All the Oprah Winfrey Down Under Shows 1 to 4 are HERE
An American, Australian ,Israeli, British "Judeo Christian Friendly " blog.
Anthropogenic Global Warming SCAM
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Opening video of Oprah Winfrey Down Under Final Show
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Australia: “Multicultural / Muslim outreach” Muslim Paedophile, Rapist,Mohamed Sabra,Sabra Limousines, pleads guilty to sexually assaulting a 14 year old girl.
Limo driver teen sex attack
BRENDEN HILLS
The Sunday Telegraph
January 23, 2011
A 14-YEAR-OLD girl has been sexually assaulted by a limousine driver hired to ferry a group of teenage friends around Sydney after a late-night party at Bondi.
A Sydney court has heard the driver promised the girl she could ride to his next appointment to pick up rap star Kanye West and then plied her with alcohol.
After falling asleep on a back seat, the girl awoke to find the man, Mohamed Sabra, 34, of Bexley, fondling her breasts and performing oral sex on her, court documents allege.
Sabra, who owns Rockdale based Sabra Limousines, faced Sydney District Court on Friday after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting the girl in December 2008.
His victim, now 16, is the daughter of a prominent Sydney businessman, but neither can be named to protect her identity.
Agreed facts tendered at Sabra's sentencing submission hearing said the teen first met Sabra in November 2008 when a "family friend" arranged for him to drive her and a friend to the Rihanna-Chris Brown concert in Homebush.
On that occasion, the girl told Sabra she was 14-years-old, court documents said.
One month later she called his limo service and asked him to collect her and a group of friends from a party at Bondi where she had two alcoholic drinks.
In the limo, Sabra told the girl he "had an appointment to pick up singer Kanye West" who was touring Australia. The teen said she was a fan and the driver replied that she could "could go with him but there would not be enough room for her friends", court documents said.
She agreed and Sabra drove her to the Sydney CBD where she drank a Red Bull and vodka drink that he had poured in a champagne glass for her.
Sabra said he had a sore neck and asked the girl for a massage. She gave him a short massage and he started massaging her shoulders, court documents said. After waking during the alleged assault, the girl pushed Sabra away and said: "Why would you take advantage of me?", court documents said.
Sabra allegedly replied: "Why are you crying? If you didn't like it why didn't you stop me?"
The matter will return to court on January 28.
So what can be said ? it’s all been said before in Australia,England,Sweden,Denmark,France,Sudan,America,to name just a few, part of the Islamic agenda is to Rape and despoil their enemies “women” and girls at every opportunity or as the Muslim appointed “Grand Mufti of Australia” would say “Cat meat” there for the taking.
But hey think about all those Multicultural Restaurants,parades and tax payer funded “Harmony Days” you can go to .
Repatriate all Muslims from Judeo Christian Western Democracies NOW !!!!
Demand the right of return be enforced upon ALL Muslims NOW!!!
Identification + Internment + Repatriation to whatever Islamic shit hole these scum or their parents / grand parents RAN AWAY from is the ONLY way to return Australia to the “Land of Oz”
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
It's the Koran Stupid!!!!!!!!!!!
At last someone GETS IT and is prepared to publicly speak the truth about Hussein Obama's favorite "Religion of Peace"
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Australia:Seven Muslim Refugees charged with Gang Rape of 21 year old mother as her children slept.
More Muslim / Multicultural Outreach into the Australian Infidel Community.Muslim Refugee Rape Gang spreads the Joy’s of Multiculturalism and Cultural Diversity in Victoria.
Bendigo mother 'raped as children slept nearby'
Pia Akerman
The Australian
January 15, 2011 12:04AM
A GROUP of seven young males trapped a 21-year-old woman in her laundry before raping her while her children slept nearby, a Bendigo court has heard.
The males, aged between 14 and 21 and who came to Australia as refugees, yesterday applied for bail in the Bendigo Magistrates' and Children's courts.
Police told the hearings that the group of seven went to Bendigo from Shepparton to go nightclubbing last Saturday.
They have each been charged with 17 offences, including rape and assault.
Detective Senior Constable Christopher Reed of the sexual crimes squad said the alleged victim, who lives locally, left her children with a babysitter while she went with a friend to two Bendigo clubs, the HuHa Club and the Star Bar.
As she was leaving the Star Bar at about 2am, she met a 16-year-old girl, who introduced her to the group. The men then went back to the woman's house, joining the 16-year-old girl and the babysitter there.
Peter Baker, the lawyer for one of the men , said evidence from the babysitter portrayed a party that was "initially . . . pleasant".
Constable Reed said the victim began to feel unsafe when one of the teenage men became aggressive, putting his arms around the victim.
A video recorded on one of the men's mobile phones shows the victim being grabbed in her kitchen, with the 16-year-old trying to pull her into the laundry.
"She can be clearly heard saying no," Constable Reed said.
The footage showed the 16-year-old and 14-year-old persisting in trying to shepherd the woman into the laundry while she pushed them away.
Mr Gar allegedly lifted the victim's skirt and pulled her underwear down while she tried to kick him away.
Constable Reed said the group was laughing while Mr Gar digitally raped the woman.
She was then taken into the laundry where she was held down by two men while she was raped by two others.
Detective Reed said the woman's screams could be heard from outside the laundry.
The woman went to her bedroom and called police, who arrested all seven at the house.
Mr Baker said the evidence of the babysitter, who described the group being in the laundry for about 30 minutes, portrayed a less serious situation than police described.
One of the accused men told police his friends and the victim were "having a little wrestle" and "grabbing each other like a porno", and she was not really fighting back, but "more like a play".
Constable Reed said the victim was "extremely fearful" for her safety and her children if the men received bail.
Bail was granted for three of the accused men, while the rest have been remanded to appear again next week.
The men, Mohammad Zaoli, 21,
Aru Gar, 19,
Mohammed El Nour, 18,
Akoak Manon, 18,
and three youths aged 17, 16 and 14,
They will reappear in court for a committal mention in March.
Read how well the Australian Labor Party’s rotten stinking dead cat of Multiculturalism works in England.
Rape Jihad
by SHEIKYERMAMI on JANUARY 15, 2011
Technorati Tags: HuHa Club,Star Bar,Bendigo,Shepparton,Australia,Gang Rape,Refugees,Muslim Rape Gangs
Friday, January 14, 2011
Australia: Multicultural Sydney,Meet the Ibrahim’s.
More Golden threads woven into the Australian Labor Party’s “Rich and Diverse Tapestry / Broad Church” of “all Cultures / Religions and behaviors are equal” of Multiculturalism.
Multicultural Australia: Sam Ibrahim shot in leg, Riot Squad called to Westmead Hospital to protect patients staff and visitors from Sam’s relatives and supporters.
The Quintessential Strutting Rats with a Gold Tooth
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Multicultural Australia: Sam Ibrahim shot in leg, Riot Squad called to Westmead Hospital to protect patients staff and visitors from Sam’s relatives and supporters.
Sam Ibrahim, brother of John Ibrahim shot in the leg at Merrylands (aka “Sydney’s Occupied Territories” )
Daily Telegraph January 13, 2011 8:36PM
THE older brother of nightclub supremo John Ibrahim is in a Sydney hospital after being shot in the leg, sources say.
Former Nomads bikie boss Hassan "Sam" Ibrahim was shot at a property on Price Street, Merrylands this evening.
A police spokeswoman confirmed emergency services were called to a property at 6.45pm (AEDT).
"Police located a man with a gunshot wound," she added.
Officers are expected to reveal more details shortly.
In June 2009, another brother, Fadi Ibrahim, was shot five times as he sat with his girlfriend in his car outside his home in Castle Cove.
Sam Ibrahim was standing outside the house in Sydney's west when he was shot twice in the leg, it is believed.
The bullets were fired from a light-coloured car, witnesses have told police.
Ibrahim, 44, is receiving treatment at Westmead Hospital and is reportedly in a stable condition.
Despite a string of attacks involving bikie gangs in recent months, police insist it is too early to say if the Ibrahim shooting is gang-related.
The car involved in the incident was believed to be carrying a number of passengers.
Price Street was cordoned off by police as detectives searched for forensic evidence.
Neighbours have told how they heard "at least" two blasts.
"I heard something but had no idea it was gunshots," one woman who asked not to be named told AAP.
"There were at least two bangs. Maybe three."
The Ibrahim family will be making no public comment on the attack.
"It's inappropriate to say anything at this stage pending a police investigation," family lawyer Stephen Alexander told AAP.
Daily Telegraph January 13, 2011 8:36PM
THE older brother of nightclub supremo John Ibrahim is in a Sydney hospital after being shot in the leg, sources say.
Former Nomads bikie boss Hassan "Sam" Ibrahim was shot at a property on Price Street, Merrylands this evening.
A police spokeswoman confirmed emergency services were called to a property at 6.45pm (AEDT).
"Police located a man with a gunshot wound," she added.
Officers are expected to reveal more details shortly.
Why, Why, Why, Sam ? yooos don’t know Sam, he don’t do Nutting to Nobody, he is such a Good boy,is our Sam .
The shooting happened less than two months after a drive-by shooting at the Ryde home of Armani Stelio, a sister of the Ibrahim brothers.
Following the attack on his sister's home, "Sam" was shown in television footage speaking to police at her property. In June 2009, another brother, Fadi Ibrahim, was shot five times as he sat with his girlfriend in his car outside his home in Castle Cove.
Sam Ibrahim was standing outside the house in Sydney's west when he was shot twice in the leg, it is believed.
The bullets were fired from a light-coloured car, witnesses have told police.
Ibrahim, 44, is receiving treatment at Westmead Hospital and is reportedly in a stable condition.
Despite a string of attacks involving bikie gangs in recent months, police insist it is too early to say if the Ibrahim shooting is gang-related.
The car involved in the incident was believed to be carrying a number of passengers.
Price Street was cordoned off by police as detectives searched for forensic evidence.
Neighbours have told how they heard "at least" two blasts.
"I heard something but had no idea it was gunshots," one woman who asked not to be named told AAP.
"There were at least two bangs. Maybe three."
The Ibrahim family will be making no public comment on the attack.
"It's inappropriate to say anything at this stage pending a police investigation," family lawyer Stephen Alexander told AAP.
Maybe someone from the media shot Sammy,maybe that accounts for the obvious lack of marksmanship.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Australia: Demand Marrickville Council and its Councilors Boycott Israel NOW!!!!
Australia's Marrickville Council, a jewel in the Marxist Green, Australian Labor Party's putrid Crown, wants to “Boycott Israel”, well bring it on you Labor Socialist Green Luddites start Boycotting NOW!!!! Come on ya Politically Correct descendants of Drugged Fucked Hippy Progressive bums get with YOUR program, Do It !!!!Do it Now Walk the Fricking Walk!!!! Ya Fricking waste of space get off the Planet make room for Humans.
LEAD your rate payers,your MASTERS,rather than PUSH them on your ? / their journey into Serfdom.
So, you want to boycott Israel ?????
I’ll be sorry to miss you, but if you are doing it – do it properly. Let me help you.
The Local Sweden’s News in English
Check all your medications. Make sure that you do not have tablets, drops lotions, etc., made by Abic or Teva. It may mean that you will suffer from colds and flu this winter but, hey, that’s a small price for you to pay in your campaign against Israel, isn’t it?
While we are on the subject of your Israeli boycott, and the medical contributions to the world made by Israeli doctors and scientists, how about telling your pals to boycott the following…
Sydney’s running joke and Infamous Marrickville Council.
Sign the Petition, tell these Ignorant Bums what you think of them HERE
More than happy to acknowledge any Councilor who voted against this STUNT.
An Israeli company has developed a simple blood test that distinguishes between mild and more severe cases of Multiple Sclerosis. So, if you know anyone suffering from MS, tell them to ignore the Israeli patent that may, more accurately, diagnose their symptoms.
An Israeli-made device helps restore the use of paralyzed hands. This device electrically stimulates the hand muscles, providing hope to millions of stroke sufferers and victims of spinal injuries. If you wish to remove this hope of a better quality of life to these people, go ahead and boycott Israel.
Young children with breathing problems will soon be sleeping more soundly, thanks to a new Israeli device called the Child Hood. This innovation replaces the inhalation mask with an improved drug delivery system that provides relief for child and parent. Please tell anxious
mothers that they shouldn’t use this device because of your passionate cause.
These are just a few examples of how people have benefited medically from the Israeli know-how you wish to block. Boycotts often affect research. A new research center in Israel hopes to throw light on brain disorders such as depression and Alzheimer’s disease.
The Joseph Sangol Neuroscience Center in the Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer Hospital, aims to bring thousands of scientists and doctors to focus on brain research.
A researcher at Israel ‘s Ben Gurion University has succeeded in creating human monoclonal antibodies which can neutralize the highly contagious smallpox virus without inducing the dangerous side effects of the existing vaccine.
Two Israelis received the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Doctors Ciechanover and Hershko’s research and discovery of one of the human cells most important cyclical processes will lead the way to DNA repair, control of newly produced proteins, and immune defense systems.
The Movement Disorder Surgery program at Israel ‘s Hadassah Medical Center has successfully eliminated the physical manifestations of Parkinson’s disease in a select group of patients with a deep brain stimulation technique.
For women who undergo hysterectomies each year for the treatment of uterine fibroids, the development in Israel of the Ex Ablate 2000 System is a welcome breakthrough, offering a noninvasive alternative to surgery.
Israel is developing a nose drop that will provide a five year flu vaccine.
These are just a few of the projects that you can help stop with your Israeli boycott. But let’s not get too obsessed with my ducal research, there are other ways you can make a personal sacrifice with your anti-Israel boycott.
Most of Windows operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel. So, set a personal example. Throw away your computer!
Computers should have a sign attached saying Israel Inside. The Pentium NMX Chip technology was designed at Intel in Israel . Both the Pentium 4 microprocessor and the Centrum processor were entirely designed, developed, and produced in Israel.
Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.
The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 in Israel by four young Israeli whiz kids.
Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R. & D. facilities outside the US in Israel .
So, due to your complete boycott of anything Israeli, you can now have poor health and no computer.
But your bad news does not end there. Get rid of your cellular phone. Cell phone technology was also developed in Israel by MOTOROLA which has its biggest development center in Israel. Most of the latest technology in your mobile phone was developed by Israeli scientists.
Feeling unsettled? You should be. Part of your personal security rests with Israeli inventiveness, borne out of our urgent necessity to protect and defend our lives from the terrorists you support.
A phone can remotely activate a bomb, or be used for tactical communications by terrorists, bank robbers, or hostage-takers. It is vital that official security and law enforcement authorities have access to cellular jamming and detection solutions. Enter Israel ‘s Net line Communications Technologies with their security expertise to help the fight against terror.
So All The Noise About The Usa Listening To Our Private Telephone Calls, You Should Know It Is Israel Who Is Doing The Listening For Us.
A joint, nonprofit, venture between Israel and Maryland will result in a 5 day Business Development and Planning Conference next March. Elected Israeli companies will partner with Maryland firms to provide innovation to the US need for homeland security.
I also want you to know that Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.
Israel produces more scientific papers per capita – 109 per 10,000 – than any other nation.
Israel has the highest number of startup companies per rata. In absolute terms, the highest number, except the US . Israel has a ratio of patents filed.
Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies outside of Silicon Valley . Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds, behind the USA .
Israel has more museums per capita.
Israel has the second highest publication of new books per capita.
Relative to population, Israel is the largest immigrant absorbing nation on earth.
These immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom or expression, economic opportunity, and quality of life. Believe it or not, Israel is the only country in the world which had a net gain in the number of trees last year.
Even Warren Buffet of Berkshire-Hathaway fame has just invested millions with Israeli Companies.
So, you can vilify and demonize the State of Israel. You can continue your silly boycott, if you wish. But I wish you would consider the consequences, and the truth.
Think of the massive contribution that Israel is giving to the world, including the Palestinians – and to you – in science, medicine, communications, security.
No wonder Marrickville Councillors want to distance themselves from "DOSE JOOOS” The Road to Serfdom is their “vision”
Comparison of Arab and Jewish Nobel Prize Winners
Arab/Islamic Nobel Prize Winners
From a pool of 1.4 BILLION Muslims which are 20% of the world's population (2 out of every 10 people)
Literature
1988 - Najib Mahfooz
Peace
1978 - Anwar El-Sadat
1994 - Yasser Arafat *
2003 - Shirin Ebadi
Chemistry
1999 - Ahmed Zewail
Physics
Abdus Salam
* NOTE: Norwegian, Kaare Kristiansen, was a member of the Nobel Committee. He resigned in 1994 to protest the awarding of a Nobel "Peace Prize" to Yasser Arafat, whom he correctly labeled a "terrorist."
Jewish Nobel Prize Winners
From a pool of 12 million Jews which are 0.2% of the World's Population (2 out of every 1,000 people)
Literature
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer
2002 - Imre Kertesz
World Peace
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin
1995 - Joseph Rotblat
Chemistry
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1972 - William Howard Stein
1972 - C.B. Anfinsen
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Ronald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Herbert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1989 - Sidney Altman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1998 - Walter Kohn
2000 - Alan J. Heeger
2004 - Irwin Rose
2004 - Avram Hershko
2004 - Aaron Ciechanover
Economics
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1973 - Wassily Leontief
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Rober Fogel
1994 - John Harsanyi
1994 - Reinhard Selten
1997 - Robert Merton
1997 - Myron Scholes
2001 - George Akerlof
2001 - Joseph Stiglitz
2002 - Daniel Kahneman
2005 - Robert (Israel) Aumann
Medicine
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - David Baltimore
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Rosalyn Sussman Yalow
1977 - Andrew V. Schally
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1994 - Martin Rodbell
1995 - Edward B. Lewis
1997 - Stanley B. Prusiner
1998 - Robert F. Furchgott
2000 - Eric R. Kandel
2002 - Sydney Brenner
2002 - Robert H. Horvitz
Physics
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1945 - Wolfgang Pauli
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1958 - Il'ja Mikhailovich
1958 - Igor Yevgenyevich
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1963 - Eugene P. Wigner
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1967 - Hans Albrecht Bethe
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - Leon N. Cooper
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Georges Charpak
1995 - Martin Perl
1995 - Frederick Reines
1996 - David M. Lee
1996 - Douglas D. Osheroff
1997 - Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
2000 - Zhores I. Alferov
2003 - Vitaly Ginsburg
2003 - Alexei Abrikosov
After reviewing this list, can you supply a reason for the large discrepancy between the Arab/Islamic population's contribution to the world body and that of the Jew? There are 165 Jews listed as opposed to 6 from the Arab side.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Australian Video News
UPDATE!!!!! The man stabbed was in fact another African, it is not clear if he was known to his assailants or not.One man has attended Merrylands Police Station, it is not known if he is a witness or one of the attackers.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
The Crap that gets to teach at Princeton University
THE GREENS: Peter Singer and the party of death
by Bill Muehlenberg
News Weekly, 2 October 2010
In 2006 Ramesh Ponnuru wrote a book entitled The Party of Death. It was primarily about the US Democratic Party, and the courts and mainstream media who side with the culture of death. They see the right to abortion as almost a religious obligation.
And it is not just abortion, but a general disregard for human life that is expressed in plenty of other policy positions. The culture of death is ever on the move, and it is not just the unborn who are at risk.
As Ponnuru put it in the opening page of his book: "The party of death started with abortion, but its sickle has gone from threatening the unborn, to the elderly, to the disabled; it has swept from the maternity ward to the cloning laboratory to a generalised disregard for 'inconvenient' life."
He says the phrase is not just pejorative, but descriptive: "The party's core members are those who explicitly deny that all human beings are equal in having a right to life and who propose the creation of a category of 'human non-persons' who can be treated as expendable."
The story is the same in Australia. We clearly have a party of death here: they are known as the Greens. They are quite open about how they embrace the culture of death. This could not be clearer than in today's headlines: "Greens fight for euthanasia" (September 20, 2010).
The new Labor/Green government has not even been in power for two weeks, and already the Greens are telling us what they consider to be the most pressing issue of the day - their key priority: the right to kill off the elderly, the infirm, the suffering. And of course they will push this agenda in the name of compassion.
But it is a horrific type of compassion which says that to help relieve suffering we should kill the sufferer. This has nothing to do with compassion, but everything to do with a diabolical view of human life. The Greens have bought into the mistaken notion that somehow the "quality" of life is superior to the sanctity of life.
Moreover, it is always a minority of elites and technocrats who decide for the rest of mankind who should live and who should die. They tell us that the unborn are not persons, that the terminally ill are not persons, and soon that a depressed teenager is not really a person.
But what should one expect from a party which was begun with someone like Peter Singer? He and Senator Bob Brown co-authored the book The Greens back in 1996, laying out the core beliefs, values and philosophies of the Greens. And Singer ran as a Greens' candidate for the Senate in the same year.
Singer, of course, is the animal rights activist who is pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia and pro-infanticide. Yes, he actually believes that the newborn do not have a right to life, because they are not "persons". As he and Helga Kuhse said back in 1985, "We do not think new-born infants have an inherent right to life."
Back in 1983 he wrote, "Species membership in homo-sapiens is not morally relevant. If we compare a dog or a pig to a severely defective infant, we often find the non-human to have superior capacities."
With a guru like this helping to set up the Greens, why should we be surprised at their consistent and insistent pro-death agenda?
Yet some might argue that Singer is a bit extreme, and does not really represent the Greens, and he is not with the Greens now. But the reason he is no longer with the Greens is of course because he left Australia in 1999 to lecture at Princeton University in the US.
How can it be argued that he is not representative of the Greens? He ran as their Senate candidate and co-authored their manifesto! Of course, his views are right in line with that of the Greens. So spare us trying to make a distinction between the two.
If some neo-Nazi managed to run for a conservative party here, it would be attacked by these very same people. "See!" they would cry, "This is what these conservatives are really all about - they are all a bunch of closet Nazis."
Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. If commentators take this line on the conservatives, then they must consistently take it with the Greens as well.
Trying to disassociate Singer from the Greens will just not work.
Australia: What the Rats in the silo have planned for us.
Technorati Tags: Bob Brown,Peter Singer,The Greens,Australian Politics,infanticide,abortion,Helga Kuhse
Australia: What the Rats in the silo have planned for us.
The Green Loons as exposed below now pull the strings on the recently elected minority Labor / Green / Independent Socialist Coalition Federal Government led by Madame Gillard.
“What is at stake in the Greens’ “revolution” is the heart and soul of Western civilisation, built on the Judeo-Christian/Enlightenment synthesis that upholds the individual—with obligations and responsibilities to others, but ultimately judged on his or her own conscience and actions—as the possessor of an inherent dignity and inalienable rights. What is also at stake is the economic system that has resulted in the creation of wealth and prosperity for the most people in human history.”POLITICS
The Greens' Agenda, in Their Own Words
Kevin AndrewsQuadrant
For many years, the Greens have been treated as a political curiosity. They could win a spot or two in the Senate, but they were absent from the real place of political power, the House of Representatives. That has now changed. Not only will they have more senators from next July, they also have a seat in the House. More significantly, they are in formal alliance with minority Labor governments nationally and in Tasmania.
Despite the emphasis on the environment, “the Greens are not a single issue party”.[1] Their objective is clear: “to transform politics and bring about Green government.”[2] The Australian Greens are part of a worldwide movement that is actively engaged in the political process.[3] As their writings state, this objective involves a radical transformation of the culture that underpins Western civilisation. As a political party, they should be treated like any other political party and subjected to the same scrutiny.
In order to fully comprehend the Greens’ political ideology, it is necessary to understand the historical roots and foundations of both our own Western, liberal democratic culture—and that of the Greens. I propose to explain the Greens’ agenda, as set out in their own documents and writings.[4]
Leader of the Australian Greens Bob Brown (l) and “partner” Paul Thomas (r)
Bob Brown wants to re-define Catholic beliefs
Western civilisationWhile shared to some extent by all liberal democracies, Australia’s values have been adapted to our unique setting, moulded and modernised through waves of settlement by people from all over the world. These values and principles reflect strong influences on Australia’s history and culture. They include our Judeo-Christian religious and ethical heritage, a British parliamentary democracy embracing an earlier Roman understanding of the importance of the law, and the spirit of the European Enlightenment, including a reliance on the empirical and the scientific.
It was Christianity in particular, building on both the Greek and Jewish traditions, that insisted on the dignity of all humans.[5] Humans should not be used as a means. Based on the belief that men and women are created in the image and likeness of God, the idea of intrinsic human dignity gradually shaped European civilisation. The idea of human dignity was also propounded by one of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant. In his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argued:
Everything has either a price or a dignity. Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity. But that which constitutes the condition under which alone something can be an end in itself does not have mere relative worth, i.e., price, but an intrinsic worth, i.e., a dignity.[6]
Kant’s famous imperative upheld human dignity: “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.”[7] As Michael Novak observes, Kant’s formulation is “a repetition in non-biblical language of the humanistic half of the essential teaching of Judaism and Christianity: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’”[8]
The centrality of human dignity is reflected in many national and international proclamations. The primary truth, according to the American founders, and held to be self-evident, is the equality of all men and women, derived from biblical belief: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”[9]
One hundred and seventy years later, in the wake of the massive assault on human dignity during two world wars, many in the international community voiced their demand for the protection of human rights. In her narrative history of the drafting of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Mary Ann Glendon describes how, under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Malik and Rene Cassin, the international instrument based on the rights of individuals and their inherent dignity was created.[10] Cassin, a French jurist, conceived the Universal Declaration as a portico—a gateway to a better world—built on the foundations of dignity, liberty, equality and brotherhood.[11] The first words in the preamble of the document reflect the primacy of human dignity: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”[12]
The more recent Declaration of the European Union, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome which brought the union into existence, is explicit: “For us, the individual is paramount. His dignity is inviolable. His rights are inalienable.”[13] Other national and international proclamations of rights are also founded on the integrity and dignity of the individual.[14]
This emphasis on the inherent dignity of the individual reflects not only the Judeo-Christian foundation of the West, but also the classic liberal philosophy that underpinned its subsequent development. The notion was also reflected in the development of the common law.[15]
The inherent dignity of the individual, as opposed to a postmodern notion of moral egalitarianism, is at the foundation of human freedom. If individual liberty is not predicated on inherent human dignity, then what is its foundation? Anything else is ultimately arbitrary.[16] Once dignity is undermined, freedom is in danger. The consequence is George Orwell’s description in Animal Farm of the loss of freedom: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”[17]
In their 1996 manifesto, The Greens, Bob Brown and Peter Singer identify the origins of the Australian greens movement in two strands. The first, well-known strand has its origins in the United Tasmania Group,[18] later morphing into the Tasmanian Wilderness Society,[19] and the election of Norm Sanders, Gerry Bates and Bob Brown to the state parliament.[20] By 1989, the Greens had secured five seats in the Tasmanian parliament, and held the balance of power. In a forerunner to more recent events in Tasmania, both major political parties had said before the election that they would not deal with the Greens.[21] Subsequently, the Labor leader, Michael Field, did so, agreeing to “a raft of social, democratic and environmental reforms in return for the guarantee of office”.[22] Field later regretted the decision, but not before the Greens had set out on a radical agenda.[23] The subsequent advance of the Greens in state and national Parliaments is well-known.
The modern Greens party however had an earlier origin in the green bans applied by the Builders Labourers Federation in the 1970s in New South Wales.[24] Indeed the visit to Australia by the German activist Petra Kelly in 1977 was influential in the foundation of the German Greens.[25] The then leader of the BLF, Jack Mundey, was subsequently invited to conferences in Europe and North America. Mundey, a Communist Party official and candidate, who led the militant New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation, described himself as “an ecological Marxist”.[26] Speaking years after the Communist Party folded, and a New Left party failed to gain support beyond Trotskyist and anarchist groupings, Mundey prophesied that “in the future there is a possibility of … what I’d call a Green Red future of socialism”.[27] In addition to Marx and Engels, Mundey was influenced by the overpopulation jeremiad of Paul Ehrlich.[28]
These two strands of the Greens are evident today. What then is the Greens’ agenda?
The Greens are ideologically driven
The Greens operate out of a set of ideological principles and beliefs that extend beyond the warm, cuddly environmentalism they wrap themselves in.[29] While “environmentalism” lies at the core of the Greens’ ideology, their policies, if ever enacted, would radically change the economic and social culture of Australia.
This has been true from the outset. In the 1970s, Jack Mundey’s BLF campaigned for a range of radical issues beyond the immediate industrial interests of the union. He appealed beyond the blue-collar construction workers to the New Left alliance of what has become known as “doctors’ wives” and tertiary students and academics.[30]
John Black has analysed Green voters over a series of elections. In a recent report, he categorises Green voters.[31] First, those who vote Green as their primary vote:
This is the Don’s Party group that used to be in the ALP in the sixties and seventies: young university students or graduates, frequently working or still studying in academia, no kids, often gay, arts and drama type degrees or architecture where they specialise is designing environmentally friendly suburbs, agnostic or atheist, often US or Canadian refugees from capitalism, but well paid in professional consulting or media jobs.[32]
These groups swung more heavily to the Greens in 2010:
They were led by arts, media or architectural graduate twenty-somethings, atheists and agnostics, Kiwis, the highly mobile university student groups, gays and the Green family group, which is a professional or admin consulting couple with one child attending expensive private schools.[33]
While the Greens appeal to an alliance of young, tertiary-educated students and professionals, the Party has increasingly been infiltrated at the parliamentary level by members of the hard Left. Let me take two examples. New South Wales senator-elect Lee Rhiannon is a former member of the Moscow-aligned Socialist Party of Australia. Her parents were prominent members of the Communist Party. The new Member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, was a radical student activist. He once attacked the Greens as a “bourgeois” party. Writing on a Marxist website in the 1990s, Mr Bandt attacked capitalism, arguing that ideological purity was paramount. It is clear from his 1995 comments— “Communists can’t fetishise alternative political parties, but should always make some kind of materially based assessment about the effectiveness of any given strategy come election time”—that Bandt views the Greens as a vehicle for his ideological pursuits.
Many descriptions could be applied to the Greens, but none seems more accurate than Jack Mundey’s own description of “ecological Marxism”, which sums up the two core beliefs of the Greens. First, the environment or the ecology is to be placed before all else. This is spelt out in the first principle in the Greens Global Charter, to which the Australian Greens are subscribers: “We acknowledge that human beings are part of the natural world and we respect the specific values of all forms of life, including non-human species.”[34]
Second, the Greens are Marxist in their philosophy, and display the same totalitarian tendencies of all previous forms of Marxism as a political movement. By totalitarian, I mean the subordination of the individual in the impulse to rid society of all elements that, in the eyes of the adherent, mar its perfection.
Let me expand. According to the Greens’ ideology, human dignity is neither inherent nor absolute, but relative.[35] Humans are only one species amongst others. As Brown and Singer write: “We hold that the dominant ethic is indefensible because it focuses only on human beings and on human beings who are living now, leaving out the interests of others who are not of our species, or not of our generation.”[36] Elsewhere, they equate humans with animals:
The revolutionary element in Green ethics is its challenge to us to see ourselves in universal terms ... I must take into account the interests of others, on the same footing as my own. This is true, whether these others are Victorians or Queenslanders, Australians or Rwandans, or even the nonhuman animals whose habitat is destroyed when a forest is destroyed.[37]
What is revolutionary about this statement is not that the interests of another should be considered in an ethical judgment. Judeo-Christian belief extols consideration of others, as does Kant’s Golden Rule. Burke wrote of society being a compact across generations. What is revolutionary is the equation of humans and animals.
Peter Singer expands these notions in his other works on animal liberation. He charges that humans are guilty of “speciesism”, that is, preferring their own species over all others. It leads him to argue in favour of infanticide and doctor-assisted suicide on one hand; and bestiality on the other, provided there is mutual consent![38]
Peter Singer’s influence is evident in the Greens’ ideology. The author of a series of books, including Animal Liberation, Singer not only co-authored the Greens’ manifesto with Bob Brown, but stood as a candidate for the party in the Kooyong in 1994, and subsequently as a Senate candidate.[39]
The Green movement projects the whole planet with a spiritual dimension. The British chemist James Lovelock described the Earth as a complex living organism, of which humans are merely parts. He named this planetary organism after the Greek goddess who personified the earth—Gaia—and described “Her” as “alive”.[40]
Singer and Brown are correct to describe this as revolutionary. It involves the creation of a new pagan belief system, concerned not with the relationship between humans and a creator, but based on a deification of the environment.
For the Greens, a pristine global environment represents earthly perfection. It underpins their “ecological wisdom”[41] and is at the core of the new ethic.[42] It is to be protected and promoted at all costs. Hence, all old growth forests are to be locked up;[43] logging is to be prohibited; wealth is to be scorned;[44] economic growth is opposed;[45] exclusive ownership of property is questioned;[46] there should be a moratorium of fossil fuels exploration;[47] dam construction should be discouraged;[48] genetic engineering and agricultural monoculture is rejected;[49] world trade should be reduced;[50] and a barter economy encouraged.[51]
It explains why the Greens believe the world’s population is excessive and should be reduced,[52] and why human consumption should be cut.[53]
The Greens also call for “the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be amended to include rights to a healthy natural environment and intergenerational rights to natural and cultural resources”.[54] In turn, the Greens would be able to rely on international courts and fora to press their agenda. It also explains their concept of “intergenerational rights”:[55] a concept squarely aimed at the defence of their belief in “Gaia”, or the perfect pristine earthly environment.
It explains why the Greens support the “right of indigenous peoples to self-determination, land rights, and access to traditional hunting and fishing rights for their own subsistence”[56] and reject measures such as the Northern Territory intervention and income management against the efforts of both major political parties.
For many Greens supporters, environmentalism is ultimately an article of faith and belief. This is no better illustrated that in the controversy surrounding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It has become increasingly clear that the process of “establishing” human-caused global warming has been manipulated by a small group of people, using mutual peer-review processes, and claiming to speak for many more scientists who had little input and no real opportunity to review the final documents. The closed-shop nature of the process is counter the scientific empiricism of the enlightenment, and marks another significant break with traditional Western culture.
To Greens believers, this is of little consequence. Ultimately, global warming is a matter of faith.
Similarly Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Perhaps one of the most dramatic scenes in the film is the depiction of an ice-wall collapsing. Viewers are led to believe that they are watching footage of an actual collapse. The truth, however, is that the scene was taken from the opening credits of a Hollywood movie, The Day after Tomorrow.[57]
Despite the fact that a British court found the film contained significant errors,[58] many environmentalists continue to believe it is true. For these environmentalists, the errors are merely inconvenient mistakes that fail to negate the Armageddon the world faces unless drastic measures are taken. Again, this is an example of belief, rather than reason. For such believers, “evidence” can be manufactured, and scientific empiricism is a vehicle to be manipulated for a political cause. Worse still, the film is now being proposed for the National Curriculum in Australian schools.
The Greens’ belief in their environmental nirvana manifests itself in a new coercive utopianism.
Unless we understand the ideological foundations of the Greens, we will fail to effectively address the challenge of their revolution. We will be left debating instrumental outcomes, as if they are based on the same cultural and philosophical foundations that underpin Western civilisation. What the Greens present is the cutting edge of a clash within Western civilisation itself.[59]
Greens policies
Let me turn to some of the Greens’ policies that flow from their worldview. In doing so, it should be noted that the Greens have substantially reduced the number of policies that they publish. In 2004, the Greens’ policy document was 180 pages long. In 2007, it was greatly reduced. Previous policies have been removed from their website without any clear explanation as to whether they remain policy or not. Much of the current policy material comprises anodyne motherhood statements.
The Greens’ “ecological wisdom” is the principle upon which all other policies are founded.[60] It shapes their views about every aspect of public policy. It is the foundation of their new ethic.[61]
The centrality of the environment is the foundation of the Greens’ economic policies: “Human societies exist within, and are dependent upon, natural systems; resource management is, therefore, central to good economic management.”[62]For the Greens, “economic development must be compatible with, and subservient to, ecological sustainability”.[63] Consistent with this principle, the Greens advocate high levels of state ownership in the economy and an expanded role for the bureaucracy, including an extensive international regulatory bureaucracy. They advocate government ownership of natural monopolies, and government investment in strategic assets.[64]
This is consistent with the directions set out by Brown and Singer, who questioned economic growth,[65] advocated higher taxes,[66] sought the introduction of death duties[67] and resource taxes.[68] Wealth is scorned: “Labor and Liberals share the same myopic vision of what they want to bring about for Australians: more and more individual wealth, measured in money alone.”[69] The fact that wealth generation has resulted in economic prosperity for both individuals and the nation, and lifted many people out of poverty, is of less significance than the deification of the environment.
In 2004, the Greens proposed to replace the GST with environmental taxes.[70]Although they softened this approach subsequently, their 2007 policies included a commitment to “implement a gradual and long-term shift in the tax system from work-based taxes to taxes on natural resources and pollution”.[71]
The Greens’ current policies include abolishing the rebate on private health insurance, taxing family trusts like companies, increasing top marginal tax rates, introducing death taxes and increasing the company tax rate.[72] The Greens are a high taxing party.
The Greens are deeply sceptical of international trade. Australia should remove itself from its bilateral trade agreements[73] and only enter any more if it favours the developing country. Brown and Singer advocated a new protectionism with “an across-the-board tax on all imports”.[74] The current policy encourages self-reliance and the prioritising of the sustainable production of goods and services from local sources.[75] This anti-trade stance is reinforced in the Greens Global Charter, which encourages “the reduction of the transport of goods around the world, in line with a preference for local production”.[76] The World Trade Organisation should be abolished unless reformed to make sustainability its central goal, and it should be subject to a newly created World Environment Organisation with power to impose sanctions,[77] presumably arising from actions under new “rights” inserted in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to include “rights to a healthy natural environment and intergenerational rights to natural and cultural resources”.[78] In their Global Charter, the Greens commit to working “towards establishing an international court of justice specific for environmental destruction and the loss of biodiversity where cases can be heard against corporations, nation states and individuals”.[79]
Nowhere is the Greens’ totalitarian impulse to impose global governance more evident.
The Greens are advocates of an enlarged welfare state. Brown and Singer proposed “a guaranteed adequate income for all” with no requirements that people look for work,[80] and free childcare in the workplace.[81] The Greens would increase the age pension[82] and subsidies for public housing. They are opposed to income management. Their welfare measures would have to be paid for through higher taxes on a nation less reliant on international trade.
The rapid increase in the standard of living of humanity and the reduction of global poverty is largely due to the energy revolution of the past century. We only have to consider a world without the energy sources that fuel our transport, manufacturing, businesses, communications, agriculture and households, to appreciate how readily available energy has reshaped the world in one of the most significant ways in human history. The policies of the Greens would place much of this at risk.
The Greens support a moratorium on all new fossil fuel exploration and development.[83] They are opposed to building any more coal-fired power stations,[84] and would pressure existing ones by prohibiting any public funding of refurbishments.[85] They would also prohibit the opening of new mines or expansion of any existing mines,[86] hence phasing out coal exports, ending one of Australia’s largest export industries, and forcing other nations to use dirtier sources of coal.
The Greens are also opposed to “any expansion of nuclear power” and where it exists, “will work to phase it out rapidly”.[87] This means the ending of the exploration, mining and export of uranium from Australia.[88] They would also close Lucas Heights, and prevent the import or export of all nuclear products.[89]
The Greens would force up the price of electricity and other forms of energy significantly: “energy prices should reflect the environmental and social costs of production and use”.[90] Their reliance on new “green” energy would be much more expensive for individuals and businesses.
The Greens want farmers to practice sustainable agriculture, but their policy documents are vague and general as to what this actually means.[91] What is clear from the recent discussion of the Murray-Darling Basin however, is that greater central planning and less available water will be part of their outcome. Farmers will also face rising energy and fertiliser costs, and new and higher taxes.
The private ownership of property and resources, which have underpinned democratic capitalism, is questioned by the Greens. In their Global Charter, they propose to “review the relationship between the exclusive ownership of property and exclusive use of its resources, with a view to curbing environmental abuse and extending access for basic livelihood to all, especially indigenous communities”.[92] This smacks of collectivism under a different name.
The Greens would privilege unions, providing more extensive right-of-entry provisions, abolish secret ballots for union action, water down independent contractors’ legislation, abolish the Building and Construction Commission, and introduce a minimum of five weeks annual leave.[93] They would allow secondary boycotts and industry-wide strikes.[94] The Greens also support the privileged position of unions in New South Wales to be able to prosecute work and safety breaches and profit from the actions.
Despite the boast in 1996 that “we do not get money from big business or the big trade unions”,[95] the Greens have been recipients of substantial donations from left-wing unions in recent years.[96]
The Greens’ social policies are linked to their belief in the primacy of the environment. Hence Brown and Singer commence their Greens manifesto by reference to the alleged overpopulation of the world.[97] “Little is being done to discuss slowing population growth,” they later complain.[98]
The theme is taken up in the Global Charter, where they advocate “eliminating the causes of population growth”.[99] Elsewhere, they propose limiting the expansion of cities,[100] opposing freeways, and imposing eco-taxes.[101] In their policy documents, the Greens state that “population policy should not be driven by economic goals or to counter the effects of an ageing population”.[102] This informs what the Greens mean when they insist on “a population policy directed towards ecological sustainability in the context of global social justice”.[103]
Once again, Greens’ policy subjugates the individual to the environment. It repeats the Malthusian fear of global overpopulation, contrary to the latest demographic evidence.[104] Combined with a rejection of economic growth, the Greens’ ideal future is the civilisational death already under way in much of Europe.[105]
These policies are evidence once again that the Greens place no intrinsic value in human life. To them, human life is merely instrumental, because intrinsic value lies in the environment itself.
This ideology is manifest in the Greens’ approach to life-and-death issues—infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia—where a person has a right to commit suicide, and be assisted if necessary. The Greens’ policies support euthanasia; Peter Singer has been an advocate of euthanasia and infanticide; and the euthanasia practitioner Dr Philip Nitschke has stood as a Greens candidate in the Northern Territory.
Equally, the Greens believe that human (and non-human) relations are based simply on consensual activity. Hence marriage can be between any two persons, regardless of gender.
In their Greens manifesto, Brown and Singer quote Phillip Adams’s comments that “we must scrap our drug laws”.[106] “Eventually, Australia, like other countries, will have to make peace with illicit drugs,” they add.[107] Following widespread criticism in 2004 of their policies to provide addicts with a regulated supply of heroin and ecstasy,[108] the Greens now state that they “do not support the legalisation of currently illegal drugs”.[109] However, they have recently stated their continued support for supervised injection rooms.[110]
The Greens want to restrict non-government education. They argue for the reduction in “the total level of Commonwealth funding for private schools to 2003-04 levels”.[111] This would immediately cut funding by $427 million per year to Catholic schools alone.[112] They have also stated that they will place limits on the number of new private schools, and that anti-discrimination laws will be used to prevent Christian schools from giving priority to practising Christians when employing teachers. They would also move to stop private schools having control over their own enrolments,[113] and end the schools chaplaincy program.[114]
The Greens have many other social proposals including the decriminalisation of all prostitution.[115] They also propose to dump the national flag.[116]
Consistent with their belief that the world is overpopulated and the environment is in danger, the Greens want to reduce immigration. The reduction should be in the numbers of skilled immigrants, while numbers in the refugee and humanitarian categories should be increased.[117] The Greens propose an open-door policy for asylum-seekers. They would increase the number of places, remove mandatory detention laws, abolish the rule against refugees gaining permanent protection if they had spent time in a third country, restore the migration zone to include places like Christmas Island and Ashmore Reef, provide immediate legal assistance to all claimants, and allow free movement around the nation with access to services.[118]
In addition, the Greens propose that “Australia adopts a definition of environmental refugees in its assessment criteria and works in the UN system for inclusion of a definition in the United Nations Refugee Convention”.[119]
The Greens’ anti-Americanism is well known. They would end the ANZUS treaty unless Australia’s membership can be revised in a manner which is consistent with Australia’s international and human rights obligations; close all existing foreign bases in Australian territory and end foreign troop deployment, training and hosting on Australian territory; and reduce Australia’s military expenditure.[120]
The Greens’ documents speak of “participatory democracy” as one of their foundation principles,[121] but they favour global and central decision-making: Hence the creation and expansion of international bodies, including the United Nations and new world environmental courts.[122]
While the Greens leader, Bob Brown, is currently advocating “states’ rights” to repeal the Commonwealth legislation against euthanasia, and claiming that the decision of the Commonwealth Parliament pursuant to section 121 of the Constitution is undemocratic, he has been an active advocate of actions to override state laws on two occasions.[123] In 1996, Brown wrote: “There are other, virtually untried, powers that the federal government could use to protect the environment. Among them is the power granted under the Constitution to the Commonwealth to regulate trading entities, including logging, mining and energy corporations.”[124] Clearly the use of constitutional powers is good if it is to advance a Green cause, but bad if it leads to an outcome they reject.
Unlike the major parties, the Greens’ policies have not been subject to rigorous costing by Treasury or independent experts. The Victorian Treasury recently claimed that the Greens’ policies for the state election would cost $20 billion.[125]
In 2007, the minimum cost of implementing the Greens’ federal policies was likely to be over $100 billion.[126]
Conclusion
What is at stake in the Greens’ “revolution” is the heart and soul of Western civilisation, built on the Judeo-Christian/Enlightenment synthesis that upholds the individual—with obligations and responsibilities to others, but ultimately judged on his or her own conscience and actions—as the possessor of an inherent dignity and inalienable rights. What is also at stake is the economic system that has resulted in the creation of wealth and prosperity for the most people in human history.
The Hon. Kevin Andrews MHR is the shadow minister for Families, Housing and Human Services.
[1] Bob Brown and Peter Singer (1996) The Greens [Text, Melbourne], [hereinafterThe Greens] 192
[2] The Greens, Preface
[3] The Charter of the Global Greens, Canberra, 2001 [hereinafter Charter] 1
[4] I have used the documents that set out the Greens principles and beliefs, as well as their policy documents. There is other documentation that indicates the position of the Greens on a range of matters, such as their speeches and media releases.
[5] For example: “Insomuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me;” (Matthew 25:40) and the commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Luke 10: 25. See also 1 Corinthians 13). Earlier Jewish tradition contained many similar ideas. (Leviticus 19:18)
[6] Immanuel Kant (1785) Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. Lewis White Beck [New York: Library of Liberal Arts, 1959], 53
[7] Ibid., 429
[8] Michael Novak, (2002) ‘Human dignity, personal liberty: Themes from Abraham Kuyper and Leo XIII’, Journal of Markets & Morality, 5 (1) 59—85, 67, quoting Leviticus 19:18
[9] United States Continental Congress (1776) Declaration of Independence.
[10] Mary Ann Glendon (2001) A world made new [Random House, New York]
[11] Ibid., 174
[12] United Nations (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Preamble.
[13] European Union (2007) Declaration on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the signature of the Treaties of Rome [Declared at Berlin, 2007] Article 1.
[14] For example: UNESCO (2003) Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights [New York] Article 28; Russia, Declaration on the Rights and Dignity of the Person (2006) [Russian People’s Council, Moscow] Article 2.
[15] See Sir Edward Coke, Calvin’s Case (1608) 7 Coke Rep 12 (a); 77 Eng Rep 392; and Sir William Blackstone, “ Of the nature of laws in general” in Commentaries on the Laws of England, Vol 1 [Macmillan, London, 1979] 29-30
[16] See John Locke (1681) Second Treatise of Government, Ch 11, Sec 135.
[17] George Orwell (1945) Animal Farm
[18] The Greens, 69
[19] The Greens, 70
[20] The Greens, 71-72
[21] The Greens, 74
[22] The Greens, 74
[23] The Greens, 76
[24] Bob Brown and Peter Singer (1996) The Greens [Text, Melbourne], 64 [hereinafter The Greens] See also Sara Parkin “The origins and future of Green parties: The UK, Europe and beyond,” in Frank Zelko and Carolin Brinkmann (2006) Green Parties: Reflections on the first three decades [Heinrich Boll Foundation, Washington DC], 31. Note: Although Brown and Singer state that The Greens is “not a formal or official statement of Green policy”, they also say that it is “generally consistent with the policies of the Australian Greens.” (Page 2) As I am discussing the underlying philosophy and policies of the Greens, it is appropriate to refer to the writings of two of the founders and leaders of the Greens Party.
[25] The Greens, 65
[26] Interview with Jack Mundey (October 6, 2000) at:http://australianbiography.gov.au/subjects/mundey/interview [hereinafterMundey interview]
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid
[29] See for example The Charter of the Global Greens, Canberra, 2001 [hereinafterCharter] The Charter is a set of “the core beliefs and ideals” that Green parties hold in common: www.global.greens.org.au The Australian Greens are members of the Global Greens and were instrumental in the conference and charter. In 2008, the Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, announced that Australian would establish and host a Global Greens Secretariat and Information Centre.
[30] Mundey interview
[31] John Black, 2010 election profile and some relevant documents, [Australian Development Strategies Pty Ltd, 2010] See also: John Black “Wealthy Greens the new DLP” Online Opinion, June 11, 2010
[32] Ibid, 14
[33] Ibid., 16
[34] Charter, 3
[35] The Australian Greens do not refer to any inherent dignity of the human person. The Victorian Greens state that “every human being has inherent, inalienable human rights by virtue of birth” but it this is not the same ‘human dignity’ as understood in the western, Judeo-Christian tradition.
[36] The Greens, 44
[37] The Greens, 55
[38] Peter Singer (2001) “Heavy Petting”, Nerve
[39] The Greens, 87
[40] James E Lovelock, (1989) The ages of Gaia [Oxford University Press, Oxford] Many environmentalists subscribe to Lovelock’s theory, although many scientists question it.
[41] Charter, 3
[42] The Greens, 51 ff
[43] Greens website, Environmental principles
[44] The Greens, 49-51
[45] The Greens, 43
[46] Charter, 8
[47] Charter, 9
[48] Charter, 10
[49] Charter, 10
[50] Charter, 10—11
[51] The Greens, 149
[52] The Greens, 5, 42, 190; Charter, 1
[53] Charter, 5
[54] Charter, 12
[55] Charter, 12
[56] Charter, 12
[57] Noel Sheppard, “Gore uses fictional video to illustrate ‘inconvenient truth’ “Newsbusters, April 22, 2008, quoting script from the ABC TV (US) program20/20.
[58] Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills [2007] EWHC 2288
[59] On the idea of a clash within western civilization more generally, see James Kurth, (1994) ‘The real clash’, The National Interest, 3—15. See also Robert P George (2001) The clash of orthodoxies [ISI Books, Wilmington, Delaware]
[60] Charter, 3
[61] The Greens, 51
[62] The Australian Greens: http//greens.org/policies hereinafter Greens website. (Accessed November 7, 2010)
[63] Greens website (emphasis added)
[64] Greens website
[65] The Greens, 43, 131
[66] The Greens, 150, 161
[67] The Greens, 150
[68] The Greens, 151
[69] The Greens, 49
[70] In 2004, the Greens proposed more than 40 new taxes. See Jim Hoggett (2004) The Australian Greens’ Election Policies [IPA, Melbourne, September 2004]
[71] Greens website (at August 2007)
[72] Greens website
[73] Greens website
[74] The Greens, 137-145
[75] Greens website
[76] Charter, 10
[77] Charter, 11
[78] Charter, 12
[79] Charter, 10
[80] The Greens, 169. See also Greens website
[81] The Greens, 174
[82] Greens website
[83] Charter, 9
[84] Greens website
[85] Greens website
[86] Greens website (emphasis added)
And this from Janet Albrechtsen
Extreme secret agenda aims to change our society
Janet Albrechtsen
The Australian
November 17, 2010
THE Greens are anti-free trade, anti-capitalism, anti-wealth and anti-growth.
WE have seen this before. A third party taps into voter discontent with both sides of politics, rises to become a force in Australian politics, then fades into electoral oblivion. Remember the DLP? Remember One Nation? Remember the Australian Democrats?
At the 1990 federal election, the Democrats won 11.3 per cent of lower house votes and 12.6 per cent of Senate votes, picking up five upper house seats. Then they fizzed. By July 2008, the Democrats were a spent force.
Picking up 11.7 per cent of lower house votes and 13.1 per cent of votes in the Senate at the August election, will the Greens go the same way? Consider some more parallels. Riding a green wave of environmentalism, the Democrats looked like a long-term political force. The fairies at the bottom of the garden picked up seats at every Senate election between 1977 and 2001 by appealing to middle-class, inner-city, educated voters, especially younger voters.
Democrat support was, as analysts remarked at the time, more a case of a negative protest vote against the main parties than a positive voter support for Democrats policies. Ditto for many who now mark the Greens box.
Strong leadership helped the Democrats rise to political strength. Think Bob Brown and the Greens. Last week even Labor man Graham Richardson declared that Brown was "arguably the best politician in the country".
Success breeds excitement, and hubris. The Greens' website boasts their 2010 vote was larger than any previous third party in modern Australian political history and the first time a third party elected a senator in every state.
Remember when then Democrats senator Cheryl Kernot declared in 1997 that "after 20 years, we are entitled to say with confidence that we are here to stay and, after [the 1996 election], we can say with equal confidence that our best is yet to come"? She was wrong. The Democrats' best had been and gone. No wonder Kernot switched sides to join Labor.
Perhaps the rise of the Greens is just another third-party firecracker, an explosion of colour and light, then nothing. Just another party that for a time splinters votes away from one side, just as the DLP did to Labor and One Nation did to the Coalition.
Don't count on it. Voter cynicism is here to stay. For so long as voters are looking for a way to protest against their alienation, the Greens may snatch votes from both sides of politics.
And the reason the Greens should be taken more seriously than other minor parties is simple enough.
Behind the moderate face of a politically astute Brown and the clever green camouflage is a political force that wants to transform Australian society in a way most Australians would find abhorrent if these voters understood the policies behind their protest vote.
As former Democrats senator Andrew Murray warned before the August federal election, "don't expect the Greens to put on the mantle of a centrist party, a small-l liberal party. The essence of the Greens is a determination to change society: the way goods and services are produced, the way you are taxed and governed, the way energy is delivered. The Greens will be true to themselves."
Both sides of politics are busy with the politics of dealing with the Greens.
The decision on the weekend by the Victorian Liberal Party to reject any preference deal with the Greens at the November 27 state election is sensible politics. Voters aren't stupid. You won't defend your Liberal Party brand by giving preferences to a party you believe is a danger to the country.
The Labor Party is having enough problems defining itself given its new relationship with the Greens. Richardson and Australian Workers Union boss Paul Howes think the left-flank bleeding to the Greens will stop if the ALP would only reclaim its brand as the progressive party of compassion. Good luck with that political contortion.
Inadvertently Howes, the young, comfortably middle-class, inner-city dweller, sums up Labor's political wedge. His stated preference for putting out the "red carpet" for asylum-seekers is unlikely to find much support among blue-collar workers living in outer suburban seats where elections are decided. However, the Greens raise bigger problems than preference deals and branding.
Last week, Liberal frontbencher Kevin Andrews gave an address exposing the history and the philosophical roots behind the rise of the Greens.
Had someone such as Malcolm Turnbull given this speech, the media would have lauded it as a brilliant treatise demolishing the Greens as anything but a moderate force for good. Instead, the speech by a more conservative Liberal is buried. That's a shame.
Andrews traces the values that underpin our liberal democracy, ideas such as the intrinsic human dignity where the individual is paramount.
He juxtaposes our Judeo-Christian heritage and the ideas of the Enlightenment with the very different historical roots of the Greens, where the subordination of the individual has become the driving ideology to effect radical economic and social change.
"Unless we understand the ideological foundations of the Greens, we will fail to effectively address the challenge of their revolution . . . What the Greens present is the cutting edge of a clash within Western civilisation itself," Andrews said. By looking closely at Greens policies, he has uncovered what he calls the new coercive utopianism.
It becomes clear that behind every stated purpose - and an increasing number of anodyne motherhood statements - set out in Greens policies through the years is a secret agenda that, at its core, is anti-free trade, anti-capitalism, anti-wealth, anti-consumption and anti-growth.
The Greens' latest bill to stop banks raising interest rates beyond the Reserve Bank's official cash rate is just the latest example. It fits the Greens' agenda to reduce the flow of credit in an effort to reduce consumption. Drawing on the Greens de facto think tank, the Australia Institute, new Greens member Adam Bandt wants us to work less, too, presumably so we earn less money and consume less material goods.
For too long, Greens extremism has been hidden from the Australian public under a cuddly shroud of green goodwill.
As success brings more scrutiny, the Greens may well go the way of earlier "new forces" in Australian politics. But just as the Greens would be foolish to take their continuing success for granted, we would be unwise to treat their demise as a given.
janeta@bigpond.net.au
www.kevinandrews.com.au
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)