "appalling psychological ordeal."

Because of these problems, the opposition to RU-486 includes not only the usual anti-abortion "suspects" but also some pro-abortion feminists. While the former believe it is a drug used for immoral purposes, the latter believe RU-486 is simply inferior to and more dangerous than surgical abortion.

Exporting Abortion
Despite all of these problems, population controllers and the U.S. government want RU-486 as quickly as possible and with minimal review. Why?

When properly administered, RU-486 is not safer, less expensive, or more private than surgical abortion. But it does have one advantage: it is more portable. Once it is granted FDA approval, it will be relatively easy to take into Third World countries where abortion is not legally available.

The U.S. government spends millions of dollars each year to "protect our national interests" through programs designed to suppress the "excess" population growth of developing countries. As part of this effort, the Clinton administration in particular has openly lobbied for expanding access to abortion in the Third World. But this latter objective is blocked by two obstacles. First, abortion is still illegal in many developing countries. Second, surgical abortion is more technically complicated; it requires more in the way of medical facilities and training. Despite its many flaws, RU-486 offers a way around both of these problems.

Since most developing countries do not have labs and agencies governing the approval of drugs, their import restrictions, if any, are often linked to approval by the U.S. FDA. "If a drug is safe enough for the Americans," they assume, "it must be safe enough for us." Even in countries where abortion is illegal, FDA approval is the key to exporting RU-486 for "other" medical purposes.

Once it is brought into developing countries, RU-486 can be easily transported and distributed. With a little training, it can be cheaply administered by midwives. To avoid trouble with the law, or the conscience of individual patients, these abortifacient treatments can be disguised under the euphemism of "menstrual regulation."

Perhaps most important of all, since the citizens of developing countries have far less recourse to civil courts than litigious Americans, those who manufacture and distribute RU-486 in these countries will be shielded from proper liability for the injuries that will inevitably occur.

For population controllers, this is a no-lose situation. When women begin to die because the drug was not "properly administered" their deaths will be blamed on the "archaic and patriarchal" laws that prevent easy access to "safe and legal" abortions.

In this way, population control "spin masters" can turn the expected complications of RU-486 to their own advantage. By driving up abortion rates -- and corresponding maternal deaths--population control zealots will be able to put more political pressure on Third World governments to legalize abortion in order to "make it safe."

In short, the rush for FDA approval of RU-486 is not about improving the welfare of American women. It is about exporting more abortions to the "backward" people of the Third World. It is about protecting our national interests--i.e. American dominance--by suppressing "excess births" in nations which might otherwise compete for the economic resources and political power which we now enjoy.

The FDA review of RU-486 has been a thinly veiled sham, its conclusion predetermined by a "national interest" in increasing abortion "options." For the Clinton regime, expanding the tools of population controllers--here and abroad-- is more important than protecting the health of individual women--here and abroad.

Conclusion
The record of U.S.-funded population control programs is not an encouraging one. These programs may be supported and funded by humanitarians, but it is sadly clear that they are often run by zealots who have little regard for individual rights, cultural and religious norms, or national sovereignty.

It is not only pro-lifers who should be concerned. All people of good will should look beyond the rhetoric and join in an effort to ensure the protection of individual freedom, patients' rights, and national sovereignty.

Reprinted from The Post-Abortion Review, 5(4), Fall 1997. Copyright 1997, The Elliot Institute.

"Would you like to put these accusations to me? Do you have any evidence? Of course not. That is why you would you rather just give out my IP adress and send slanderous, lying emails behind my back to discredit me in an underhanded way rather than take up the argument honestly."

I'm sure you'll do me the courtesy of explaining what the hell you're on about (or perhaps just what you're ON).

"Why do you want to discredit and isolate a real activist who is facing a lot of charges, harassment and probably prison?"

See comment above.

Why do I get the feeling I'm wasting my time even acknowledging your seriously disturbed posts, "!"?

Nigel