Why Societies Collapse

I can't help wondering what the Islander who chopped down the last palm tree said as he or she did it. Was he saying, 'What about our jobs? Do we care more for trees than for our jobs, of us loggers?' Or maybe he was saying, 'What about my private property rights? Get the big government of the chiefs off my back.' Or maybe he was saying, 'You're predicting environmental disaster, but your environmental models are untested, we need more research before we can take action.' Or perhaps he was saying, 'Don't worry, technology will solve all our problems.'

Or maybe he was saying that the Murray-Darling Basin can be saved without spending any money. Or that the Kyoto Protocol threatens Australia's economy. Or that Iraq really, really truly did have weapons of mass destruction ready to fire in 45 minutes. Or that gross violations of human rights by the Indonesian state are evil in East Timor but permissible in Aceh and West Papua?

People, as Jared Diamond mentions, love drawing comparisons between Easter Islands catastrophic history and our own. There's one major difference. We can ask if the rulers of Easter Island at least thought about where the next tree was coming from, but their ecological science must have been fairly limited. Ours is not. If we cut down our last metaphorical tree it will be because our leaders refuse the science, not because they lack it.

Sadly, the recent inability of governments to receive or promulgate the truth suggests that our leaders' ingenuousness is just as dangerous as the Easter Islanders' ignorance.

Address by The Honourable Sir William Deane, 29 May 2003

At the outset, I acknowledge the traditional custodians on whose ancestral land Queensland's first University stands.

It is now approaching eight years since I retired from the Bench. In the time since then I have effectively ceased to be a lawyer. Consequently, I do not feel qualified to offer any really worthwhile professional advice to those of you who are setting out on legal careers. The most I can do is to urge you to be true to your own personal principles and to the ethical standards which are essential to the proper practice and administration of law in this country. That having been said, I venture to share a few thoughts with you about the nation which will be increasingly reliant on the leadership of people like yourselves as it passes through its third half century.

Perhaps the most significant thing about our country that my years as Governor-General brought home to Helen and me is the importance, particularly in this modern turbulent world, of maintaining the mutual respect and acceptance which lie at the heart of our Australian multiculturalism. One sometimes hears well-intentioned suggestions that multiculturalism is divisive. I respectfully disagree. I'm convinced that it is our multiculturalism which has made possible our national unity notwithstanding that we Australians directly or indirectly come from all the regions, races, cultures and religions of the world.
For me, multiculturalism means inclusiveness not division. It's enabled us to blend the many into a pretty harmonious whole without bringing to this new land old hatreds, old prejudices and old conflicts. It is our multiculturalism in that sense which inspires and sustains our modern Australia.

Our multiculturalism is not, of course, the only thing of which Australians should be justly proud. There is our land itself - this matchless continent, its islands, its surrounding seas. There is the commitment to democratic government under the rule of law which we have maintained tenaciously in war and in peace. Very few other nations can look back on more than a century of democratic rule unbroken by dictatorship of the left or right, civil war, military coup or conquest. And there are all the achievements of our Australian people who, as the preamble to our Constitution makes plain, are our nation. All that they are; all that they have been; and all that they have done.

Let me add a few words about what I see as the principal challenges which our country faces in the years ahead. There is the challenge to reverse the damage we have done to our land, its rivers and its coasts, and to make good our failure as a nation to do enough to help safeguard the world environment for future generations. There is the challenge to face up to the completely unacceptable yet growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in this the land of the so-called fair go for all. For the plight of the disadvantaged even in affluent Australia is an overwhelming problem which no one of us who has a voice to speak or the means to help can in conscience ignore. And of course there is the challenge to achieve true and lasting reconciliation between our indigenous peoples and the nation of which they are such a vital part.

There is one challenge for the future leaders of our nation which I would particularly emphasize in this gathering. It is the challenge of justice and truth. The challenge never to be indifferent in the face of injustice or falsehood. It encompasses the challenge to advance truth and human dignity rather than to seek advantage by inflaming ugly prejudice and intolerance. Who of us will easily forget the untruths about children overboard? Or the abuse of the basic rights of innocent children by incarceration behind Woomera's razor wire? Or the denial of the fundamental responsibility of a democratic government to seek to safeguard the human rights of all its citizens, including the unpopular and the alleged wrongdoer, in the case of the two Australians indefinitely caged, without legal charge or process, in a Guant�namo Bay jail? Some may think that these and other similar unpleasant things should be left unmentioned. But if our coming generation of leaders refuses to honestly confront the denial of truth or responsibility which they reflect, our nation will surely be in peril of losing its way in the years ahead.

Finally, I sincerely thank the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor, and all the members of this great University for the honour done me by the conferral of the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. I am truly delighted to be admitted to your company. I also offer my sincere congratulations to all my fellow graduates. Or should I say 'classmates'? May all your plans be successful, all your ambitions be fulfilled and all your dreams become reality

I found this morning's press conferences sad. Neither prospective opposition leader found any of the issues in this address important to mention. That's very sad.

Proof of WMD is Bush trailer trash

On March 30 on US television, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said of the prohibited weapons: "We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

Now we know that the Bush administration know where the weapons are, then why don't they just produce them? Or was the Baghdad and Tikrit statement untrue? And if so why should we believe the rest of the WMD tale?

Maybe the Rumsfeld directions for east, west, south and north somewhat should be altered to: "Second to the right, and then straight on till morning."?

Matrix Preloaded: Gulf War II

Not only does this miss the entire point of the Matrix films, but it fundamentally rewrites what would otherwise be a telling diagnosis of the problem. There can be no reality once the possibility of its manufacture overwhelms and surpasses reality's innate capacity to provide truth. Everything now comes with its antecedent, and every fact situates itself within a narrative always already adapted to feed the power of the simulation. Blair and Bush, as malevolent as their practices have been, may not be orchestrating these practices to the extent that we would like to believe. I mean it would be comforting to think that if we could just remove these power-hungry and militaristic leaders from their place atop the world stage that the world would be a better place. It might be, and I'm all for their removal, but it would be a mistake to view that removal, and the "truth" of their warmongering as a panacea. Both leaders, and the subordinates that support (and/or control) them are products of particular ways of being-in-the-world, and foreign policy will continue to reflect the belief in the positivity of its intelligence, just as Bush will continue to declare that the truth will (someday/inevitably) be found about Iraqi WMD. The continual modernist refrain - that the truth is out there, even as we trust no one - creates a self-fulfilling mythos. We don't know it, you cannot know it, but we will one day know it. And given the absolutely necessity of knowing it - of getting the facts! - we must keep looking for it. It's a recipe for disaster, over and over and over again.

A must-read.

delenda est New Zealand!
Those sneaky swine across the Tasman, ruled as they are by a brutal woman in trousers, are developing a WMD capacity. We cannot wait! Time is pressing! This threat must be eliminated! Resistance is futile!

So, in order to prove my case, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and build a cruise missile in my own garage, on a budget of just US$5,000.

I like to think of this project as the military version of "Junkyard Wars".

Obviously the goal of this website is not to provide terrorists or other nefarious types with the plans for a working cruise missile but to prove the point that nations need to be prepared for this type of sophisticated attack from within their own borders.

A detailed level of documentation will be provided to those who qualify and are willing to pay a small subscription for full access to the project diary.

snark of the week

Whatever, the game is certainly joined and the ALP will be in paralysis until it's run it's course - and "running it's course" might not be just a simple matter of a leadership vote. Crean is the most uninspired ALP leader since Arthur Calwell.

He is the compromised, dynastic scion embodiment of a faction-ridden, apparatchik politics which produces a leader on the basis of the sum total of his least negative qualities, rather than his most positive, and then querulously chides the electorate for it's inability to appreciate him.

Wow. It's awhile since I've tasted vitriol that good. It's also good to see Troppo Armadillo is back to life.

snark of the week
Robin Cook, former UK foreign secretary and home secretary,answering question from MSNBC:

Question: Isn?t it possible that Saddam Hussein ordered their destruction, as U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has suggested?
Cook:�No. I don?t think it?s even remotely possible. I just cannot follow the Rumsfeld logic; that watching CNN and seeing the American build-up Saddam said to his generals, ?It?s obvious that the U.S. is going to invade; we had better destroy our biggest weapons, so that when I am toppled there might be some very difficult questions for Donald Rumsfeld to answer.?

Iraq's arms: Hill raises new doubts

[Defence Minister] Senator Hill said it was important for Australians' confidence that "the full story is told".

"On the basis of what we understood, the action was the right action to take," he said in Singapore. "If it turns out there were flaws in what we understood, then I think we ought to say there were flaws. But it's too early to say that.

"We do need to establish the full picture because it's important as we move on to learn all that there is to learn from this experience, including the intelligence side."

Australia had relied mainly on US and British intelligence pointing to the stockpiling and continued development of weapons of mass destruction. Despite some differences in emphasis, analysis of that information by government agencies had "all pointed in the one direction".

"I'm quite comfortable that we made the right decision on the basis of the information that was available to us. In relation to intelligence, when you are dealing with a regime of deception such as Saddam Hussein's, it's not just black and white; you can't get absolutes. You've got to make a decision on the basis of the best information available and this was not a hasty decision."

An unnamed intelligence official has told the BBC that a vital claim in a dossier released by the British Government last September - that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes of an order - was inserted on the instructions of officials in the office of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

Pressure on Britain intensified at a gathering of world leaders in St Petersburg, where Germany's Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, said: "I made it very clear that if there were no weapons of mass destruction then he, Tony Blair, should admit he has misused intelligence reports and has misled world opinion."

At the same time, the senior US marine officer in Iraq, Lieutenant- General James Conway, has conceded that intelligence reports that chemical weapons had been deployed around Baghdad before the war were wrong.

Senator Hill said 12 Australians with the weapons investigators in Iraq would eventually reveal the truth about weapons programs, and that information should be made public.

"I actually think that it's important for public confidence that the full story is told, even if it leads to a debate as to whether the intelligence was good enough or not. In terms of public confidence it needs to be open and frank."

I think this is important because it kills the silly theory that the lies don't matter because the alliance is all-important. I wonder what popular support for the alliance will be if the lies are confirmed as a matter of public record? I wonder also how far we can trust US intelligence if they are prepared to give us inaccurate information as persuasion to follow them into a war?

Giant tree destroyed by fire
An independent report has confirmed Australian environmentalists' claims that fire has devastated Australia's tallest tree on the island of Tasmania.

Standing at 260 feet (79m) the massive hardwood, known as El Grande, stood unharmed by man for almost four centuries.

Forestry officials in the southern Australian state have admitted a routine burn-off went out of control.

But environmentalists have accused the authorities of being unfit to protect one of the world's most diverse rainforests.

Forestry Tasmania should do a better job of protecting the Huon pine..

If you really want to know, ask a blogger

First, there is the contempt for 'amateur' writers, endemic in professional journalism. Hacks are always astonished by anyone who writes for no pay, so upwards of half a million such amateurs now publishing blogs leaves the pros speechless. It also leads them to deride blogs as an epidemic of vanity publishing rather than the glorious outbreak of free expression it actually represents.

Second is the assumption that anything written by an amateur is, by definition, worthless. Yet journalism has always been, as Northcliffe observed, 'the art of explaining to others that which one does not oneself understand'.

In fact, when it comes to many topics in which I have a professional interest, I would sooner pay attention to particular blogs than to anything published in Big Media - including the venerable New York Times. This is not necessarily because journalists are idiots; it's just that serious subjects are complicated and hacks have neither the training nor the time to reach a sophisticated understanding of them - which is why much journalistic coverage is inevitably superficial and often misleading, and why so many blogs are thoughtful and accurate by comparison.

Third, there is the problem - not often touched upon in the New York Times, by the way - that many controversial public issues are ignored by Big Media for the simple reason that the ideological and commercial interests of their proprietors preclude it.

I'm amused that the journalistic community, so committed to globalisation and market forces, is terrified of having to compete in a market of ideas.

audio link to the Deane speech

Former Governor-General Sir William Deane has launched a scathing attack on the Federal Government in a speech at the University of Queensland.

Sir William was speaking after receiving an honorary doctorate at UQ's Faculty of Business, Economics and Law.

He criticised the Government over the "children overboard" affair and the holding of minors at the Woomera detention centre. He said future leaders should avoid seeking advantage by "inflaming ugly prejudice and intolerance".

Sir William also criticised the Government for its approach towards the two Australian men being held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"The fundamental responsibility of a democratic government to seek to safeguard the human rights of all its citizens, including the unpopular and the alleged wrongdoer, in the case of two Australians indefinitely caged without legal charge or process," he said.

Sir William, who was Australia?s 22nd Governor-General from 1996 to 2001, was presented with a Doctor of Laws honoris causa in recognition of his distinguished career and his outstanding contribution to Australia in his role as Governor-General.

Prime Minister John Howard rejected any suggestion that the Government inflames prejudice.

About the only thing to be said in defence of the policy of despair is that Labor is also in this muck up to the armpits. Let us not forget that Labor supported the Border Protection Act 2001 which violates both Australia's obligations at international law and our commitment to human rights.

One reason I believe we need an enforceable bill of rights is that somehow Parliament keeps forgetting that there are absolute standards which should not be breached.

Krugman on waggy dog stories

It's now also clear that George W. Bush had no intention of reaching a diplomatic solution. According to The Financial Times, White House sources confirm that the decision to go to war was reached in December: "A tin-pot dictator was mocking the president. It provoked a sense of anger inside the White House," a source told the newspaper.

Administration officials are now playing down the whole W.M.D. issue. Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, recently told Vanity Fair that the decision to emphasize W.M.D.'s had been taken for "bureaucratic reasons . . . because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." But it was the W.M.D. issue that stampeded the Senate into giving Mr. Bush carte blanche to wage war.

For the time being, the public doesn't seem to care ? or even want to know. A new poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes finds that 41 percent of Americans either believe that W.M.D.'s have been found, or aren't sure. The program's director suggests that "some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance." And three-quarters of the public thinks that President Bush showed strong leadership on Iraq.

So what's the problem? Wars fought to deal with imaginary threats have real consequences. Just as war critics feared, Al Qaeda has been strengthened by the war. Iraq is in chaos, with a rising death toll among American soldiers: "We have reports of skirmishes throughout the central region," a Pentagon official told The Los Angeles Times.

Meanwhile, the administration has just derived considerable political advantage from a war waged on false premises. At best, that sets a very bad precedent. At worst. . . . "You want to win this election, you better change the subject. You wanna change this subject, you better have a war," explains Robert DeNiro's political operative in "Wag the Dog." "It's show business."

A final note: Showtime is filming a docudrama about Sept. 11. The producer is a White House insider, working in close consultation with Karl Rove. The script shows Mr. Bush as decisive and eloquent. "In this movie," The Globe and Mail reports, "Mr. Bush delivers long, stirring speeches that immediately become policy." And we can be sure that the script doesn't mention the bogus story about a threat to Air Force One that the White House floated to explain Mr. Bush's movements on the day of the attack. Hey, it's show business.

snark of the week
From Burningbird

Being an American does not mean I live in fast food outlets, drink only Starbuck's coffee, watch only "Real TV", have an American flag tattooed on my butt, listen to breasty-boppers, think that spam in a can is real gourmet food, get my news from Fox, drive an SUV bigger than the QE2, only watch Spielberg movies, only read comic books, and only believe God is looking out for us because we are the Chosen People. So next time you throw Bush in my face as a defining argument, for no other reason then I am an American and have to live with him as President, know that I'll take your email address and register it at every major porn web site that I can find.

And then I'll submit it to every conservative American political organization within these 50 U-ni-ted States.

Can I get an "Amen" brothers and sisters?

Amen.

Link courtesy of ReachM High Cowboy Network Noose

Penmon

Someplace else they have a different understanding
And someplace else they watch the lava meet the sea
And in some far strange place they talk in ways I've never known
But my place, I don?t know where that might be

Someplace else the grass is looking cleaner
And they drink and they dance, 'cause every day is Mardi Gras
And they make love and they live life and they're jumping,
They're singing in ways I've never known
But my place, well it's laughing back at me

Somewhere else they know they're got the true religion
And in some small strange place they've got stories old and wise
And their land it is strong, it's fresh and alive
And the wind off the ocean belts down on the shore
But my place, well it's not my place at all

And someplace else, it's over the sea,
and it's up past the mountains,
it's something to see.

From Circus by Not Drowning Waving

August 2004?
Back in January a friend of mine from the US emailed that he believed the Iraq crisis would be kept alive until the next presidential election. I remember thinking when the tanks rolled that at least the Bush administration was not guilty of that level of breathtaking cynicism.

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

There is an unpleasant sense of d�j� vu in Tehran. In 2001, Iran helped the US oust the Taliban in Afghanistan. But not long thereafter, it was lumped into President Bush's "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea for allegedly pursuing nuclear weapons and sponsoring terrorism.

Tehran then remained neutral in the Iraq war, but welcomed Saddam Hussein's overthrow and sealed its border to prevent the escape of senior Iraqi officials.

Even so, increasingly hostile rhetoric emerged from Washington, with the Pentagon talking of covert efforts to "destabilize" the Islamic Republic in the hope of igniting a popular uprising.

It is, according to European diplomats and Iranian analysts, a "very crude" approach that could backfire by encouraging rival factions in Iran to close ranks against an external threat, effectively bolstering the very hard-liners in Tehran Washington hopes to undermine.

You cannot detect the Bush administration's policy by watching their lips. You can watch what they do. I am fast approaching a point where I believe that strengthening the Iranian hard-liners (as their current policy will surely do) is no accident. It took 14 months from the axis of evil speech to the invasion of Iraq. A similar timetable would mean they roll out their new product in August 2004.

My cynical friend from Arizona may have been right.

What a tangled web we weave
Read the quotes. Consider the latest drivel from Rumsfeld. If, as Rumsfeld now claims, the WMDs were destroyed before the war then Iraq had obeyed Resolution 1441 which we ostensibly fought to enforce. Even when these people invent a new lie to cover an old lie they cannot get it right. And in any case, once they had conquered Iraq, did these people show any sign of a real fear of WMDs? If they really thought this vast arsenal existed why did they leave nuclear installations untouched and unguarded for weeks?

Link courtesy of This is not a blog.

crosstime blogs
I am reading the excellent blogs by Julius Caesar and Samuel Pepys. I'd always had my suspicions about Caesar. His prose always struck me as too good not to have been written on a word processor. I'm not entirely sure why Caesar is using an inferior translator who thinks the genitive case of Caesar is Caesari not Caesaris. So there.

Saudi Arabia, Morocco Arrest Attack 'Masterminds'

Wednesday said they had arrested the alleged masterminds of bombings earlier this month that killed 77 people and sparked fresh fears al Qaeda had regrouped for more attacks.

Saudi Arabia said five people wanted in the May 12 bombings of three expatriate housing compounds in Riyadh were arrested in the Muslim holy city of Medina.

"We believe that one of them is a main mastermind of the blasts," a Saudi source told Reuters without giving further details.

The daily Okaz reported the five were arrested at an Internet cafe and the alleged mastermind was a Saudi who was among 19 men wanted by authorities on terrorism charges after a shoot-out with police in the capital this month.

After the Bali bombing (despite the prime minister's brief effort to revive the Howard doctrine of Australia as deputy sheriff) the Indonesian and Australian police launched a conventional criminal investigation. The alleged bombers are now on trial. Apparently the Moroccan and Saudi police are having similar success.

A War on Terror allows lots of photo ops and lots of chances to demonise political opponents. Somehow I get the feeling that conventional police work would give a lot less legroom for political manipulation. Admitting that 11 September was a police, security and intelligence failure would also point the spotlight right back at those responsible for predicting and preventing terrorist attacks.

The Amnesty annual report argues that the War on Terror, by making national security the sole test of any governmental action, has significantly reduced human rights.

Human rights activists continue to face new challenges. The war on Iraq has dominated the international agenda, diverting attention from other vital human rights issues. "Forgotten" conflicts have taken a heavy toll on human rights and human lives ? in C�te d'Ivoire, Colombia, Burundi, Chechnya and Nepal.

"Iraq and Israel and the Occupied Territories are in the news ? Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo is not, despite the imminent threat of genocide, said Irene Khan, Amnesty International's Secretary General. "Drawing attention to 'hidden' crises, protecting the rights of the 'forgotten victims' is the biggest challenge we face today."

Governments have spent billions to strengthen national security and the "war on terror". Yet for millions of people, the real sources of insecurity are corruption, repression, discrimination, extreme poverty and preventable diseases.

I wonder why we're conducting a big-W War and not a conventional criminal investigation?

Amnesty International Annual Report

The treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees, and other immigration and border control issues, generated vigorous public debate on human rights. Government statements linked asylum-seekers with criminals, economic opportunists and "terrorists". Former Chief Justice Gerard Brennan commented: "The wretched isolation of the asylum-seekers in Woomera, in Nauru and in Manus Island, has left this country divided, many Australians accepting the necessity for inhuman treatment as the price to be paid for maintaining our immigration policies and our boundaries."

The Australian navy and coast watch continued operations off the coast to monitor and intercept vessels carrying asylum-seekers. A Senate inquiry found evidence, contrary to government claims, that in 2001 an overcrowded boat carrying Middle Eastern asylum-seekers had sunk inside waters patrolled by Australian military and coast watch forces, killing 353 people.

I've made it clear that I think we could maintain our policies and protect our borders without abandoning the national commitment to human rights. Expect lots of exceptionalist spin from the government.

Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have called for a rapid reaction force to be sent to the DR Congo.

The United Nations Observation Mission in Congo (MONUC) with some 700 troops in Bunia has been completely overwhelmed and has been unable to adequately protect civilians and help restore calm to this volatile region. On 12 May, the Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, Mr. Guehenno warned that "without decisive action there could be a bloodbath in the region." The troop reinforcements from Bangladesh are not due to arrive for a couple of months, which means that MONUC will be unable to respond adequately to events in the short term.

We are aware that intensive efforts are underway internationally to mobilize a rapid reaction force. The UN Security Council is currently discussing the characteristics and mandate of a possible force to be sent by one or more UN member states to the DRC to help calm the fighting and to protect civilians, as requested by the UN Secretary-General. Given the urgency of the situation, we urge you to ensure a rapid reaction force is deployed immediately in Bunia, pending an agreement by the Security Council on the expansion and strengthening of MONUC's mandate, and the respective deployment of its reinforced troops.

It is of utmost importance that any military action should be undertaken with full respect for international human rights and humanitarian law. The rapid reaction force should have a robust mandate to: 1) ensure the maintenance of law and order to protect civilians in Bunia, and to try to locate and protect those civilians who have fled outside the town, progressively establishing a presence beyond Bunia to ensure civilians are protected throughout the region; and 2) to help ensure that humanitarian assistance can reach civilian populations in need.

Australia's breaches, as reported by Four Corners, are grave. The government's exceptionalist claims should not stop us opposing those breaches in our country. That should never stop us paying attention to graver crises in human rights elsewhere in the world.

weapons of mass deduction
From The Australian:

US bills Australia for Iraq bombs
AUSTRALIA is to be billed several million dollars by the United States for bombs dropped on Iraq.

Weeks after George W. Bush's public thank you to John Howard, the bills are due to arrive ? including the cost of US food eaten by some Diggers.

Australia joined the President's "coalition of the willing" when the US was desperate for international support.

The Australian Defence Force is now being asked to share the costs for its part in toppling Saddam Hussein under the "user-pays" principle of modern warfare.

Australian jet fighters fired a number of US laser-guided bombs ? each worth a five-figure sum.

The F/A-18 Hornets flew 350 combat missions, dropping 122 precision-guided weapons.

I suggest we pay up quickly. A little matter like an alliance obviously makes no difference when it comes to cash. Besides, after Iraq, we don't want to find out what Pentagon debt recovery procedures are like.