Australians Being Massacred Shouldn’t Bother Us More Than Palestinians Being Massacred
Caitlin Johnstone, 16 Dec 25, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/australians-being-massacred-shouldnt?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=181738154&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
On March 16 of this year, Reuters published an article titled “Israeli strikes kill 15 people in Gaza over past day, Palestinian medics say”.
Does anyone remember the 15 Palestinians who died on March 16, 2025?
Does that day stand out in anyone’s memory as particularly significant in terms of mass murder?
No?
Same here.
I honestly can’t remember it at all. This would have been during the tail end of the first fake “ceasefire”, a couple of days before Trump signed off on Israel resuming its large-scale bombing operations in Gaza, so this wasn’t one of those days with huge massacres and staggering death tolls. It doesn’t exactly stand out in the memory.
I have no idea who those people were. I don’t know their names. I never saw their pictures flashing across my news feed. I never saw any western officials denouncing their deaths, or media institutions giving wall-to-wall coverage to the news of their killing. So I don’t remember them.
I saw a tweet from Aaron Maté yesterday:
“15 civilians were killed in the massacre targeting Sydney’s Jewish community. A day in which Israel massacres 15 Palestinian civilians in Gaza would be at the low end of the average in 2+ years of genocide.
“Israel’s atrocities and the impunity they receive are undoubtedly the number one driver of anti-Semitism worldwide. And to show how little Israel and its apologists care about anti-Semitism, many are exploiting the Sydney massacre to justify Israel’s rejection of a Palestinian state; baselessly blame Iran; and demand more censorship of anti-genocide protests.”
Indeed, the worst people on earth are using the Bondi Beach shooting to argue for crackdowns on free speech and freedom of assembly to silence Israel’s critics online and on the streets, in Australia and throughout the western world. And when 15 Palestinians were killed by Israel on March 16, the west barely noticed.
I don’t remember the 15 Palestinians who died during that 24-hour period in mid-March, but I will always remember the Bondi Beach shooting. Someone could mention it to me thirty years from now and I’ll know exactly what they’re talking about. My society made an infinitely bigger deal about the deaths of 15 westerners in Sydney, Australia than the deaths of 15 Palestinians in Gaza, so it will always stick in my memory.
Hell, I can’t blame it all on society; if I’m honest I made a much bigger deal about it myself. I’ve felt sick thinking about the shooting ever since it happened, partly because I know it’s going to be used to roll out authoritarian measures and stomp out free speech in my country, but also partly because I’ve felt so bad for those who died and their loved ones. Even after spending two years denouncing the way western society normalizes the murder of Arabs and places more importance on western lives than Palestinian lives, I’m still basically doing the same thing myself. I’m a damn hypocrite.
I wasn’t born this way. This was learned behavior. If I had my slate cleaned and could see the world through fresh eyes it would never occur to me that I and my society would ever see 15 people being murdered in Australia as more significant than 15 people being murdered in Palestine. I would expect them to be viewed as exactly as terrible.
And they should be. Palestinians don’t love their families any less than Australians do. Australian lives aren’t any more significant or valuable than Palestinian lives. There is no valid reason for the world to have focused any less on the 15 people who were killed in Gaza on March 16 than on the 15 people who were murdered on Bondi Beach. But it did.
Sunday was an awful, dark day. Hundreds of lives have been directly devastated by this tragedy, thousands more indirectly, and in some ways the nation as a whole has been changed. The trauma will reverberate in the victim’s families for generations. The sorrow is palpable and ubiquitous. It’s everywhere; in the streets, at the supermarket. There is catastrophe in the air, and people around the world are feeling it.
And this is appropriate. This is what 15 deaths ought to feel like. This is what it feels like when you see mass murder inflicted upon a population whose murder hasn’t become normalized for you.
That’s all I’ve got to offer right now. Just the humble suggestion that every massacre of Palestinians should shake the earth just as much as the Bondi massacre has. Every death toll out of Gaza should hit us just as hard as the death toll out of Sydney did. Feel how hard this hits, and then translate it to the people of Gaza. This is happening there every single day.
In trying to get people to care about warmongering and imperialism what we’re really trying to do is get people to widen their circle of compassion to the furthest extent possible. To extend their care for the people around them to include caring about violence and abuse against people even on the other side of the world, who might not look and speak and live as they do. Maybe even extending it so far as caring about the non-human organisms who share our planet with us.
As Einstein wrote in a condolence letter toward the end of his life,
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
Humanity won’t survive into the distant future unless we grow into a conscious species, and part of that growth will necessarily include widening our circles of compassion to include our fellow beings around the world. If we can’t do that, we’re not going to make it. We’re too destructive. We hurt each other and our environment too much. We destroy everything around us trying to shore up wealth and resources for ourselves, and it simply is not sustainable. It’ll get us all killed eventually.
We’ve got to become better. We’ve got to become more caring. More emotionally intelligent. Less susceptible to the manipulations of propaganda. A society driven by truth and compassion rather than lies and the pursuit of profit.
That’s the only way we’re making it out of this awkward adolescent transition stage with these large, capable brains still wound up in vestigial evolutionary fear-based conditioning. That’s the only way we achieve our true potential and build a healthy world together.
The AIJAC propaganda machine
May 27, 2024: The AIM Network, By Evan Jones
The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) is a constant presence in Australia’s mainstream media. Its predominant role is to defend the state of Israel come hell or high water.
Whenever someone appears in the media criticising Israel and/or supporting the Palestinian cause, AIJAC personnel pop up to set the reader straight. AIJAC complains about media bias regarding Israel/Palestine but it is perennially in the reader’s face. The AIJAC’s concept of balance involves no criticism of Israel nor pro-Palestinian coverage whatsoever.
AIJAC was formed in 1997 from a merger of the Australian Institute of Jewish Affairs and Australia-Israel Publications (edited by a certain Michael Danby). The emphasis of the two bodies appears to have been, respectively, on the Australian Jewish community and on Israel. The merged body’s emphasis appears to reside overwhelmingly in the unqualified defence of Israel – save for its active interest in opposing the attempted dilution of the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act (c/f Mathew Dunckley, Australian Financial Review, 9 November 2013).
The only area where AIJAC personnel have not rallied stridently to any Israeli action, no matter how heinous, is the Netanyahu Coalition government’s 2023 attempt to rein in the autonomy of Israel’s Supreme Court. Here, the public reaction turns to muffled incoherence.
AIJAC has been pathologically preoccupied with Iran and its nuclear program (e.g. Rubenstein, Australian Financial Review, 20 May 2005; AFR, 26 August 2008). Granted, Iran is an odious regime, but if Israel didn’t have a nuclear arsenal (which it acquired surreptitiously) would Iran be bothered to acquire its own? AIJAC supported US President Trump’s May 2018 abandonment of the 2015 JCPOA deal, claiming that Iran was secretly not adhering to the terms. All the major players claim the contrary.
AIJAC must be well resourced, because it rails against omnipresent ‘misinformation’ on and ‘malevolence’ towards Israel and, by its reckoning, such is to be found under every rock.
Some instances?
- AIJAC (and its predecessor) hates the ABC. The lobby was especially furious when the unbowed Macquarie University’s Middle East expert Robert Springborg gave his expert opinions there. Australia-Israel Publications gave then Prime Minister Bob Hawke (ardent Israel-lover) a dossier on Springborg who used it to attack ABC management for its coverage of the Gulf War (Tom Burton, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 February 1991).
- Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician, disclosed details (out of conviction) of Israel’s nuclear program to the media in 1986. Soon kidnapped by Mossad, he has been deprived of his liberty ever since, inside and outside prison. AIJAC considers Vanunu to be a traitor, deserving of his life-long punishment (Letter, David Faktor, The Australian, 28 April 1998).
- The International Court of Justice and the UN General Assembly decreed that the Israeli wall, built on Occupied Palestinian land, was illegal. AIJAC claim that the fence (sic) is a great idea because it has reduced the incidences of terrorism (Colin Rubenstein, Age, 15 July 2004). Rubenstein cares not to inquire into the violent Israeli origins of the violent Second Intifada
- Sometime Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer reminded AFR readers (Letter, AFR, 14 July 2006) of the knowing bombing and strafing by Israeli aircraft of the US intelligence ship USS Liberty, June 1967. Ted Lapkin (Letter, 17 July 2006) claimed that a Navy inquiry (‘conclusive and easily accessed’) concluded that the attack ‘was an unfortunate case of wartime friendly fire’, and that Fischer had resurrected ‘this long discredited calumny’. Survivors of the attack know that the truth is otherwise. Two letters from Greg O’Connor (AFR, 19 & 24 July 2006) provide authoritative sources providing evidence for a wilful massacre.
A ‘coalition of prominent Australian Jews … will challenge what it sees as extreme pro-Israeli bias among Jews in Australia’ in creating a new group, Independent Australian Jewish Voices (Ben Cubby, SMH, 6 March 2007). AIJAC’s Colin Rubenstein said the group was ‘dangerous and unrepresentative’. ‘They’re simply using their Jewish ethnic background’, he said. AIJAC’s Australian Jewish News reported the then visiting British Zionist author Melanie Phillips as labelling them ‘Jews for Genocide’.
‘Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence described Israel as both Jewish and democratic while insisting all minorities have full and equal rights. … Contrary to false claims that Israel is considering instituting some sort of overt legal discrimination against Arab Israelis, this would be absolutely forbidden by Israeli constitutional law (as embodied by Israel’s Declaration of Independence, Basic Laws, and court precedents).’ (Ted Lapkin, SMH, 28 October 2010) Lapkin’s claims regarding the institutionalisation of non-discrimination in ‘Israeli constitutional law’ (Israel has no written Constitution) is ludicrous. Israel was created explicitly as an apartheid state (c/f Uri Davis, Apartheid Israel, 2003) and it remains so.
The distinguished retired South African (Jewish) judge Richard Goldstone was appointed to head the UN Fact Finding Mission on the [2008-09] Gaza Conflict. The Report was damning of the IDF and Hamas both, but especially of the Israeli force’s wanton killing of civilians. Goldstone faced extraordinary criticism and threats from Israel and its friends, with Goldstone sadly issuing a mea culpa for his previous honesty.
Rubenstein remained unrepentant of Goldstone’s confession under mental torture and threats of excommunication. Claimed Rubenstein: ‘Probably no document in the recent history of the Arab-Israeli conflict has done more damage to the reputation of Israel, nor contributed more to the international campaign to boycott and delegitimise it, than the Goldstone report. … Unfortunately, Goldstone’s change of heart cannot undo the massive, irreparable damage he and his co-commissioners have inflicted through their report. This damage is not only to Israel’s reputation but also to Middle East peace prospects, and to the very notion of a responsible and universal system of international law.’ (Rubenstein, The Australian, 12 April 2011)
AIJAC opposes the UN recognition of Palestinian statehood (e.g. Rubenstein, Age, 22 August 2011, Leibler, Age, 17 November 2011, Gartrell, SMH, 22 February 2017, James Massola & Matthew Knott, Age, 9 August 2023). Such recognition (citing Rubenstein) can only ‘reward bad behaviour and reinforce Palestinian intransigence’ (2017) and ‘will make it extremely difficult for Australia to present itself as a credible and effective advocate for a two-state peace … [as such it] is detrimental to Australia’s national interests’ (2023). Of which, more below.‘
Yet Lyons vilifies us as holding extremely hard-line positions on Israel.’ (Rubenstein, Australian, 12 March 2014) John Lyons is of course correct. Lyons, then Australian journalist, fronted a ABC Four Corners program, ‘Stone Cold Justice’, 10 February 2014, on Israel’s abusive treatment of Palestinian children. Fellow Murdoch columnist, the Israelophile Greg Sheridan (Australian, 1 March 2014), joined the attack against Lyons…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Melissa Parke was a federal Labor MP during 2007-16. Parke was primed to contest a Liberal-held seat in 2019 and she made a speech bitterly criticising Israel. Among other things Parke noted that (self-evident) Israel’s ‘influence in our political system and foreign policy is substantial’. AIJAC’s Colin Rubenstein claimed that Parke’s comments ‘are among the most extreme examples of anti-Israel rhetoric ever voiced in Australia’, being ‘outrageous, inflammatory’, and that they were representative of ‘the worst Israel haters’. Rubenstein further claimed that Parke’s speech was ‘nothing more than a laundry list of slanders, including discredited conspiracy theories and downright falsification’, accusing the Labor Party in her endorsement of ‘turn[ing] a blind eye towards fanatics and conspiracy theorists in their ranks’ (Paige Taylor, The Australian, 13 April 2019; James Campbell, Melbourne Herald-Sun, 13 April 2019).
Parke sued Rubenstein. In April 2021, the parties settled, Rubenstein formally apologising and withdrawing his remarks. Parke is a human rights lawyer with boots on the ground experience in numerous conflict zones, including Gaza; she speaks from close experience………………………………………………………………………………….
A bucketload of politicians and journalists/editors are jetted to Israel on a regular basis. Rubenstein claims that the AIJAC-funded trips are necessary ‘to help [Australians] understand the complexity of the Middle East’ (Phillip Hudson, SMH, 28 March 2009). Ah yes, and what a profitable investment. A conga line of journalists and others, post visit, write up their understanding of Israel in lily-white terms. The ‘complexity’ has disappeared, and with it the unwholesome character of Israel as an apartheid state. Witness: Michael Stutchbury (AFR, 20 November 2013); David King (Australian, 23 November 2013); Aaron Patrick (AFR, 27 November 2015); Sharri Markson (Australian, 2 February 2016); Geoff Chambers (Australian, 9 March 2024); Gideon Haigh – of all people! (AFR, 26 April 2024).
AIJAC’s decades-long pronouncements highlight that its personnel dwell in a parallel universe. It is a record of high-class charlatanry. How can AIJAC personnel, all well-educated, construct a fabulous version of a subject on which they devote their waking hours? The media has been generally happy to oblige AIJAC’s threadbare homilies.
Ironically, AIJAC complains about the Nine papers (Age, Sydney Morning Herald) not publishing one of its letters. It was sent in response to a column by Marc Purcell, CEO Australian Council for International Development (Age/SMH, 18 April 2024). Purcell claims that: ‘The evidence that the Israeli government is deliberately starving civilians in Gaza is unequivocal’. Evidence of media bias against Israel defenders? Rather, the denying of Israel’s Gazan starvation strategy (a longstanding affair) may have been too much for the normally acquiescent letters editors to bear.
No doubt, undaunted, AIJAC will continue to flood Australia’s ‘quality’ press with its defence of the indefensible.
This article was originally published on Pearls and Irritations and has been republished with permission. https://theaimn.com/the-aijac-propaganda-machine/—
Pine Gap’s role in China–US arms race makes Australia a target
Rakesh, April 15, 2022 https://community99.com/pine-gaps-role-in-the-arms-race-between-china-and-the-united-states-makes-australia-a-target/
Developments at the U.S.-Australian satellite intelligence base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs give the United States an unprecedented ability to detect Chinese spacecraft from space and potentially destroy them.
Previously, detection was mainly based on ground-based radars, which are no longer seen as suitable for identifying these spacecraft if they were weapons. China has said it has only tested new space vehicles.
As shown below, two different versions of the latest Pine Gap satellites can do this job together. The difficulty is how to further destabilize the nuclear balance between China and the United States in order to help maintain peace.
Last October, it was reported that China had tested a nuclear-capable highly maneuverable hypersonic glider after it was lifted into space by a missile. The nuclear warheads released from US intercontinental ballistic missiles are also manoeuvrable and independently targeted. But the United States sees a serious threat from these hypersonic vehicles that can drive at more than five times the speed of sound.
This development makes Australia more closely integrated with any American offensive in space, as well as with defensive capabilities. Yet there has been no political debate in Australia about the consequences of avoiding war. No senior politician is trying to create momentum to support a new arms control deal, as Presidents Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev did in 1971, when the number of nuclear weapons escalated alarmingly, to more than 30,000 each.
The latest arms build-up is highlighted by a meeting in late March between Australian intelligence and military officials and senior US military officers at Pine Gap. Although the United States clearly considers Pine Gap to be crucial in fighting war in space, these military officers did not speak to the Australian media. Instead, they choose to talk to a London-based journalist Financial Times.
It is unclear whether the government intends to inform the Australian public about developments at Pine Gap. These have implications for Australia’s own security and its potential obligations under the outer space treaty, which limits the militarization of space without completely banning it. If Pine Gap was not already a Chinese nuclear target, it probably will be now.
That Financial Times reported the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John Aquilino, said the United States wanted to integrate all elements of the U.S. military power with its allies. In this context, Aquilino said Australia has capabilities that make it an “extremely advanced partner”. He said increased visibility in space would help counter Chinese hypersonic weapons. “The ability to identify and track and defend against these hypersonics is really key.”
The head of the U.S. Space Command, General James Dickinson, was also interviewed for the play, saying Australia was a “critical partner” in efforts to improve space domain awareness and monitor Chinese space operations. He said, “This is the perfect place for many things to do.”
The deputy head of the U.S. Cyber Command, Lieutenant General Charles Moore, said digital convergence between the United States and Australia gives the Unit
Pine Gap’s own satellites also pick up signals from radars and weapon systems, such as ground-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft artillery, fighter jets, drones and spacecraft, along with other military and civilian communications. From Pine Gap, a huge amount of military data is fed into the American war machine in real time.ed States “the potential to conduct offensive operations.” He added that cooperation with allies created an “asymmetric advantage” over China, which lacks similar partnerships. One consequence is that China cannot gather near as much electronic intelligence from across the globe as the United States.
An idea of the growing importance of Pine Gaps for the United States is given by its extraordinary growth. Originally, it was a ground station for a single satellite to collect what is called signal intelligence as it orbited 36,000 kilometers above the Earth. There are now at least four much more powerful satellites connected to the base. Their antennas automatically intercept everything that is transmitted within their frequency range. This includes a large selection of electronic signals for intelligence analysis, including text messages, emails, phone calls and more. In addition, terrestrial antennas at Pine Gap and other Australian locations pick up a large amount of information transmitted via commercial satellites.
Pine Gap’s own satellites also pick up signals from radars and weapon systems, such as ground-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft artillery, fighter jets, drones and spacecraft, along with other military and civilian communications. From Pine Gap, a huge amount of military data is fed into the American war machine in real time.
Pine Gap operates in connection with similar interception satellites attached to a base at Menwith Hill in England. Their use to lead counterfeit drone strikes that have killed a large number of civilians has been much debated in England. The combined coverage of the two bases includes the former Soviet Union, China, Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Atlantic landmass.
Pine Gap is also linked to infrared satellites, which are of great interest to Americans. Their original function, which is still important, is to provide early warning of the firing of nuclear-armed Russian or Chinese ballistic missiles. Added options now allow them to use their infrared telescopes to detect and track heat from spacecraft as well as from large and small missiles and military jets. Some satellites have very elliptical orbits that can go close to Earth instead of being 36,000 kilometers above Earth.
These satellites now provide highly coveted information about Chinese spacecraft, amplified by the data from the signal intelligence satellites. Taken together, this gives access to signals and infrared intelligence, and its location relative to China, Pine Gap plays a crucial role in the United States’ plans to fight wars in space. This capability will be enhanced by a new space-based detection and tracking system called Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR).
On April 6, the leaders of the AUKUS pact – Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison and Joe Biden – announced that they would develop hypersonic missiles and subterranean robots after previously promising to supply Australia with nuclear submarines from around 2040.
These new missiles will also travel at more than five times the speed of sound, but are air-breathing unlike those designed for use in space. The United States and Australia had already developed hypersonic cruise missiles using ramjet engines.
No figures are available, but the cost of developing, building and testing very long-range missiles will be high. A large part of the test is expected to take place in Australia. The new missiles are also intended for use against Chinese targets.
Again, China can be expected to build more missiles with the ability to target Australian and US forces in the region. Separately, Secretary of Defense Peter Dutton announced that the Australian government will spend $ 3.5 billion on new missiles with a longer range of 900 kilometers for Australian ships and fighter jets.
The background to what is happening at Pine Gap illustrates how much more important the base is to the United States than any contribution Australia may have made by a pair of fighter jets or frigates to the United States’ integrated international force that was at a distance from China. At this stage, neither side of Australian policy seems willing to refuse participation in yet another US-led war that violates Australia’s obligations under both the UN Charter and Article 1 of the ANZUS Treaty. Both documents oblige Australia to reject the use of force in international relations, other than defensively.
Although rarely mentioned, Pine Gaps’ growing importance to the United States increases Australia’s leverage with the United States to refuse to contribute ships, aircraft and troops to an integrated military force should it violate international rules. It may be harder to dismiss some aspects of Pine Gap’s operations. But there are provisions in the ground rules that Australia only acts with “full knowledge and agreement” with what is happening. Australia does not have to agree.
A further question is how to revive arms control negotiations between Russia and the United States and include China. The two large ones have 1550 intercontinental warheads, but they also have smaller ones. According to the Pentagon, China had only about 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles by 2021 and about 200 smaller warheads. This gives China reasonable cause for concern that it does not have enough strategic warheads to be able to retaliate against a US first attack and thus perpetuate deterrence.
To overcome this, the Pentagon projects that China will have around 1,000 intercontinental warheads by 2030. All sides must reach a new agreement to make major cuts in the number of warheads if the chances of nuclear war are to be reduced.
Whether or not China develops hypersonic spacecraft, it is already committed to getting more traditional intercontinental ballistic missiles that can disperse maneuverable warheads. Restraint on all sides is necessary.
I asked the Secretary of State, Marise Payne, and her Labor counterpart, Penny Wong, if Australia could refuse to integrate with the United States and other forces if they considered a proposed deployment in violation of Article 1 of the ANZUS Treaty or the UN Charter. I also asked if Australia could withdraw its military assets from integrated US operations if there was a more urgent need for Australia to confront a local threat that was not of interest to the US. None of them responded before the print deadline.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on April 16, 2022 as “Mind Pine Gap”.
Religious leaders urge ScottyFromMarketing to move Australia away from fossil fuels
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Faith leaders press PM on climate action, Herald Sun Heather McNab, Australian Associated Press
February 20, 2020 Religious leaders have appealed to Prime Minister Scott Morrison as a “fellow person of faith” to heed climate science following the country’s catastrophic bushfire season. The open letter – signed by 18 Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and other faith leaders – urges Mr Morrison to show leadership and urgently transition Australia away from fossil fuels. The signatories include: Dr Peter Catt, the Dean of St John’s Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane, the Most Reverend Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM, Chair of the Catholic Bishops Commission on Justice, Mission and Service Muslims Australia president Dr Rateb Jneid and Buddhist Council of NSW Religious leaders have appealed to Prime Minister Scott Morrison as a “fellow person of faith” to heed climate science following the country’s catastrophic bushfire season. The open letter – signed by 18 Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and other faith leaders – urges Mr Morrison to show leadership and urgently transition Australia away from fossil fuels. The signatories include: Dr Peter Catt, the Dean of St John’s Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane, the Most Reverend Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM, Chair of the Catholic Bishops Commission on Justice, Mission and Service Muslims Australia president Dr Rateb Jneid and Buddhist Council of NSW president Dr Gawaine Powell Davies…. https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/faith-leaders-press-pm-on-climate-action/news-story/48ebb95e2fdee026ccc593583ea622ab |
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Ethics – Australia and the climate and nuclear threats
It would be funny, if it were not so serious. Australia, the continent already experiencing the effects of global heating, and with a government now contemplating starting the nuclear industry, – seems to be sleeping on, in comfortable ignorance about what is happening.
We all know – it is dinned into us daily – that it’s all about economics.( And sport). All our actions are justifiable if they can be show to further economic growth.
Who dares mention ethics?
What if decisions and actions were determined by the principle of acting decently and truthfully?
Then politicians, academics, journalists and other opinion leaders would have to speak clearly in plain words, about bushfires, the Murray Darling rivers, floods, and pollution. Then solutions would be chosen for environmental protection, and for the public good. The public good would include our Pacific neighbours, and indeed, Australia’s role in the global community.
Of course, there would be costs – changes in lifestyle, in employment, in our use of energy and other resources, in increased taxation. It would require fairness to disadvantaged groups, and to those most affected by extreme weather.
It’s about time that ETHICS came back into public thinking and action.
Australia is now led by a man who is ignorant of all but advertising and marketing slogans. Our politicians, obsessed with one aim, to keep their seats in Parliament, cannot be relied upon to understand the ethics of Australia’s situation – as the canary in the mine of climate and nuclear threats.
Still – there are thousands of Australians, especially indigenous Australians, and many groups like the Australian Conservation Foundation, and Friends of the Earth who do “get it”, and who lead the pressure on governments to really face up to these dangers.
Paying a small tribute to Fr Denis Edwards RIP (March 5th) and his love of Earth and All connected
“I am opposed to an international waste dump in SA, because I believe we are called by God to love and to respect this land as a gift, and to protect its integrity for future generations. As Pope Francis has insisted, “intergenerational solidarity is not an option, but a basic question of justice.” He insists on the priority and fundamental role of indigenous peoples in all such decisions about the land: “For them land is not a commodity but rather a gift from God and from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred space with which they need to interact if they are to maintain their identity and values” (Laudato Si’, 146).”
Professor Denis Edwards Theology, Australian Catholic University, Priest of the Archdiocese of Adelaide
6 Australian religious anti-war protesters may face 7 years gaol for peaceful Pine Gap protest
An American Spy Base Hidden in Australia’s Outback, NYT The trials — and the Australian government’s uncompromising prosecution of the protesters — has put a spotlight on a facility that the United States would prefer remain in the shadows.
— Margaret Pestorius arrived at court last week in her wedding dress, a bright orange-and-cream creation painted with doves, peace signs and suns with faces. “It’s the colors of Easter, so I always think of it as being a resurrection dress,” said Ms. Pestorius, a 53-year-old antiwar activist and devout Catholic, who on Friday was convicted of trespassing at a top-secret military base operated by the United States and hidden in the Australian outback.
Unity in Christian churches: bishops of Townsville speak out against Adani coal megamine
Brisbane Times, It may have the Turnbull and Palaszczuk governments firmly in its corner, but the Adani super-mine is facing a formidable new opponent: the Christian faith.
The Catholic and Anglican bishops of Townsville have issued a joint statement to their followers criticising “projected mega-mining developments across Queensland, especially the Galilee Basin”, and accusing politicians and big business of failing to protect the common good.
The bishops’ message puts them head-to-head with Adani, the Indian mining behemoth behind the $16.5 billion Carmichael mine proposed for the Galilee Basin. It also puts them at odds with the local council and state and federal governments, which resoundingly support the project.
Adani has located its regional headquarters in Townsville, and the statement will fuel debate in the already divided community over what would be Australia’s biggest coal mine.
The Right Reverend William Ray of the Anglican Diocese of North Queensland, and the Most Reverend Timothy Harris of the Catholic Diocese of Townsville, issued the statement to their parishes on Saturday.
They cited Pope Francis’ groundbreaking encyclical on the environment in June 2015, in which he said “the Earth, our home, is beginning to look … like an immense pile of filth”.
“We, too, as bishops in north Queensland, have concerns about many global and local issues that are impacting negatively on our environment and which require greater dialogue, examination, prayer and action,” the statement said.
The bishops said human dominion over the planet should be understood as “responsible stewardship”, especially to future generations…..https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/federal/catholic-anglican-bishops-unite-in-opposition-to-adani-megamine-20171030-gzaqxf.html
Religious leaders in active opposition to Adani coal mine project
NSW religious leaders join Adani protests, Herald Sun Dominica Sanda and Greta Stonehouse, Australian Associated Press, June 5, 2017 Ten Buddhist and Christian leaders rallied inside the Darling Harbour office on Monday holding signs with messages including “People of faith say rule out Adani” and “Grandpa what did you do about global warming?”
The Ethics of the Nuclear Waste Import Plan
Risks, ethics and consent: Australia shouldn’t become the world’s nuclear wasteland. The Conversation, Mark Diesendorf, Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, UNSW Australia, June 28, 2016
“……..One of the assumptions underlying the royal commission’s ethical argument is that nuclear power will continue to be a low-carbon energy source.
However, the life-cycle CO₂ emissions from conventional nuclear power will increase greatly as high-grade uranium ore is used up and low-grade ore is mined and milled with fossil fuels. This limitation could be avoided only if mining and milling are done with renewable energy or if new fuel is produced in fast breeder reactors, but neither of these options appears likely on a commercial scale within the next 20 years.
Second, the royal commission assumes that those countries that lack sufficient indigenous renewable energy cannot be supplied by trade of renewable electricity via transmission lines or renewable liquid and gaseous fuels delivered by tanker. After all, countries that lack fossil fuels or uranium are supplied by sea trade.
Third, it assumes that it is ethically a good thing to foster the expansion of an energy technology that has risks with huge potential adverse impacts, possibly comparable in magnitude to those of global climate change.
The risk with the highest impacts could be its contribution to the proliferation of nuclear weapons (for details see the Nuclear Weapon Archive and chapter 6 of Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change) and hence the likelihood of nuclear war that could cause a nuclear winter…….. https://theconversation.com/risks-ethics-and-consent-australia-shouldnt-become-the-worlds-nuclear-wasteland-61380
The ethics of burdening future South Australians with nuclear wastes?
A high-level nuclear waste dump for SA What is our moral obligation?
The argument goes: surely SA has a moral obligation to import nuclear waste…
…because we mine uranium?
…because we are more geologically and politically stable than other places?
…because we benefit from x-rays?
If we want this decision to include moral considerations (as it should), we might ask ourselves about the ethics of burdening thousands of generations of future South Australians with the cost and risk of managing highly radioactive waste, when any economic benefits are long gone.
Australia’s shame. Cardinal Pell criticising Pope Francis over Climate Change policy
Dunno about you, but I am just as ashamed of this Australian Catholic Cardinal as I am of Australia’s Prime Minister Abbott
Cardinal George Pell criticises Pope Francis over climate change stance , SMH, July 19, 2015 Kerrie Armstrong Cardinal George Pell has publicly criticised Pope Francis’ decision to place climate change at the top of the Catholic Church’s agenda.
Cardinal Pell, a well-known climate change skeptic, told the Financial Times the church had “no particular expertise in science”.
“The church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters,” he said,
“We believe in the autonomy of science.”
Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese holds forum “Transitioning to Renewable Energy”
Maitland-Newcastle diocese takes up Pope Francis’ support of environmental issues http://www.maitlandmercury.com.au/story/3135438/catholic-church-forum-on-renewable-energy/ June 9, 2015, The Hunter’s involvement on the transition to renewable energy will come into focus during a public environmental forum preceding a letter from Pope Francis on environmental issues. The Social Justice Council of the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle will host the public forum “Transitioning to Renewable Energy” at St Pius X High School on Wednesday night.
A group of Maitland students, teachers and residents will attend.
The forum follows Pope Francis’ announcement that his highly anticipated encyclical letter on environmental issues to be released on June 18. Continue reading
Pope Francis and Bishop Saunders on Australia’s inhumane Aboriginal policies
“Severing the ties of Aboriginal people from their land and thus their culture, spirituality and very foundation of their being, is unethical, immoral, un-Christian and heartless.”
Australia’s human rights record shambolic according to Pope Francis and Bishop Saunders http://thestringer.com.au/australias-human-rights-record-shambolic-according-to-pope-francis-and-bishop-saunders-9207#.VI8joNLF8nk by The StringerDecember 14th, 2014 Chairman of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, Bishop Christopher Saunders says Australia’s human rights record is being undermined by inhumane policies. Bishop Saunders pointed to the asylum seeker asylum policies which deny refugees sanctuary and the push by the Western Australian Government to close up to 150 of the State’s 274 homeland (remote) communities. He is also concerned that the South Australian Government may follow Western Australia’s lead and close as many as 100 communities. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 