Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Now I don't just mean, "Oh, they don't like workers" or "they'll be worse for the environment", though these things are true. I mean that this group of people do not have everyday competence.

There's a much deeper argument that war cannot end, to do with human nature. It says that we are warlike by nature, and can draw strong arguments from evolutionary psychology. Our ability and constitutional inclination to divide the human world into an 'us' and a 'them', and indeed to feel warlike toward the 'them', seems to be a part of our nature which we can thank for the survival of our family trees for the past million and more years. We can't throw it just by a bit of state indoctrination or mass participation in flower workshops. It's a strong argument.

I write this in response to the survey your office distributed recently entitled, "Your Views, Your Vote." I appreciate your attempt to obtain some information about the views of constituents, but felt the survey was inadequate and I could not complete it with any integrity. However I will attempt to address your twelve points, as well as make some remarks about things I feel are of critical importance but which the survey did not include.

The term “Drug War” was invented by the warriors themselves, but it is a very descriptive term and we should use it constantly. A war is something expensive, with casualties, and that requires constant justification on the basis of results. If our opponents try to avoid the term, don’t let them. It’s their term, it is apt, and we will insist on it. In our literature we always capitalise “The Drug War” or “The War on Drugs” as it is a proper noun for a historical event with a beginning… and an end.

But what do we know about the impact of this policy? It seems to me that when a government or opposition puts forth policy they should be obliged to produce an impact statement with the costs and benefits, social, environmental and financial. This process itself should be consistent, transparent, and in a standardised format. That is it should be... um... professional.

I've found before that when you go out alone to watch a football game you kind of spontaneously meet people who are also interested. It's a contrast to going out alone to listen to music or trying to get laid, when I inevitably just get lonelier as the night goes on.

Powerful, yet well-behaved, Webdiarist Hamish Alcorn has been entertaining his friends and admirers in Another Place with the BBC’s Top 100 Books. He and others critiqued the list somewhat severely, as being Anglocentric, containing too much chick lit, and being repetitious. So Hamish (with a little help from his friends & admirers) devised the following.

Malthus was wrong as demographers well know. It’s well known that the projections Malthus made of the English population failed to unfold, and the steep upward curve of population plateaued and now actually creeps downward, not just in England but in many parts of the World.  We know perfectly well what the key factor is in causing that plateau, and it’s not affluence as such, it’s not telling the Catholics to shut up (Ireland and Italy have among the lowest fertility rates in the World), it’s not giving out free condoms and abortions, it’s not an authoritarian imposition of small families, and it has nothing to do with immigration. It’s teaching women to read.

Forests pump salt back down into the ground. They retain water to minimise flooding and feed the water into the water-table over a much longer period of time, as well as through condensation contributing further to precipitation, thus pushing back desertification. They stop erosion and rebuild soil. They lock up millions of tons of carbon, provide habitat and corridors for creatures of foot and wing, deal with all manner of toxins in highly creative ways, and produce oxygen. They keep rivers alive.

The Matildas are not just good. They are clearly special. As players and personalities, and as a team, they have that bit of magic which compels one to believe in them. They are the most brilliant role-models for our young girls, and perfect icons for Australian patriotism and pride.

"I wore a poppy at work for the last couple of days (I now work in a book shop). My boss, in a friendly way, asked me why. For me it's not because war is bad or because they protected freedoms or because of grief or the loss of youth. It is just because millions of people in the past have fought, killed and died, and whatever we think about it, that shouldn't be forgotten. Forgetting that would be a very big mistake. It's why I'm much more sold on 'Remembrance Day' than 'Anzac Day'. It's just a day to remember, that's all.": Hamish Alcorn

"Every now and then I get these bulletins from the Democrats. Although they are quite clearly partisan, it also seems to me that they are an efficient summary of what is happening in the Senate, and might partially fulfil the original Federal 'Webdiary' function of Webdiary. So I'm publishing this one, which concerns the Bills and speeches expected this week. If people feed back that they think this is a good idea I'll make a habit of publishing these bulletins for us to discuss." Hamish Alcorn

"There is an ongoing underlying crisis for democracy in Queensland, and that is that there is no opposition, and that situation is for the time being entrenched institutionally." Hamish Alcorn

"Murray Bookchin, political philosopher and activist, died last Sunday aged 85." Obituary by Hamish Alcorn.

"There is tremendous pressure from the US for our troops to remain in Iraq, and of course mutual loyalty is a vital component of the alliance. But the longer the Coalition of the Willing remains, the more we are detested, and the more blood is shed. The country is already tearing itself apart, so I am asking you, could our departure really make it any worse?" - John Howard did not say any such thing.

"Claims that the fossil fuel industry had unprecedented access to confidential Commonwealth government processes and the silencing of senior climate change scientists require an independent investigation." Greens Senator Christine Milne, in response to last night's 4-Corners program, "The Greenhouse Mafia."

Good night for the year from Webdiary. This is the last post for the year. We will be back with New Year bells on the 2nd January.

Christmas is anti-war. It is anti-slavery and anti-exploitation. Christmas I dare to bubble is at root against domination, against class, against patriarchy and against prejudice. It is an ancient struggle against poverty and disease; against women dying in childbirth and against people losing their loved ones to tragedy. It is, in ritual, a universal cry for the finest features of the human spirit; for our wildest hopes and dreams; the deepest aspirations of life. It is for democracy and liberty, for universal health care and education, for old forests and clean waterways, for romance and music, for beaches, good company and cold beer.

Justin Wilshaw kindly suggested we publish the following statement from The Howard Government for discussion. I for one take it at face value and believe every word, but other Webdiarists may not agree. Hamish Alcorn.

And so begins a new chapter of this curious adventure in cyber-civics. Good luck to us all.

On the Don't go away yet thread an informal get together has been organised for Brisbane Webdiarists. It will be at the Melbourne Hotel, 2 Browning St, West End, on Sunday 18th, starting from around 2pm.

Meanwhile there was some discussion between a couple of Webdiarists about drinks in Melbourne (the city that is). That's a private affair, as far as I can tell, but it occurred to me others might like to see if there's interest as well.

So this thread is for Webdiarists wherever you are to suggest Christmas drinks in your own towns and cities. Written in pencil to facilitate this is the time, the afternoon of Sunday the 18th. So to start all someone has to do is suggest a venue and see if there's some interest.

On this day 57 years ago the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Just as the Rule of Law, as contrary to arbitrary rule, is the basis for the idea of equity and freedom in a community, in my mind international standards of Law are the basis for the possibility of world peace. Exceptionalism in international Law undermines World Peace. This is why the pursuit of international standards for all humans was such a profound historical development, inspired by the tens of millions of dead in World War II. God did not write this declaration, and it was not written on a mountain. But I do believe it is the highest aspiration of the human spirit yet articulated. And I do believe it is worth us having a read of today, to consider why it was written by our grandfather's political leaders, and why we should not discard it now. Here is a transcript in full. Hamish Alcorn.

I love my sister very much and am so so proud of what she has pioneered.

I've spent the last few hours on the phone to various people and it is clear that at the very least Webdiary is going to continue as a site run by amateurs - amateurs that is with a lot of experience and momentum and love of this community. For my part, I don't want what Margo has done to die, and I think all of us who feel we owe her something might also think that the best tribute right now is to continue proudly in our community.

"We want the land we battled for
  To be a land worth while.
We're sick uv greed, an' 'ate, an' strife,
An' all the mess that's made uv life."...
  'E stopped a bit to smile.
"I got these thoughts Out There becos
We learned wot mateship reely was."

CJ Dennis

If we were immortal we could contemplate knowing it all. We could harbour ambitions of total understanding and comprehension of all things. We could pretend that we, as individuals, seek the truth. It might even be some kind of race: which immortal can reach Nirvana first? Our mortality says to us, quite simply, ‘Forget it, you’ll be dead before you’ve really started’.

G'day. Here's something to really get your teeth into, a review by Hamish Alcorn, my brother and convenor of my soon-to-be-launched website yourdemocracy, of the American bestseller Don't think of an elephant. After the review, an extract from the book with the kind permission of publisher Scribe. It's about how the hard right has hijacked the language of politics and how progressives can take it back. Author George Lakoff is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a founding senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute.

My brother Hamish sent this email "to everyone I’ve ever met in my life" last night.

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Pre-election thoughts

Election campaigns produce enormous quantities of bullshit which, whilst having no undue impact, does not in my opinion help one person clarify what is important or what their leaders are doing. This is an attempt to describe what is actually important to me, and why.

I’ll start with the deepest, most abiding imperative I know about, which is at once biological and spiritual, seeming to emerge from some evolutionary well of unseen wisdom: concern for the future of my child, my child’s children, and their world.