Beyond The Fringe

Here’s a novel animated history of the wars of the world satirised by food fights. An explanation for those who don’t comprehend the menu can be found here.

According to Gordon Brown, the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is ready to speak with the Dalai Lama.

“I spoke to Premier Wen this morning and I made it absolutely clear that there had to be an end to violence in Tibet,” Brown said.

“The premier told me that, subject to two things that the Dalai Lama has already said — that he does not support the total independence of Tibet and that he renounces violence — that he would be prepared to enter into dialogue with the Dalai Lama.”

Has the pressure of the torrent of net information about China’s repression in Tibet and the need for the Chinese to smooth the way for the Olympics assisted with this concession?

Prince Charles, a long term friend and supporter of the Dalai Lama, has already indicated he will not be attending the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Seized, occupied and colonised by invading Han Chinese in 1950, Tibet is a litmus test for countries who claim to uphold human rights. For years, most nations, including Australia and New Zealand, have paid only lip service to human rights where China is concerned, frightened that an angry dragon will incinerate existing trade agreements and close its doors once more to the west. Nation heads who dare to meet with the ever cheerful Dalai Lama habitually cause the Chinese dictatorship to spout caustic recriminations.

In a sense, Tibet is the Palestine of the Orient, both areas being occupied by colonising aggressors around 60 years ago. Their lands appropriated for the benefit of Han hordes, like the Palestinians dispossessed and ethnically cleansed during their horrific Nakba, indigenous Tibetans driven from their homeland are unable to return or be granted compensation. Like Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, Tibetans supporting self-determination and resisting occupation are imprisoned, persecuted and sometimes killed. As unpopular as it is to voice support of the Palestinian people’s cause, so it is for nations to utter commitment to the cause of the Tibetan people. In both cases, the big bully calls the shots and vents slippery propaganda to justify criminal acts of abuse. In that vein, China has blamed the current riots in Lhasa on activist opportunists seeking to use the coming Olympic games to force the bully’s hand.

Tibetan sources however say the protests, in which 20 people thus far have been killed, began when the Chinese government demanded over 20 monasteries in occupied Tibet raise the Chinese flag. Protests spread spontaneously across Tibet and throughout the world, ignited by the need for freedom after 58 years of brutal occupation, borne by ubiquitous cellphone. With alarm and palpable guilt, China blocked YouTube too late to prevent eyewitnesses broadcasting images via cellphones to the net, along with material obtained by some intrepid tourists present in Lhasa at the commencement of the protests. Too late, mate - the cat is out of the bag and will never be be caught. The whole world is watching, including Chinese people sympathetic to the plight of Tibetans and their cause - so block this, you ridiculous, cruel, power-mad old dinosaurs. A healthy society can withstand and even welcome scrutiny and criticism.

Today, China’s growing economy is irrevocably intermeshed with the rest of the world. Educated youth bourgeoisie hungry for prestige, western goods and internet communication contrast with austere authoritarian rule. Without Mao-style bloody pogroms and a crippled economy, there can be no retreat for China. Particularly with the forthcoming Olympic Games to be held in Beijing, is it realistic to think that expressing solidarity with Tibetan rights (along with pressuring China over its bankrolling of the genocide at Darfur) will create a vast economic reprimand from the ruling Chinese junta? Why are Rudd and Helen Clark proferring customary kneejerk tut tuts rather than roundly condemning both the Chinese occupation of Tibet and its continued oppression of Tibet’s people?

If the west spoke in solidarity to condemn China’s human rights abuses in Tibet, what can China really do without harming itself?

Perhaps sensing this, Condisleezer has called for China to open talks with the Dalai Lama - an unprecedented request to which China has demurred unless the Dalai Lama gives up independence plans. The Dalai Lama however is not seeking independence - he simply wants Tibet to be a REAL autonomous region within China. Why has Kevvie not added his voice in support of Condi’s request? Is China to be our new master now rather than the US?

Next month, our Kevvie is to visit Beijing where it is reported he plans to raise human rights issues. Perhaps he feels that to preempt these talks by supporting Condi’s suggestion may damage his effectiveness.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith expressed the Australian government’s current position:

“The Australian government believes that China’s best interests are served by implementing policies which will foster an environment of greater respect and tolerance,” Mr Smith said.

“We remain concerned about serious inadequacies in the protection of Tibetans’ civil and political rights.”

But he stressed that Australia remained committed to a one-China policy.

Is it desirable or even possible to create an environment of respect and tolerance for oppressive, mass murdering thieves without tainting oneself with the blood of their victims?

Senator Bob Brown rightly criticises Rudd for his lack of support for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people, emphasising that

the media lockout of the Beijing University protests was a reminder China was being ruled by a nasty dictatorship.

“This is a police state,” he said.

“It’s a repressive dictatorship. It’s the last huge Communist dictatorship on the planet and there’s a great need for Kevin Rudd and other political leaders around the world to call a spade a spade.

“The Tibetans have a right to self-determination.

“Kevin Rudd should be speaking up for it.”

Frank Zappa, who often said things best, can have the last word in this post (from “How the Pigs’ Music Works” off the Civilisation Phase 111 album):

Spider: I think I can explain about about how the pigs’ music works
Monica: Well, this should be interesting
Spider: Remember that they make music with a very dense light
John: Yeah
Monica: O.K.
Spider: And remember about the smoke standing still and how they they really get uptight when you try to move the smoke, right?
Monica: Right
John: Yeah?
Spider: I think the music in that dense light is probably what makes the smoke stand still. As soon as the pony’s mane starts to get good in the back any sort of motion, especially of smoke or gas, begins to make the ends split
Monica: Well don’t the splitting ends change the density of the ponies’ music so it affects the density of the pigs’ music, which makes the smoke move which upsets the pigs?
Spider: No, it isn’t like that
John: Well, how does it work?
Spider: Well, what it does is when it strikes any sort of energy field or solid object or even something as ephemeral as smoke, the first thing it does is begins to inactivate the molecular motion so that it slows down and finally stops. That’s why the smoke stops. And also have you ever noticed how the the smoke clouds shrink up? That’s because the molecules come closer together. The cold light makes it get so small, this is really brittle smoke
John: And that’s why the pigs don’t want you to touch it
Spider: See, when the smoke gets that brittle what happens when you try to move it is it disintegrates
John: And the pigs get uptight ’cause you know they, they worship that smoke. They salute it every day
Monica: You know we’ve got something here
John: And, and, and, and that’s the basis of all their nationalism. Like if they can’t salute the smoke every morning when they get up…
Spider: Yeah, it’s a vicious circle. You got it.

Would have to be the Labor Party in Queensland. The low number of voters - just 70% - presenting at the compulsory Regional Council polls attested to the lack of enthusiasm Queenslanders had for the forced amalgamations. It would be interesting to know how many voters only voted out of fear of losing representation. Along with the distinctive results from last year’s plebiscite, the abysmal turnout supports the view that amalgamation was not endorsed by the people, and neither did the people give the government a mandate to betray their will with forced amalgamations.

In Brisbane, the Libs picked up 6 Council seats, whilst in Townsville, long term ALP mayor Tony Mooney lost his position to Thuringowra mayor, Les Tyrell.

Captain Bligh boasted about the hard decisions made to produce “larger, better equipped councils in place across all our major regions”. Better equipped to charge us higher rates and to carry out unilateral armslength State decrees in defiance of resounding public dissent is our cynical reaction.

Despite the present State Government’s South East Queensland Regional Plan and Infrastructure Plan and claims that the State government wishes to slow development on the coast of South East Queensland and move population to Beaudesert and Mt. Lindsay, our Sunshine Coast region’s concept of sustainability, determined as Bob Abbot envisages through community consultative processes well known to Noosa residents, may clash with the State’s vision to which our new super Council must defer, given that there is still no Federal legal recognition of local government. The Sunshine Coast and other regions which desire and plan for more realistic and truly sustainable development and population caps with majority support from their electors and which had opposed amalgamation can still be overridden by the State. The States can also argue for Federal support on the basis outlined by Andrew McNamara, Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, when he supported population distribution omitting to mention the addition of a more sensible, palatable and sustainable federal policy of negative population growth with a truly innovative economic strategy to match. Rudd has thrown his national condom out the window as well.

Regardless of the warm, fuzzy wording of the SEQRPIP, the travesty of Traveston Dam has already provided a clear example of the State Government sacrificing the environment and existing landholders for the “greater good of Queensland” … in other words, the good of those requiring development at the expense of irreplaceable natural habitat and communities.

As Captain Bligh called her new lieutenants to a Brisbane summit, Bob Abbot expressed similar suspicions about Bligh’s real agenda:

“I’ve got a great fear that the next attack on local government will be in the planning sphere and I think they (state government) need to look very closely at what the communities are saying about how they want to be managed in the future as regards to development,” he told a Brisbane newspaper.

“Any further attack on local government in the development sphere would create another Gold Coast highway koala corridor type fiasco for the government – and would bring them down.”

Centralised decision-making may facilitate government planning aligned with big money, yet a government markedly out of step with its constituents could pay a high price at the next State election. Big Bob, with 70% of the Sunshine Coast vote has a clear mandate for sustainability. Perhaps Captain Bligh is counting on voters forgetting her and Beattie’s attack on democracy by then, yet Howard’s end was largely due to his deafness to the voice of the people, from his outrageous disregard of public feeling against his draconian no choice work laws, his ignorance of the realities of climate change to his pandering to Bush with the disgraceful war on Iraq.

When politicians step above their role as servants of the people, the people whom they are elected to represent will teach them humility.

Good on you, Bob … you ARE the man for the big job. A positive future is now possible despite the shoddy, undemocratic amalgamation and one third the previous representation enforced by autocratic State Government decree. The whole Sunshine Coast can incorporate Noosa’s sensible planning for sustainability.

95% of Noosa voters backed the man they know can deliver for the Coast as well as he has done for them. 70% of the entire region selected Bob.

Joe Natoli’s last ditch desperate, repugnant appeal to the Coast’s homophobic bigots is captured for posterity on Youtube. Given Bob Abbot’s resounding majority election to the mayoral job, it seems Joe, in running a negative campaign, vastly underestimated the intelligence of the electorate. The good sense and decency of Coast voters has saved us from an overdevelopment, divisive menace.

Andrew McNamara, Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, gave an impressive, lucid speech to the Brisbane Institute on the need for sustainable planning within Australia.

McNamara quoted the wise words of Bob Carr in 1997:

“I think people are ready to grasp the argument that the unsustainable growth in population numbers is degrading our planet and that Australia must begin to think of itself as a country with a population problem. Let’s throw away for all time the notion that Australia is an empty space just waiting to be filled up. Our rivers, our soils, our vegetation won’t allow that to happen without an enormous cost to those who come after us.”

Showing he missed Carr’s central point, McNamara went on to say:

The key to achieving a sustainable Australian population in the 21st century is population distribution - adopting policies which encourage and support population growth in areas where it can be supported sustainably, and discouraging it in those places where it can’t.

We hope the Federal Government notes well the plight of our region, with plans by the old Maroochy Shire Council to increase its population by 63% by the year 2020, and acts to prevent such lunacy. Stopping the ill-conceived and environmentally devastating Traveston Dam would be a significant indication of the Government’s good intentions also. Population growth in the already environmentally stressed-to-the limit south east corner of Queensland must be discouraged.

An economic strategy based on reducing population generally across Australia and encouraging same must be prepared - ’smarter and smaller’ needs to become our catchcry. Increased education and parity of wages for women, removal of baby bonuses, encouraging older people back into the workforce, adequate funds for academic research untied to needs of existing industry in order to create new industries down the track, support for innovative brain-based, non-polluting industries, and more apprenticeships would all help.

The Federal Government might also examine the success of the Noosa strategic plan with its population cap and international recognition by UNESCO with a view to using it as a model for communities across Australia.

What choice do we have? civil disobedience - in this case opting out of the electoral process - is seen by some as the last resort for people whose vehement, legitimate wishes been ignored, where democracy has been abandoned in the push for political outcomes which may prove disastrous and which have been imposed through nefarious deception. Others have joined the Noosa Liberation Army who today took responsibility for defacing roadside election posters:

“Noosa will secede or de-amalgamate,” an email read. “It’s just a matter of time! Those who think that this fight can be won without conflict are seriously deluded. This is a war, and we will win, however long it takes.”

Voting in the grandiosely named Sunshine Coast Regional Council Quadrennial Elections is compulsory under the state Local Government Act 1993. We, the governed, might argue we are voting for representatives in an illegitimate body which does not as yet exist, and that this flawed representation was proclaimed without the consent and against the wishes of the electorate.

There is no question that the people of Noosa Shire do not want amalgamation - we have been polled numerous times about this, the last plebiscite being 96% against it.

Yet if the people of Noosa do not vote, we run the terrible risk of having pro-development Joe Natoli for mayor and reduced representation for Noosa. Regardless of the new super council, State ‘iconic’ legislation provides that development decisions will be made in Brisbane, far from those who are affected and live here. Noosa’s say in its own future at present is nobbled … reduced back to vocal community groups, some of which are banding together under the Noosa Biosphere Association.

Local governments are not defined in the Australian Constitution - they are creations of their respective States. Regionalisation and amalgamation are State controlled and designated. Under the Australian Constitution, States and Territories are the only legal representative entities recognised by the Commonwealth. The present Queensland Government was elected by us, and it can thereafter do what it likes till we vote it out.

Naturally we have thought long and hard about the bigger picture when appealing to the Federal government. Although Kevvie has been approached about the undemocratic actions of the Queensland government by disgruntled Noosa residents amongst members of many such alarmed Queensland communities, and though neither he nor Julia personally supported forced amalgamations, we believe Rudd has a definite goal in mind, to form an Australian republic. With some historical vanity, he would like to be the engineer and steward of its formation. At present, for him it may be prudent to avoid a bun fight about the delineation of Federal and State powers under the existing Constitution, and so he is staying out of the fray, to the detriment of both Noosa residents and the upholding of representative democracy on a community level generally in our State.

Once regionalisation is complete throughout Australia, what need will there be for States? The footballers may not like it, but Brisbane can still play Sydney.

Except for alienated, infuriated folks, people will start identifying with their respective regions. The Sunshine Coast will play Brisbane as usual in soccer. Then the stage will be set for further reorganisation of decision-making and responsibilities.

In the interim, what happens if there is a change of government in Queensland or nationally? What power will we in our communities have had usurped from us, and passed into the mitts of an even more despicable, aggrandising mob?

Perhaps Noosa will be protected by iconic legislation for long enough for a republic to emerge, where the rights of individuals might be defined in such a way to protect the environments in which they live as well. Pigs might fly too. Despite Australians being typical disinterested in politics (is politics an acceptable dinner conversation topic yet?), it is essential that we are engaged in the republic debate, otherwise whilst we attend our barbies and down a few beers, we may get the sort of republic we really don’t want.

Grassroots democracy can be an annoyance and sometimes a threat to the feds who like things nice and tidy in Canberra. They’d rather be at lunch or off on a nice junket. Centralised governments who do not respond to vocal communities can be willing to sacrifice happy constituents and healthy environments at the beck and call of the rich and powerful who desire progress at any cost.

Recognised internationally with UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve, Noosa, with its achievements in sustainability and community democracy could serve as a model for communities in the new Republic of Australia. It is up to all Australians to reflect upon the choices before them, and speak out to protect our children’s future and the environment which sustains us all.

As we predicted, Israhell’s recent aggression against the blockaded and deprived people of Gaza and threats of escalated collective punishment have been logically followed as in the past by more radicalisation, with a murderous attack by an unidentified gunman within a religious school in Jerusalem.

Merkaz HaRav yeshiva is described by one comment in Haaretz as ‘a heart of religious Zionism’, in other words, a bastion of the land thieving settler movement.

“This attack … came in reaction to the crimes of the Israeli occupation and the massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip,” said Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman.

The gunman is reported as being a Palestinian living in East Jerusalem, and his actual identity is still unclear.

8 students were slaughtered, making the results of Israhell’s aggression against the neighbours it ethnically cleansed 60 years ago consistent with the existing death ratio. A comparative 10 Palestinians are slaughtered due to the illegal occupation, blockades and oppression by the Zionist enterprise for every 1 Israeli.

And so the cycle of violence, orchestrated and cheerled by those who benefit and glory in it the most - religious zealots, rightwing fanatics, power-mad politicians and of course the shills of the weapons industry - continues.

Meanwhile, Israhell is condemned for its 40 years of occupation and oppression by aid groups -

GAZA is experiencing “a humanitarian implosion” and life for its embattled citizens is at its worst since the beginning of Israeli occupation in 1967, a coalition of British human rights groups and charities said yesterday.
Poverty and unemployment are rising, hospitals are suffering power cuts for 12 hours a day and the water and sewage systems are close to collapse, according to a report by groups including Amnesty International, Care International UK, Oxfam and Save the Children UK.

It called on the UK government and the European Union to urgently redress this by pressuring Israel to lift its blockade on the impoverished coastal enclave and talk to Hamas.

…

The UK groups’ report on Gaza said the severity of the humanitarian situation had “increased exponentially since Israel imposed extreme restrictions on the movement of people and goods in response to the Hamas takeover (last June] and to indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israel”.

It added: “The Gaza economy is no longer on the brink of collapse; it has collapsed.”

During the past six months, the majority of private businesses in Gaza have shut down and 95 per cent of its industrial operations have been suspended due to an Israeli ban on imported raw materials and the blockage of exports. The report said poverty and unemployment had deepened dramatically and that 1.1 million people out of a population of 1.5 million were dependent on food aid.

Israeli restrictions had also hit patients in need of medical treatment unavailable in Gaza. Israel granted only 64 per cent of applications for care outside Gaza in December, compared with 89.3 per cent in January 2007.

An Israhelli spokesman for Olmert oinked in support of ongoing collective punishment of Palestinians, whilst taking the opportunity to delegitimise the democratically elected Hamas government yet again.

“In Gaza, a hostile regime took power that is shooting rockets into Israel on a daily basis. You don’t have to have normal economic relations with a country that is shooting at you.”

It doesn’t appear to occur to these arrogant monsters that Israhell, possessing the 5th most powerful military in the world, continuously commits war crimes which have been declared war crimes internationally for very good reason, as they inevitably cause terrible repercussions to be visited upon their perpetrators, irregardless of whether Israhell wishes to lay the blame, as it always does, on its victims rather than taking responsibility for its own criminal, deliberately chosen policies.

There is no happiness for him who oppresses and persecutes; no, there can be no repose for him. For the sighs of the unfortunate cry for vengeance to heaven. - Johann Pestalozzi

The Zionist media strongarmers rush to insist on retractions by the media whom they claim misinterpreted Israhelli Deputy Defence Minister Vilnai’s use of the term ’shoah’ in his repulsive collective bullying threat against the beleaguered Palestinian people. Guardian editor Alan Rushbridger apologises profusely for using the word holocaust as a translation - still, the Palestinian people and the world have heard Vilnai’s allusion, intended or not, loud and clear.

Will apologies now gush from multiple newspaper editors to Iranian leader Ahmadinejad for their definite misinterpretation of his speech where they and the Zionist propaganda machine claimed he said Israhell would be ‘wiped off the map’ when he actually said the Zionist regime would be metaphorically ‘wiped from the page of history’? Yeah, right, sure they will.

Wikipedia, flawed though it may be at times, has this to say:

Shoah is the Hebrew term meaning “disaster” or “conflagration”. With addition of “Ha” (meaning ‘The’ In Hebrew) - Ha Shoah is commonly used to refer to the Holocaust.

A quick google for ’shoah’ finds the common result in English at least is the Holocaust, whereas HaShoah appears to be associated with Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Paligate plot thickens with this Vanity Fair report where the United Stupids are revealed to have secretly conspired to give arms to Fatah strongman villain Dahlan in order to provoke a civil war to remove the democratically elected Hamas government. The elections, perpetrated at too short notice for Fatah to win, were encouraged by the Stupids. Folowing the Hamas electoral win, the Stupids wailed and gnashed teeth in consternation:

“Everyone blamed everyone else,” says an official with the Department of Defense. “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the fuck recommended this?’ ”

….

Some analysts argued that Hamas had a substantial moderate wing that could be strengthened if America coaxed it into the peace process. Notable Israelis—such as Ephraim Halevy, the former head of the Mossad intelligence agency—shared this view. But if America paused to consider giving Hamas the benefit of the doubt, the moment was “milliseconds long,” says a senior State Department official. “The administration spoke with one voice: ‘We have to squeeze these guys.’ With Hamas’s election victory, the freedom agenda was dead.”

One would think after numerous utter failures and countless lives lost through cossetting of a lengthy list of previous dictators/strongmen, including Saddam, the Stupids would have learnt by now. In the current debacle according to the report, the Stupid’s UN ex-representative John Bolton blames Miss Prim, Condisleezer, clumsily seeking to make her mark on history and demonstrating she has not learnt from it.

Once again, Israhell uses its grotesquely disproportionate US funded weaponry to wantonly slaughter Palestinians. About 100 people were obliterated this time, including 19 children.

Israhelli commandant, Barak, foreshadowed an increase in military extermination operations in Gaza in order to bring down the democratically elected Hamas government. Ugly threats mean ugly responses including increased radicalisation, not less, against your apartheid state, Ehud.

From Gush Shalom:

This is not a conflict between two equal forces. The most powerful army in the Middle East, backed by the world’s single remaining super-power, is daily using tanks, fighter planes, helicopters and gunships against the lightly-armed militias and overcrowded population of a small area whose people have lived under occupation and in poverty long before the present siege.

Israhell’s expressed intentions:

“We are justified in bombing Palestinian civilians including women and children because Palestinian fighters are using them as human shields.”

Israhell’s real intentions:

“Hey you mob, get your fighters to stop fighting us or we will kill you all, women and children included. And we will take more of your land, with any luck, all of it.”

Then, last week Israhelli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai threatened the Palestinians with genocide, veering toward the real intentions above:

The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.

Shoah means Holocaust in Hebrew. It can also mean disaster - either way, Vilnai’s threat is repugnant and arrogant.

Thus does the racist oppressor state use innocent human lives as bargaining chips with the leaders of the Palestinian concentration camp inmates it has tormented for the past 60 years. Jonathan Swift would smile in recognition of their rhetoric.

Israhell seems incapable of realising that the more collective injustices it perpetrates against its hapless victims, the more rockets will come. Humans do not submit to oppressors committing heinous acts. They fight until the oppressor is vanquished or a peaceful solution found. With no hope, there is only despair, and nothing to lose by fighting back to the death if necessary. Yet Israhell habitually does not recognise Palestinians as human at all, which perhaps explains why its leaders appear unable to grasp these simple truths.

Eissam Younis, director of the Al Mizan Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, said :

the Israeli army was “intentionally and systematically targeting civilians” and criticised world powers for their muted response.

“Israel puts itself above the law because the international community is always silent,” he said.

…

Tariq Dardouna, a Palestinian resident trapped in his house in east Jabaliya, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces were targeting civilians.

“The Israeli army opens fire at everything in our area, including children and houses. There are injured children bleeding inside their houses,” Dardouna said.

Following Israhell’s pogrom on Gaza, the West Bank offices of democratically elected Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, were destroyed by Israhelli plane strikes. Another 5 people were killed. Israhell complained when Abbas cut off negotiations and condemned the attacks.

“It’s very regrettable that what is happening is more than a holocaust,” Abbas told reporters in Ramallah.

“Children who are barely five-months old are being bombed by the Israeli army.”

“We tell the world to see with its own eyes and judge for itself what is happening and who is carrying out international terrorism.”

Perhaps it will be his offices struck next. Then Israhell can joyfully proclaim as it has been wont to do in the past that it has noone with which to negotiate, conveniently placing the blame back on its miserable victims.

Barak no doubt is preparing the way to make support for the Zionist uber state and its abominable pogroms a central issue in the United Stupids election where Obama appears to have the lead at present. Barack may be forced to barrack for Barak and Israhell’s acts of attrition, or face an uphill battle in the US election.

For peace to come to the Palestinian region, it is essential that the US is led by someone in step with the rest of the international community and who does not favour privileged Israhell with its mansions and swimming pools over the needs of those whom it oppresses and from whom it has stolen and continues to steal, with the pallid, erroneous excuse that Israhell is the only democracy of the region.

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery. - Jonathan Swift

Most mornings we take the black cat for its beloved walk around the property, inspecting the gardens with their native shrubs, birds and dam, overflowing still from the recent rains.

Soon the bananas will be ripe enough to pick and hang in the shed - if the birds don’t find them first.

Sago plants are ready for their roots to be harvested, soaked and turned into tapioca or roasted or diced for curries, accompanied by crushed edible ginger.

An elegant heliconia flower which has lasted for a couple of weeks still pleases with its voluptous curves and delicate colours.

Our splendid pink surprise grevillea is flowering in profusion near the dam. It is difficult to grasp that in one month, our shire will no longer exist … the merging of Noosa into the Sunshine Coast super council is imminent, despite the most vocal local protest in the history of Australia since the Eureka Stockade.

The latest outrage is that Noosa is to be given ‘iconic’ status, and any development or other decisions regarding its future will come directly from Brisbane. How’s that for representative democracy? we had better local representative government under Joh Bjelke Petersen (shudder), As one commentator has put it, centralised power and decision-making is the antithesis of democracy. Our community is disheartened - the decisions made far away may soon smash the cohesion which has sustained our environment and restrained at the shire boundaries the nauseating high density developments to the south.

Our current Noosa mayor, Bob Abbott, may win Sunshine Coast super council leadership from development hungry Joe Natoli, yet even so, what happens after the next State election if Labor loses? and in the interim, what development pressures will Labor face? what of Terry Mackenroth, one of the architects of the amalgamation who sat on the supposedly independent committee, and who is a director of developer Devine Homes? what sort of sway do the building unions whose workers want jobs at any cost to the environment have with the Labor money men?

Still, it’s not over till it’s over and we must continue our protest as long as we are able. The survival of our community’s special preserving relationship with its treasured indigenous plants and animals depends upon it. We live here and we must protect our surroundings from those who care only for money, their development cronies and pandering to their future customers from the southern states - with a consequent increased demand for health and other community services which are currently horrendously inadequate.

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