Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Simon Ellis, if you don’t like it, skip it. No one’s forcing you to read.

Ahhhh, C Parsons, where would we be without comprehensive clarifications and explanations such as that you provide.

Firstly, I don't think I could be labelled a 'peace activist' as I'm far to fat and lazy. Maybe 'peace passivist' or even 'peace potato'?

Secondly, personally I don't recall writing anything, anywhere, 'praising' the Iraqi 'resistance' / 'insurgency' / call it what you will. Would you care to provide examples of my writings where I praise or support them? Opposing the invasion before it happened, and arguing against the legitimacy of that invasion, is not supporting the insurgents.

And then we fall back to your favourite references, those whose words of 'thanks', or those who are thanked, somehow changes into 'collaboration' by your definition. An odd argument, but each to his own. I thanked my 2 year old daughter this morning when she carried my shoes over to me - was that collaboration as well?

Yet you do throw in a new twist with reference to Ezra Pound - a figure even further removed from this current conflict than your last one, Wilfred Burchett - but let us run with it anyway. Pound made his "stupid radio broadcasts praising Mussolini" from within Italy, when that country was a war with the US and its Allies. Personally I don't know what he broadcast, but would suggest actively promoting the enemy, from within the enemy state, on enemy state run radio, as did Lord Haw-Haw, could be construed as collaboration.

However, arguing against the disinformation propagated by your own side, from within your own side, should not be so construed.

Do you think everyone else is bored with us yet?

Bill Avent: "Not president of the United States during the time of the civil war, when the states were not united, does NOT mean never at any time the President of the United States."

Er, yes it does, Bill.

The Provisional Confederate Constitution was adopted on January 8, 1861. Before Lincoln became President.

Abraham Lincoln's inauguration was not until March 4, 1861.

He was assasinated April 14, 1865.

South Carolina, the first State to be re-admitted to the Union, did not rejoin the United States uintil July 9, 1868. After Lincoln was dead.

According to your logic, then, Lincon was never President of the United States.

At no time while he occupied the office of President, according to you, was the United States in existence.

You keep saying it. Then deny it. Over and over.

James Govett: "Adam Rope talks of the ‘left’ and you respond by referring to the ‘peace-movement’. Are you suggesting ‘the left’ and the ‘peace movement’ are one and the same?"

No. Are you suggesting the Left isn't playing a leading role in the so-called 'peace' movement?

James Govett: "Why don’t you simply and directly answer questions asked of you? Here are two.
1. Do you believe the ‘Peace Movement’ and ‘the Left’ are one and the same?
2. Do you believe the ‘Iraqi Resistance’ and the ‘Baathist Party’ are one and the same?"

No. And no.

Now, James. Why do the Left go on defending the Iraqi 'resistance', particularly in view of the ruthless attacks it makes against civilians.

In view of the reactionary agenda of its elements? Particularly the Wahhabist and Ba'athist factions, which clearly dominate?

Bill Avent - you're correct, of course. It's your right to engage in any argument that you see fit.

If you wish to allow CP to bog you down in an irrelevant argument that has absolutely zero bearing on the topic at hand then that's your prerogative.

One might, however, interpret that as a victory for CP.

Did any poster listen to AM this morning?
Transcript here.

Peter Hendy, Chief Executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and well known to Webdiary, was arguing to drop the top tax rate following on from John Howard's raising of the subject last night. He had an interesting view on this matter.

PETER HENDY: One of the issues for Australia is skill shortages right now, and the fact is there's some one million Australians living and working overseas.

They tend to be some of the highest trained, highest skilled Australians there are, and what we want is a proportion, if we can, back, get a proportion of them back to Australia.

So one of the things that has, keeps those people overseas is the high top marginal rates we have in this country.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Many work overseas for the experience itself. How likely is it that a proportion would come back if the tax rate was lowered?

PETER HENDY: Well, you're right there. The fact is that these people invariably go overseas to extend or expand their life experiences, their work experiences but what we've found, and we've done actual analysis of this issue, is that a lot of those people don't come back to Australia because of our tax system.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: If they pay less tax and potentially spend more, what would be the benefit for the Australian economy?

PETER HENDY: Well it'll strengthen the Australian economy. I mean, in the end the funny thing about this is that there'll be more taxpayer taxes to spend on the important things like roads and law and order and on public hospitals and things like that.

So, the logic is that by dropping the top tax rate, and thus getting ex-pats to come home, we will actually increase the total tax revenue! That's clean, clear and totally logical isn't it?
Of course, the odd fact that there are seemingly no actual figures to back these statements up is totally irrelevent.

And it is odd that the reduction of total tax revenue from those 'highest trained, highest skilled Australians' who are still in Australia, and occasionally paying tax, isn't mentioned.
Anyone done any calculations on the proportion of these high earners, both home and abroad?

And he followed all this up with

PETER HENDY: As a top rate we think, over the course of the next 10 years, that we should move to 30 cent top rate, the same level as the corporate rate.

Wonder what the other tax rates would be then?

This article was immediately followed by a report
into Government's proposed welfare to work changes.
Transcript here

This report stated

Independent modelling shows that single parents and the disabled will be worse off than critics had previously anticipated.

Considered the most detailed analysis to date, the report by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, or NATSEM, shows that a sole parent, who's required to do 15 hours of work a week under the new system, would keep just $81 of the $195 that they earn on the minimum wage.

The Opposition says it leaves single parents working for just $5.40 an hour.

And

Under the allowance those parents must work at least 15 hours a week, a proposal NATSEM says will reduce their disposable income by as much as $100 a week

Those same parents would also go from paying no tax to facing an effective marginal tax rate of 65 per cent, if they earn between $31 and $125 a week.

That's more than 15 per cent higher than the top marginal tax rate, paid by those whose income is well above $100,000 a year.

Don't you love living in this wonderful egalitarian society, where the Government is fighting hard for the 'battlers'.

C Parsons, I’m getting as sick and tired of this as Simon Ellis.

Dates of ‘Admission’ of individual states has no bearing. Without a central confederacy there was no effective opposition to the idea of a United States. Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9th, 1865. Defeat meant the demise of the Confederacy and reinstatement of rule over the whole of the country by the US government. Lincoln died on April 14th, 1865. Do the arithmetic — it’s easy.

In mid September there will be a major world summit involving leaders of 175 nations. It was called by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to address the pressing issues of global poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy. In the lead up the U.N. today released a report titled The World Social Situation: The Inequality Predicament.

The 158-page report documents how inequality between and within countries has often accompanied greater economic globalisation. The world is more polarised today than it was 10 years ago, it says in the report, the rich have become richer and the poor even poorer.

This report sounds the alarm over "persistent and deepening" inequality, the widening gap between skilled and unskilled workers, the growing disparities in health and education, and opportunities for social, economic and political participation.

"Some decades-old social gaps have actually widened, particularly gender disparities," Jose Antonio Ocampo, under-secretary-general of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, told reporters as he introduced the report.

In a world of increasing technological development, when societies should be benefiting from economic progress, many are facing "alarming increases" in the discrepancies between rich and poor.

Sadly, as highlighted in the report, it is women (and by implication their children) suffering the most hardship.

On the same day as this report is released to our world, President George W Bush is trying to spread another message around. In doing so he is using one woman, a mother whose children still live, in a sad and contemptible way to silence another woman, whose child is dead.

At the same time the attack dogs in his administration set out to sabotage efforts to help women and children all over the world. They call for striking any mention of the Millennium Development Goals in U.N. plans, and have publicly complained that the document's section on poverty is too long. Rather than focus on the needs of people around the world, they focus on their own desire for 'success'.

Perhaps we're seeing a little too much of that closer to home as well, what is your view Bill, CP?

Adam Rope, to make stiff cheese and understand the comment by Senator Mitch Fifield do the following;
1: Go to shop and buy cheese, (don't whatever you do buy French cheese or you'll be labelled Un-Australian and Anti-American).
2: Take said cheese home and unwrap it.
3: Place unwrapped cheese in fridge (being careful not to displace anti-terrorist magnet off door),
4: Leave cheese for at least 3 days.
5: Attempt to eat cheese.
If you have followed the above procedure correctly the cheese should be stiff, hard, totally inedible and impossible to swallow.

Some other valuable facts re stiff cheese:
There has never been a President called Stiff Cheese
The United States of Stiff Cheese is a totally fictitious country
Iraq was not invaded to secure its deposits of Stiff Cheese
You cannot feed Stiff Cheese to Stiff Mice, but that's another subject altogether and I wouldn't want to digress now would I?

Hope this cleared it up and happy munching.

Craig Rowley, yes, let’s get back to something more relevant to globalisation, anyway. Wouldn’t want to bore Simon.

On trends towards inequality ‘Closer to home’, may I slip in my reply to Gareth Eastwood. It was probably lost in the house moving exercise. He supplied census statistics suggesting that things are not moving backwards in this supposedly affluent society of ours, as I say they are, but that things are getting better.

A question for you, Gareth: how do you suppose census takers accurately count the homeless? Do they visit every park bench on census night, carrying their little laptops? Do they look under every bridge, hoping to interview every homeless person camped there, expecting not to be told to bugger off and leave them in peaceful misery?

But since you insist on official figures, the 1996 census counted 104,506 people as homeless; the 2001 census counted 101,000, or thereabouts. So a reduction, right? But no, because here’s the rub—in 1996 the 23,000 people living in caravans were deemed homeless, whereas in 2001 people living in caravans were not deemed homeless. I guess we’ve all heard of lies, damned lies and statistics. So much for measuring everything.

Bill Avent: "Without a central confederacy there was no effective opposition to the idea of a United States."

But that's not what you said, Bill.

No one disputes the Confederacy was effective opposition to the idea of a United States. We all know that the Confederacy opposed the United States. That's what the war was about (initially).

What you said was;
"I don’t need a map of the USA to know that there was no United States of America when America was divided into a Confederacy and a Union. An English lesson for you: ‘Divided’ means quite the opposite to ‘United’."

It's just absurd you going on denying it. You plainly said "there was no United States of America when America was divided into a Confederacy and a Union."

If the United States didn't exist when the Confederacy secceded, then plainly it cannot have existed until the rebel states were re-admitted to the Union.

And you were quite emphatic that Abraham Lincoln could not be the President of a United States during such a time.

I know, Bill.

Why not just say you were mistaken? Why not just do that? I mean, I've done that in the past. Others have. There's no shame in it. Even Marilyn occasionally admits to having "spoken figuratively".

What a fascinating insight.

Andy Christy and David Eastwood: Is there room between your sparring for a little satire? Here's a script I wrote for John Clarke and Brian Dawe but the ABC doesn't seem to be interested.

JOHN appears wearing a top hat and cape

BRIAN: Good evening Mr Murray, thanks for your time.
JOHN: Very pleased to be here Brian. (Places top hat on coffee table).
BRIAN: Mr Murray, you have just retired from a very prestigious position as head of one of the country’s leading financial institutions. Do you have any reflections to offer on your career?
JOHN: Did you say ‘prestigious’ – I think you meant ‘prestidigitatious’.
BRIAN: Did I ?
JOHN: Yes, as in ‘Prestidigitation – meaning sleight of hand, legerdemain, illusion, etc. I assumed you were referring to my experience with smoke and mirrors when you asked me to reflect on my career.
BRIAN: Mr Murray, I thought you were a banker.
JOHN (straight-faced): Yes.
BRIAN: I don’t quite understand. What has being a banker got to do with prester …press digit….sleight of hand?
JOHN: Prestidigitation, Brian. I know it’s a long word but our lawyers like to throw terms like that into the fine print of contracts.
What has it got to do with banking, Brian? Everything.
Money, security, capital, debt. - The Four Pillars of Illusion.
BRIAN: Mr Murray, are you telling me that banking is an illusion?
JOHN: Not just an illusion, Brian (now speaking like a stage performer) the Illusion, the Grand Illusion that will amaze and mystify you.
BRIAN: How does it work, then?
JOHN: Come now, Brian, you don’t expect a magician to reveal all his secrets, just like that, do you?
BRIAN: Well, I thought we were going to talk about banking….
JOHN: We are Brian, we are. (Aside to the audience) But first a little misdirection. (To Brian) Give me your watch.
BRIAN: (Taking his watch off and handing it over) Why do you need my watch, Mr Murray?
JOHN: As you can see, (shaking and tapping the watch in a showman-like manner) this is a perfectly ordinary watch. (Slips the watch into his pocket) (Conversationally) I don’t need your watch, Brian. It’s a very ordinary watch. I wouldn’t give it wrist-room, myself. But it is security for the next part of the trick, er I mean service that the bank will reveal to you. You are now A Customer. We pride ourselves on our service to our customers.
BRIAN: But what does this service do?
JOHN: Perhaps I should give you a bit of background here, Brian. My brother bankers and I are keepers of ancient and arcane mysteries which I cannot reveal to the uninitiated. Some would say we are members the second oldest profession since the invention of money. Alchemists struggled to turn base metal into gold. We have discovered and perfected the art of creating gold out of thin air!
BRIAN: That’s amazing! Show me how you do it.
JOHN: All in good time, Brian. (Pats his pockets) My pockets are empty, there is nothing up my sleeve. Give me five dollars. What I am about to reveal is a simplified illustration of the Grand Illusion.
BRIAN: (Handing over five dollars) Why do you want five dollars?
JOHN: Because now you have become a Depositor. (Puts five dollars in the top hat) Every bank needs depositors. If you are very patient I will give your five dollars back to you – and (beaming with generosity) - and I will give you an additional 5 cents.
BRIAN: (unimpressed) That’s nice.
JOHN: Oh, that’s just the introduction. Now here comes the clever bit. I must ask you to suspend your disbelief for a few minutes and pretend to be a Borrower.
BRIAN: All right - I’m a Borrower. (Smirking) Can I have ten dollars?
JOHN: Certainly Brian. Delighted to be able to help you out there. Tell your friends they can have some too.
BRIAN: But you only have five dollars in deposits. How can you lend me ten dollars?
JOHN: It’s a mystery isn’t it? Not only can I lend you ten dollars, but I can lend each of your friends ten dollars as well. And all done with only five dollars, and your watch. It beats the pants off that old loaves and fishes trick.
BRIAN: Where does the extra money come from?
JOHN: As I said, we created it out of thin air. Technically, we created a debt, but it’s no trouble at all to turn your debt into our profit.
BRIAN: Well, show me the money.
JOHN: Now Brian, don’t be crass. I do not need to physically produce buckets of money in front of you. Technology has advanced beyond that. Suffice to say that by the powers vested in the Brethren of Bankers the money you require will materialise in your account almost instantaneously. And you will certainly see the money passing out of your hands as you pay back the mortgage. (Musing) Funny word, mortgage. Comes from the French for ‘death grip’. Don’t know why.
BRIAN: Pay back? How much will I have to pay back?
JOHN: Well, let me see (pulls out a notepad and pencil from his top hat) Mmm (mumbles)…ten dollars…eight percent …ten years …Jupiter aligned with Mars…. About twenty dollars, Brian – in 120 easy monthly payments, I should add.
BRIAN: That seems quite a lot, really.
JOHN: Really?
BRIAN: I borrow ten and you get twenty. It doesn’t seem fair somehow.
JOHN: You are forgetting all those loyal, patient depositors, Brian. They have to be rewarded .
BRIAN: Oh yes, the five cents.
JOHN: (Smiles smugly)
BRIAN: So, Mr Murray, thousands of depositors and borrowers fall for this…. I mean use this service. Does it really work?
JOHN: Works for me, Brian. I will now amaze you again. I will disappear from the stage with a large amount of money.
BRIAN: And my watch….?

Camera pans to John’s empty chair.

COPYRIGHT: AJ VANDENBERG, August 15th 2005.

Bill Avent, I assume it's not me you're addressing on homelessness - I don't think I've ever engaged on that statistic, but to counter your spin, what is the percentage of the Australian population classified as homeless in the two censuses you quote, and how much of the difference is accounted for in the definitional change you cite?

Aijay, brilliant! Forget the ABC, contact Margo about creating two new characters unique to Webdiary I reckon.

James Squires: "…the censor kicked in on the discussion, and my posting did have a response, citing that it was an incorrect use of the word (much like a certain someone’s use of Americans to try and describe the USA government). I also noticed that on "Blowin in the Wind" thread, you haven’t responded to the science I presented you."

Thanks James – the acknowledgement was all I was looking for.

As to the "science" you mentioned, I wasn't aware there was a question attached or reply needed. Only the overview was available and it indicated nothing different to what I had already posted – particularly the Royal Society reports.

As you will gather reading my posts to "Blowin' in the Wind", my view with respect to the dangers of DU is a little ambivalent:

To M Tait: "Well, apart from slight ambivalence (relating to absolute evidentiary proof), I would tend to the view that the world and its armies would be much better off without DU tipped ordinance."

To yourself: "Can I say at the outset there is very little warm and cosy about uranium of kind – depleted or otherwise. Now, whilst there is debate about how dangerous long term exposure to depleted uranium (DU) in the environment is – with respect to amount of exposure, etc – there is no doubt of DU's effects." (The RS reports were linked to this post)

I don't think it's me you need to be arguing with. Other than about the effects on children. These are those who will live with it the longest and whose "hand to mouth" behaviour puts them at greatest risk . There is plenty of this stuff all over Iraq now, not to mention the destroyed armour and artillery that these children play in.

Did you mail Eddie Jones some tactics to deal with those "Dutch settlers"? If you did, keep trying, we almost won – a decided improvement!

Adam Rope: "Secondly, personally I don't recall writing anything, anywhere, 'praising' the Iraqi 'resistance' / 'insurgency' / call it what you will..."

Quite right. I do apologise.

David Messiter: "C Parsons states: "And as you know, that's what the 'resistance' is about. Oil." That's very interesting. I thought that that was the invasion and occupation was about. Silly me."

If overthrowing Saddam was 'about oil', then I cannot see how the Sunni leadership's fear of a federal Iraqi structure can be anything less, either.

David Eastwood, I am sure it was a Gareth Eastwood (would bet on it) who provided a link to a website with census figures for 1996 and 2001 showing that homeless numbers were reduced in the intervening years from 104,506 to 101,000, in contradiction to something I had said. Perhaps Gareth has not found us here yet—let’s hope he does.

Add 23,000 to the 2001 figure and you get an increase in numbers of homeless of 22,494, without taking into account likely increased numbers of people living in caravans. But don’t trust my arithmetic, 'cos it’s Friday and I’m drunk. But not spinning. If you need percentages, you’ll have to work them out for yourself.

Aijay Vandenberg (6/08/2005 4:17:48 PM ):

That Clarke and Dawe skit is magic! Encore!

C Parsons: “It's just absurd you going on denying it. You plainly said, 'there was no United States of America when America was divided into a Confederacy and a Union.'"

And I still plainly say it. And I still plainly say that when the Confederacy was no more, then there was again a United States. If you still don’t get it, I really don’t care. I’m sure other people do, for what it’s worth, which is not much.

Thank you, David Eastwood and James Squires for your sanity and calmness in your comments about banking above.

Economics, like many subjects, is "big and confusing". Because people don't understand the complexities, some will simply make easy assumptions and declare that it is all "imaginary". Perhaps a better option would be to go the nearest library and read an authoritative book about the subject. But as this is more difficult that going to the nearest 'Capitalists-are-pigs' conspiracy-website, few will do so.

My own tertiary educational background is in science and mathematics, less so in economics (although I have more than a passing knowledge in it), but I've had similar experiences. I swear if I had a dollar for every time I heard someone with zero scientific training at all rabbiting on about something they had no clue about, I'd be a millionare. Perhaps I could get my hands on some of the supposed "imaginary dollars" and be an "imaginary millionare"? ;-)

Folks, this is the awful truth:
- Money is real.
- Anybody dealing in "imaginary money" is engaging in false accounting and breaking the law, and runs a high risk of eventually being prosecuted. I can assure you that the 25-year gaol-sentence that former Enron executive Bernie Ebbers may suffer is also very real.
- Argentina's economic problems are of its own making. It fixed its currency to the $US in the early 1990s, and kept the pegging long after it served its purpose. If they had floated their peso, and allowed the market to trade it freely (as Australia does) their would have been no crisis, and no default.
- If Australia had had a static pegged currency like Argentina, we would be suffering many of the problems they have too.
- Argentina is reaping what they sowed. (Zimbabwe is going the same path, but is currently still sowing. Go figure.)

Then again, by Webdiary's centre of gravity, I'd be a RWDB, so I'm probably just whistling into the wind. ;-)

Globalisation is here to stay. That I am sure of. It has become so much a part of the world that anything other than a world war will not stop it.

Look around at the food we eat, the fashion we wear, the music we listen too etc - all a part of globalisation. To part with that also parts with not only the bad but also the good.

I don't wish to return to the days of old. I lived them and still have an open mind about them. Many things were good but there also happened to be many other things lacking. I cannot see our kids turning their backs onto globalisation to return to those days.

Also who ever truely believes the banks make up their money is seriously deluded. This appalling basic myth has existed since the dawn of the banking system. It shows only a complete lack of basic monetary knowledge.

Traditionally this myth has been targeted at right wing nationalist members such as the Nazi party in Germany. Even then only at the most halfwitted of its membership base. It appears this myth has transplanted itself onto other sections of the political community. Oddly enough most of these people also blame the Jews for all the wrongs in their lives.

Person A has a 10% deposit to borrow money to buy a house. After purchase person A than rents said house to person b. Person A after collecting rent and paying back the money makes a 10% profit. Did person A conjure the money up? A basic example of how a bank works only it does it on a much larger scale.

A swamp land and Ponzi scheme salesmans delight is a person who believes the basic money from nothing age old myth.

Aijay Vandenberg, you are a god!

E Burrows, my own tertiary education is in mathematics, and I agree with your frustration. But I must cavil, just a tad, at one of your points. You say that money is quite real, and I'd have to say that that's conditional. Or perhaps I really want to say that money has only a loose association to value, rather than the one-to-one association that many think it has.

During the Asian economic meltdown of the late 90s, currency speculators devastated the economies of many Asian countries. People woke up to find that the 'value' of the Thai baht, for example, had crashed and they were suddenly in desperate straits. It wasn't because the real value of their factories, or their labour, or their products, had suddenly dropped: it was because currency speculators can act like herd animals. Currency and share trading has little to do with real value and much to do with perceived value, resulting in the fantastic overvaluing of stocks in the dotcom boom, for example. And the undervaluing of the Asian economies was not to do with their actual value, but because the currency traders all panicked and sold, so the perceived value dropped.

For me, that's pretty much imaginary money. Personally, I think it's a Bad Thing, and every country in the world needs to have sensible laws restricting currency transactions.

Next on the block: Solomon. Regarding your frustration with the books on globalisation that you've found, I don't know whether you've tried these, but I've found them pretty good. "Globalization and its Discontents" by Joseph Stiglitz is thorough and informative, although a tad dry (he is an economist, after all). And he's someone who knows whereof he speaks, more than almost anyone else in the world: when the ex-Chief Economist of the World Bank says the current policies have never worked, we ought to listen.

From a more intimate perspective, there's "One No, Many Yeses" by Paul Kingsnorth, which covers many different alternatives being tried by people around the world. I think this is one factor that often gets passed over: that our current system of global interaction is not the only one, just one among many. And if it doesn't work, we should be free to try other ways.

Susan George is another good one: the book she wrote with Fabrizio Sabelli (I think), "Faith and Credit", is dated now but still useful, and then her more recent "Another World Is Possible If..." is also good.

And "IOU: The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It" has a frighteningly lurid cover, but deals with some consequences of business as usual.

Hope that helps.

Jay White, I don’t know what you eat, wear or listen to, but the food I eat, clothes I wear and music I listen to are pretty much the same as they were before I ever heard the word Globalisation. Broadly speaking, the only difference is that they’re of poorer quality.

And would someone please explain how, if money is not made up, we have this thing called inflation? If someone somewhere wasn’t making it up, surely today’s dollar would be worth exactly the same as it was when it was invented.

Thanks, Alison. I've been meaning to reply to you but I've not had enough room in my head. I'll remember the name Stiglitz because that's the name of a photographer. I think dry is probably the best; much of what I read was just bubble gum. I like dry.

Bill Avent: "And I still plainly say it. And I still plainly say that when the Confederacy was no more, then there was again a United States."

Here's how Bill's logic is working: If the 'Iraqi resistance' is the voice of the Iraqi people, then you may as well also pretend that Abraham Lincoln was never President of the United States, which in turn disappeared from view in 1861.

The reason Bill advanced this absurd and historically indefensible proposition, along with the astounding claim that Abraham Lincoln was not the President of the United States, you may recall, was to sidestep my analogy between the reactionary, racist, violent practices of the Sunni 'resistance' (militia) and my comparing it to its historic counterpart in the defeated Confederacy, namely, the Ku Klux Klan.

Damian Lataan too, desparately attempts to exonerate the murdering 'resistance' thugs by portraying them as just plain folk fighting a heroic battle to protect Sunni privelege from uppity Shiites and Kurds, whom are in fact the overwhelming majority population of Iraq of whom it was being decried, are "now the only people left with rights in Iraq".

Any Afro-American in Mississippi after Reconstruction would have found that argument more than a tad familiar.

Damian, for his part, completely gave the game away when he quoted (approvingly it seems) a Washington Post article reporting a Sunni 'human rights' advocate (something entirely new in Iraq for sure) castigating the evil, uppity Kurds and Shiites for their brutal conduct against the Sunni.

Stunning.

Not a word about the daily horrors meted out to Shi'ite civilians by Sunni militia, who in turn have been compared here over and over with the heroic French Resistance!!

These bizarre 'analyses' are merely reductio ad absurdum outcomes of the broad Left's cowardly stance openly avowing its support for the Iraqi 'resistance' (itself actually nothing more than pro-Ba'athist and Wahhabist militia and their sympathisers and criminal fellow travellers and opportunists).

Over and over and over we have seen this sort of thing on the Left since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Whether prominent, acclaimed, Leftists like John Pilger and George Galloway and Arandhati Roy, or mere rank and file apologists like those found on Webdiary and Indimedia or in the letters pages of anything from Green Left Weekly to the Herald.

The Ba'athist and their other temporary accomplices in daily mass murder are 'the Resistance' it is proclaimed, as was formerly Moqtadr al Sadr's Mahdi Army - until Moqtadr decided to take part in the processes of political reform.

Then the Mahdi army too became a mere 'militia' preying upon the 'Iraqis' - or rather that 20 per cent of Iraqis not actually Shiite or Kurd or Turoman or Christian, supposedly the only people in Iraq with rights.

That the Sunni leadership cut itself off from the political reform process deliberately and defiantly is of no account to Baathist apologists.

That the real Iraqi Resistance struggled against Saddam for decades, and that the vast majority of Iraqis lately defied the Sunni militias in the elections and welcome the reform process is of no account.

As Bill might say, if the Sunni militia are the 'Iraqi resistance', then you may as well say that Abraham Lincoln was never President of the United States.

Christopher Muir: “Could somebody explain what will happen when the Chinese start to export motor vehicles to countries like Australia for a fraction of their present cost?”

It means we’ll being able to buy vehicles a lot cheaper, which sounds good to me.

Solomon Wakeling, the fact that anybody could consider Ralston Saul a major thinker with any insight into anything is a little sad.

He is the sort of man, of "intellectual," whose neatly packaged slogans are challenging and exotic cerebral confections for the type of people who think that the Ensemble Theatre is a great Art House!

This guy is an opportunistic gadfly who is a dime a dozen in Advertising firms and the slick Marketing departments of huge corporations. Give me Alvin Toffler any day! I have been hip to his shtick ever since I saw him in 2002, when he was flogging his 'Equilibrium" stodge.

He is one of these entrepreneurs who uses the clever, but psychologically manipulative and disingenuous, tactic of peppering his sermons with bromides like "WE are always being told..., "and, WE all thought that WE are supposed to be.....nowadays." Wink, wink!

He never says WHO has told US any of this; but everyone in his audience nods earnestly, all brothers and sisters in arms. Armed to Resist what WE are all being told!

What a fraud! And he abuses data IF he ever uses it. He misunderstands almost everything, particularly economics.

However, I did enjoy Voltaire's Bastards. It is a pity he has never been able to follow through. Though he makes a bomb! Good luck to him. Just don't expect me to waste precious time wading through his latest mangled porridge.

Jay White: "I don’t know what you eat, wear or listen to, but the food I eat, clothes I wear and music I listen to are pretty much the same as they were before I ever heard the word Globalisation. Broadly speaking, the only difference is that they’re of poorer quality."

I have nothing against Bonds clothing, Slim dusty or steak and three veg etc Bill. I would though get a little tired of it day in and day out. This is assuming of course you live a totally traditional Australian only lifestyle.

"And would someone please explain how, if money is not made up, we have this thing called inflation? If someone somewhere wasn’t making it up, surely today’s dollar would be worth exactly the same as it was when it was invented".

Who is the somebody somewhere making this money up? Are they getting richer doing this?

Margo: Heh Jay, thanks for coming! Love your work, and appreciate you giving the independent Webdiary a go.

Alison, you make valid points re: the 'value' of currency and the Asian crisis, etc. Though I would not agree with the description of that as 'imaginary money' in the context of this conversation. (Perhaps 'hot money' might be more accurate given the devastating speed with which it could be moved out of the affected countries! But the money itself was quite real.)

I was mainly responding to the suggestion that commercial banks can simply 'create' money out of thin air on a whim. If I get a Post-It note and write "One Thousand Dollars" on it, no amount of wishing will make it 'real' legal tender worth $1000. And the same applies to commercial banks! Any attempt by myself, or a bank, to conduct transactions in this way would be an illegal act of fraud.

Jay White's reference to pyramid (or "Ponzi") schemes was quite timely. The number of times I've had some innumerate attempt to involve me in one of these scams is exasperating. I really wonder at the gullibility of such people.

And lastly for Bill: "And would someone please explain how, if money is not made up, we have this thing called inflation? If someone somewhere wasn’t making it up, surely today’s dollar would be worth exactly the same as it was when it was invented."

I hesitate to use this source (as it can be unreliable) but I'm too busy this afternoon to look anywhere else, thus see here. It should at least provide a grounding of the general principles and relevant terms, with links provided for you for further research.

Quick question, Bill - WHO is the "someone somewhere" who you suspect "makes up" inflation?

No, Bill Avent, it wasn't worth much (and it was wrong anyway) but it brought an amused smile to a professional hair-splitter and pedant.

Noelene, judging just from Craig's linked interview, Saul just sounds like a bread-and-butter, no-frills anti-globalisationist. Though he doesn't seem to be either for or against, exactly, just talking about the issues in a way that makes them easily comprehensible. You've been kinder to him than I would.

In defense of Craig, who brought him up, I took this essentially as a starting point. Judging from his posts so far he is very systematic and goes through everything with a fine tooth comb, without fear or favour to any particular source. I'm expecting more to come here.

Anyway, Stiglitz & Toffler. Sounds appetising.

C Parsons, thanks for your straightforward responses.

I asked you if you believed the 'Resistance' and the 'Baathist Party' are one and the same and you now simply say no. So why, when I asked you that same question a few months ago didn't you just say no then, instead of trying to jerk me around over two or three exchanges involving hundreds of words?

You say ‘the left’ and 'the peace movement’ are not one and the same. Since Adam Rope's comment was in terms of 'the left' why didn't you respond in terms of 'the left'? Why did you respond in terms of 'the peace movement'?

CP: "Are you suggesting the Left isn't playing a leading role in the so-called 'peace' movement?".

I've been contributing to Webdiary for some 6 months now and I doubt I've ever used the terms "left" and "right" to identify a group of people or a set of ideas. The terms are meaningless to me so I can't address your question.

Besides, why not just address the arguments on their individual merits without regard for which “group” is making them?

When asked what you meant by "left" you once said, "Generally here I am speaking of Marxist or psuedo-Marxist ideologues when I say Left".

In a previous thread Greg Hynes suggested that "left" refers to:
1. People who "depend on a merely utilitarian calculus".
2. People who, "depend on the endless assertion of limitless rights".
3. People who "believe in relative morals not absolute values".
4. People who are anti-religion, mostly anti-christian.
5. People who are, "obsessed with environmental issues bordering on irrationality".
6. People who, "although believers in democracy themselves but don't believe it when progressive ideals are not implemented".
7. People who are, "firm believers in an activist judiciary that makes new laws rather than interpreting existing ones".
8. People who are "strong opponents of the death penalty and capital punishment but fierce and passionate defenders of abortion".
9. People who are, "firm believers in world Government - like the UN - and patriotism is considered dirty, think the role of the Government is to re-engineer a progressive society".

Do you fully agree with Greg Hynes understanding of 'the left'? If not, with which aspects do you disagree?

Jay White, what is your understanding of “the left"?

And there were two other questions that you did not respond to. Here they are again.

Collaboration (from dictionary.com)- 1. To work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort. 2. To cooperate treasonably, as with an enemy occupation force in one's country.

How does this apply to the 'peace-movement'?

The article says, “We thank all those, including those of Australia Britain and the U.S. , who took to the streets in protest against this war and against Globalism."

Are you suggesting that those who took to the streets in protest against the war are collaborating with the “Iraqi Resistance”?

I am taking you back to early in this discussion when I assume that Raglar, who wishes to protect our jobs with the use of tariff and quota, also wishes to maintain our standard of living.
These wishes are mutually exclusive.

How does an Australian pay for the higher costs of Australian production? The only way is to decrease our standard of living.

These higher costs will also cripple our export performance, both physical exports and our tourism and education earnings.

Anybody using the job protection argument in supporting the anti- globalisation debate without also discussing the effects on our standard of living is not being fair dinkum.

I've only got about half-way through this thread but I just have to have my six penno'th on money and banks.

I hate banks and the highlight of my legal career so far is making a bank officer cry in the witness box, but, that disclosure made, let us get to some basic principles.

Since at least the abandonment of the gold standard, there has been no real 'currency'. Legal tender is precisely that: something which is legally tendered. All banknotes are negotiable instruments. What they represent is a debt - nothing more, nothing less. If you deposit 'money' with the bank, the bank owes you a debt. It doesn't keep the money in a money silo.

It isn't grain, one cannot eat it. One can eat by using it. The deregulated market simply tells you, from time to time, how much you get to eat.

I swap my debt with the bank (Reserve or private) for goods services or favours. The debt circulates. The only thing underpinning it is the right to bring a legal action to enforce the debt. From time to time, various legal systems collape and the debt becomes practically unenforceable unless literally enforced by violence or the threat of it.

So enough guff from the economists thanks.

Solomon: I hope that list helps. I personally favour Stiglitz, because he's got a sandpaper-dry wit that shows through sometimes, and because he's an impeccable source. Many writers objecting to the current market fundamentalism strain of globalisation get ridiculed as hippies or lefties or lunatics, but you just can't do that to someone with a Nobel Prize in economics who was Chief Economist of the World Bank. It makes him very hard to argue with, and I know he caused quite a fuss within the economics establishment.

I'd also recommend Chomsky, for a variety of topics. He's erudite, comprehensive, and astonishingly well referenced. Once again, some people malign him, but when he's citing something from the Congressional Record it's hard to pretend that he's making it up. For my money he's one of the finest thinkers alive today. I can suggest particular books based on your interests, if you like. Always happy to offer my opinions. ;-) Particularly about books.

And Malcolm B Duncan: great summary of the imaginary nature of money. You did far better than I've done so far.

Jay White, I seem to remember eating barramundi before the advent of Globalisation. Oysters, too. I still haven’t eaten any snails or frogs’ legs, shark fins or puppy dogs. And I haven’t come across any new kinds of vegetables. I was introduced to bamboo shoot and water chestnut when I was ten years old; and that was long before globalisation was all the rage.

And I was familiar with Tchaikovsky long before I ever heard of Slim Dusty. So much for how much better the music we hear has become since globalisation, eh?

As for who is making money up, how would I know? All I asked is how come we have inflation, if no one is making it up. A question is no answer to a question.

E Burrows, as above, a question is not an answer to a question. How would I know who the WHO is?

Your link seems to confirm the contention that someone making money up is what causes inflation. Of course in keeping with econospeak it dresses it up in a whole lot of mind-numbing verbiage, and even retreats into mathematical symbols to say it; but the bottom line remains the same.

Malcolm B Duncan, no self-respecting pedant calls a question wrong. And since no one seems able to answer my question, how can it be not worth much?

Speaking of your legal career, Malcolm, all I can find on you is that you're a Kings Cross barrister, you once tried to get an injunction to stop a book launch, you wear a kilt and you were once involved in some case to do with the uniting church and a heroin injecting room. You also once ran against Clover Moore as an independent, for some reason to do with the heroin injecting room. There is also something about the Archibald prize and the drag queen Carlotta from Stan Zemanecs tv show. It's all very strange. It's difficult to get a proper picture of what is actually going on here, based on sketchy and sometimes incoherent internet sites.

Globalisation is here to stay, is it?

When I was a young Albatross I believed in what I called at the time international effciency. At the time I was working in rather an inefficient industry. The Public Service. I was also reading about how our government at great cost to the tax payer protected local industries when cheaper goods could be puchased from abroad. It seemed the best thing to do was either compete or get out of inefficient local production. The consumer after all would love the idea.

I remember bringing this up with my father nearly forty years ago and he stated, “yes it sounds like a good idea but what will you do with all those families who no longer have a bread winner?”

As I was just a young Albatross at the time I had no idea how important a job was to a family man. But Dad did get me thinking. I still am.

On the other hand I remember my history teacher telling us that the biggest social problem we were going to have in the years ahead is what we were going to do with all the spare time we would have on our hands. Technology was going to make our lives easier and take away the need for us to work five days a week.

Of course my history teacher along with everyone else at the time believed that the financial benefits of technology would be shared by all of us. Today that sounds so naïve don’t you think?

Today when I consider Globalisation I see it as a way of cheap and efficient production where the cost of goods is the only thing to be considered. Of course if things can be produced cheaply then they can also be sold cheaply which is a benefit to the buyer as well as the seller. The buyer gets a good price the seller can sell more units. A win win situation. But the reality is Globalisation has its’ winners and its’ losers.

When I was working in the public service the unemployment rate stayed around about 2%, there was very little welfare although my mother did receive a small amount in Child Endowment. If you wanted a job then you had one and the reality was every one had a job that needed or wanted one. In effect we had full employment and low social welfare. Most families got by with just one breadwinner.

By comparison we currently have high unemployment, bearing in mind you now only have to work one hour a month to be considered employed and we also have high social welfare. Middle class welfare is now considerable in comparison to the days of my youth. We have family Tax Benefits A & B, Baby Bonuses, Child Care Rebates, housing grants and other assistance to help keep the average middle class family afloat in these times of Globalisation.

We also now have a case where both Mum and Dad who receive these benefits also have to work. I wonder how many middle class families who support Globalisation would still support it if all those subsidies and benefits were withdrawn and we were left to our own devices to survive in the real world. We would possibly have to send the whole family out to work for whatever wages we could get.

Are we really better off or have the corporations and their government puppets simply telling us we are. At the end of the day most of us could not give a dam where our money comes from so long as is legally obtained. But it seems interesting to me that once upon a time the government would subsidise industry so the employees could be paid a living wage while now we see those subsidies going straight from the government to the workers, the under employed and unemployed while industry appears to have become more efficient. So once upon a time industry was directly subsidised now individuals and families are directly subsidised. How long will it take for governments to lift subsidies on most families?

To me it’s a bit like swings and roundabouts, smoke and mirrors and the real winner is capital and corporations. If Globalisation is such a good thing then why is unemployment such a problem and why do governments have to adjust the way we enumerate unemployment to bring it down to “acceptable” levels? Why is middle class welfare so necessary to keep families afloat? Are we really better off or do we think we are?

It is quite obvious that my history teacher was wrong; the financial benefits of technology were never going to be shared. The winners are corporations and their shareholders who have only one aim in life; make as much money as you can regardless of the consequences to your fellow man or our environment.

So if Globalisation is here to stay just remember we have winners and we have losers. If you are a winner then Globalisation is good, if you are a loser then Globalisation is bad. Remember however, today you may be a winner but tomorrow you may well be a loser.

Today you’re a consumer with pockets full of money, tomorrow your fired from your job and begging the Government for assistance just to feed your family. And remember in this individualistic society we now live in don’t expect too much sympathy for if you end up a loser it is because you are a loser. I’m alright Jack, pull up the ladder, you mate are on your own now so get used to it.

Maybe it would be best to simply take the bull by the horns and accept Globalisation is the way to go. Maybe we should incorporate Planet Earth and make every child, women and man a shareholder; then we could all reap the benefits. But that would be communism and we don’t want that.

Somehow I don’t think Globalisation is here to stay for eventually there will be enough losers for us to demand something better, something more humane, something that is based not just on the almighty dollar but on community and all those things our politicians say they are concerned about but don’t really deliver. Things will change for change is the ultimate reality so let’s just make sure things change for the best, the best for all of us not just the powerful and privileged.

I can remember John Kenneth Gailbrath writing some time ago words to the effect the exploited extremities of our world community will eventually encroach on those living in its' comfortable centre How we deal with this will define us as a race.

PS. Noelene you really do spoil me, since you arrived on the scene I have developed such a fat tummy that the muscles in my wings have grown enormously just to get me off the ground. I’ll have to bring the whole family next time otherwise Club Chaos will start to smell awfully fishy. Maybe Billaburra would like to try a new diet.

Jay - I agree - globalisation is here to stay - it is part of progress. Improvements in technology is part of this globalisation. Call centres in India for Australian bank customes - allowing the banks to do the high value stuff while others do the back end. Indian accountants did some 25000 US tax returns in 2003 online and 100,000 in 2003 - a four fold increase (Friedman, The World is Flat, 2005)- the numbers will increase. The Australian situation is no different and allows us to do the high value stuff whilst the low value stuff goes offshore. Ask any IT business thriving in Australia today and they will advise that their "hack" IT goes offshore while thay do the really creative stuff locally. This will change - it always does. A challenge for Australia is that our attitude toward R&D and university education is hopeless compared to elsewhere. Ireland 15yrs ago was a basket case economically (with a brain drain) so they brought in some innovative educational policies including an emphasis/bias toward university education - and now are leading in the IT stakes - a veritable Silicon Valley fuelled by Guinness!

Ok, Alison, you've convinced me about Stiglitz. If I can ever find the time I'll read his work. I've long wanted a proper grounding in economics but that is a perilous path, full of danger and pitfalls. I'm not convinced about Chomsky. Of course I've heard about him and that he is well-referenced and that he is maligned but I've never been able to bring myself to investigate him. It seems to me the only reason he needs to be so 'well-referenced' is because he takes a one-sided, anti-corporate view. I'm sort of not in the mood for that right now, I've got a cautiously optimistic view of the corporate world and its potential to develop.

"So enough guff from the economists thanks."

Malcolm, I don't think "economists" would object to much you wrote... Although bankers might object to the term "money silos" - I think they prefer the term "vault". "Silo" just sounds so uncouth and agricultural!

By the way, congratulations on getting a bank officer to cry! ;-) After having to deal with some bank call-centre imp this week who simply refused to take "no" for an answer whilst trying to sell me insurance on a recent loan, I am impressed. And to whatever legal mind invented the 14-day cooling-off period, I doth my cap.

C Parsons, you said "These bizarre 'analyses' are merely reductio ad absurdum outcomes of the broad Left's cowardly stance openly avowing its support for the Iraqi 'resistance' (itself actually nothing more than pro-Ba'athist and Wahhabist militia and their sympathisers and criminal fellow travellers and opportunists)."

As a broad lefty, I'd have to take issue with your statement. Well, statements, plural, but I'll deal with one thing at a time.

Firstly, what basis do you have for your claim that the Iraqi resistance is nothing more than Ba'athists and Wahhabists? Everything I've read has led me to the following conclusions, so jump in and tell me which one you disagree with:

1) There are a lot of people committing a lot of violence in Iraq today;
2) Some are resistance;
3) Some are settling old scores;
4) Some are out to make money;
5) The resistance is not some monolithic entity, but is composed of lots of diverse groups;
6) Some of these are Ba'athists;
7) Some are Shi'ites;
8) Some don't hold much to tribal affiliations because they're city dwellers;
9) Some are angry because they've lost their jobs (and hence incomes), because one of Bremer's first acts was to throw half a million people out of work;
10) Some are angry because they've seen family or friends killed or injured, and they see that the western media, and therefore the west, values Iraqi lives far less than western lives.

I opposed the war, invasion and occupation because it was wrong. I happen to believe that killing innocent people is wrong, and therefore I also oppose any of the numerous groups in Iraq who are killing (or kidnapping for ransom or sex trade) innocent people. How is this collaboration? Are you assuming that because so many people opposed the war before it began, we therefore also support whatever happens as a result?

Back to Solomon yet again: you might also want to look at "Age Of Consent" by George Monbiot, for a sensible outline of more workable international institutions. Very much like Keynes' ideas that were presented at Bretton Woods, I think.

And one for Sean Hefferon: when you talk about 'globalization', do you mean the system as implemented today, or just global interaction? I agree that global interaction is inevitable, and probably also progress, but I wouldn't say that about our current system. For one thing, the WTO is neither democratic nor transparent, yet they can have the power to overrule national laws on things such as environmental protection. There's also the fact that businesses will be caught in a race to the bottom with regards to labour laws, so ordinary workers will suffer.

But aside from all that, the current system discriminates harshly against the poor: many desperately poor countries pay far more in debt repayments (often only the interest) than they receive in aid. If all countries were forced to abide by the conditions forced upon the poor countries, things would be very different, but at the moment it's one law for the rich and another for the poor. Saying that it's their own fault for having corrupt governments evades the question of how those corrupt governments have survived for so long. Here's a clue: resources. Diamonds, gold, oil, whatever. Rich countries deal with corrupt governments as long as they have something to sell. Banks in the 90s (I think) were falling over themselves to lend out money to the very same corrupt governments that are being weakly castigated now.

Even worse, when those same poor countries manage to get rid of their dictators, the dictators flit off to a safe haven in the west, with all their millions, and the impoverished people are forced to pay off the dictators' debts. Is that fair? No. Is it inevitable? Not really. Is it progress? That's your call.

Justin of the Albatross dreaming, from the kingfisher family and all as we are, we of the mob Dacelo Gigas don’t eat fish. That is what freed us of the need to hang around where there was water. Now we no longer even need to drink the stuff. I must have been forgetting all that when I spoke to Jay.

Or maybe I’m morphing into the Kooka’s arch enemy, an Australian Butcherbird. I don’t think they go fishing, but they will eat herring if you give them some. Cracticus nigrogularis, meaning “Loud voiced, black throated”. The most wonderful songbird in the world, and all ours, from way back before globalisation, or Slim Dusty. Their main use for water seems to be looking at their reflection in it. And who can blame them—they’re so cute.

I agree with Ian McPherson. We are witness to the last years of globalism as a trading phenomenon. As cheap oil becomes scarce and the price of energy rises, the cost of long-distance transport will erase the economic benefit of frivolous global and intra-national trade. If we take into account the cost in blood and treasure of the current oil wars (and those yet to come), the cost of most global trade is already far too great.

Industrial civilisation in its current form is unsustainable. It consumes too much energy and produces too much toxic waste. Our societies have become highly complex and quite disconnected from the agricultural production that sustains us. Big cities with sprawling suburbia are especially vulnerable as their very existence is predicated on cheap, portable, dense energy. Without the fossil-fuelled energy subsidy of the last century, producing and distributing sufficient food at an affordable price may become an insurmountable challenge.

Survival in the 21st century will require the rebuilding of local networks of economic and social relations. These are the things that globalism has steadily dismantled over the last fifty years. Sadly, the knowledge and practical experience of local production has contracted severely and regaining what has been lost may well be painful.

Throughout history, people have tended to assume that their civilisation is immortal. Our industrial, energy-intensive way of life has existed for little more than 100 years. Whenever I hear or read predictions of permanence in human affairs, I hear echoes of all of the civilisations that have perished.

Alison, ok, Toffler-Stiglitz-Chomsky-Monbiot. I've got them memorised. I'll make an effort to read them, probably later, rather than sooner. Trouble is, none of what they have to say has anything to do with me. Forgive my insouciance here but my morale is shot, as far as intellectualism is concerned. I'd be more interested in trying to mitigate the problems of capitalism gone feral, on a practical level.

I'm willing to give my two free hands here in the service of the creation of a socially just and peaceful world, but I see little evidence that anyone is truly working on it, it's all just talk. There is only so much living in the abstract that I can take I think I've reached the edge of my tolerance.

I used to think it was my own personal problem and that I could fix it by going off out in to the world, but as I grow older I'm learning now that it’s not my problem, it's the world's problem, and all this talk of "individualism" is in fact very real. People talk about it a lot but if you start to take it seriously and point out where it has caused problems for you, you're accused of making excuses for yourself. I think that the way society has changed, has meant that most people are wealth-rich and time-poor. It makes for shallowness in human relationships, which is like living in a void full of chronic loneliness.

I also expect its bad for business, since if you don't understand people then I don't think you'd be very good at selling them things. Nobody seems quite willing just yet to stop , take a breath and start to think about what we're really trying to do here. Nobody has the time to spare.

For me personally, there are basic material things out there that I want and need, so anti-materialism is an annoyance, even though I'm less attached to material things than some. It’s just like, the way the world is set up, I'm expected to dress myself up properly and present myself in a certain way, then people will stop asking me any questions and then I'm allowed to retreat in to myself and create my own little world, however I want it, using excesses of wealth and an omnipresent mass-media. I can't do it - I'd like to, but, somewhere along the way, I'm not sure when exactly, I just stopped being able to play the part anymore.

Someone in their early twenties, like me, has to walk and talk and behave like an adult, but people older than myself, that have established themselves in the world, seem free to essentially indulge whatever childish fantasy they want, with no necessity to connect with the wider world or to subject their intellectual ideas to the rigours of practical application. This includes both left-wing and right-wing types, which is really a shame, since those that would once have rebelled against excessive individualism, seem to be suffering the most under the weight of it.

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now. Webdiary seems to me to be a fragile expression of dissent against this structure of a world. See, whilst I appreciate you pointing me towards quality books, I'm less interested now in what these other people think than I am in you and your own opinions based upon your own experience. It might just be information fatigue but many of the 'intellectual' conversations here strike me as simply a facade, with the real issues tacitly avoided.

Michael Coleman. I am very pushed to get an essay finished at the moment, so I will return later for a more sustained critique of the many, many, many errors made by yourself, Alison Jobling, and others on these issues.

In the meantime, I think a lot of light can be shed for you, by letting you know that as a former management consultant, I can assure you that 'local networks' have been part of business strategic investment decision-making for years. Surely, you have heard of the mantra "Think globally, act locally?"

Alison Jobling, I'm much indebted ma'am.

Bill Avent, unindebted methinks.

Solomon, laddie, you're just not doing your homework. Try the Land and Environment Reports, Duncan v Moore & Ors (twice reported and once unreported); Ball v Maritime Services Board; Plimer v Roberts (Full Federal Court - special leave to the High refused - I beat the current Solicitor [for you, laddie, David Bennett the Commonwealth Solicitor-General as he then wasn't both in the Full Federal Court and without being called on on the Special Leave Application]), the NSW Reports, Butterworths property reports etc etc.

My defamation matter against Allen & Unwin settled on the basis of a written apology by both them and the author.

I also happen to be on the Standing Committee of Convocation at the University, the 2011 Residents' Association Inc, have served on several Bar Association Committees, used to write a popular column for Your Mortgage Magazine, write regularly (and am published less regularly) to SMH, have been personally named in Parliament by the former Premier, Daffy Duck Carr as the Rumpole of the Lower Traffic Courts, play chess and speak in discrete english sentences. Je parle française un peau.

My keyboard cannot spell.

Oh, and I'm on TV and radio a bit from time to time. In fact, did you catch me today?

Please do me a favour and don't write the bio until you're really, really rich - I need something to support me until my 144th birthday.

Solomon Wakeling, if your biography of Malcolm is accurate, I would have to say that he sounds like the most fascinating poster on Webdiary! :)

Alison Jobling, I am charmed that your standard for scholarly probity is reached by anybody who quotes from congressional records and footnotes it! Now, even our own Marilyn Shepherd is a fanatical Hansard reader and quoter, but I don’t think that this makes her views on the Middle East beyond reproach.

Solomon Wakeling, if your time is limited, do not bother with the low-rent polemic of Chomsky. Chomsky is a brilliant linguist whose fame as a linguist has given his view on the Middle East far, far, far more public broadcast and discussion than is warranted. He is a Guardian op-ed piece type, rather than a serious scholar.

Chomsky, very artfully sought a glamorous career as government critic. And the world is a better place for having passionate and intelligent people criticizing governments, but when it comes to the Middle East his arguments rarely rise above polemic and are ALL so easily annihilated. His major strategic coup was calling for the disbanding of Israel. This was seized with glee by the Left, as Chomsky is a Jew. Thus he is the jewel in the crown for the left-wing rhetoric that “we are not anti-semitic, we are anti-Zionism.” He is a polemical gadfly - good fodder for the op-ed pages only. He is only relevant among naive and still not educated undergrads.

Of course, Chomsky’s pleadings side-step the reality that in 2005, Zionism means no more than supporting the right of the state of Israel to exist securely. In the 19th and early 20th centuries Zionism's aim was a nation state for the Jewish people. That was achieved in 1947, and defended and thus validated in 1948 and subsequently. To be anti-Zionist is to be no more than a supporter of the destruction of Israel. You can try and spin that aim as mutually exclusive of anti-semitism, but I don't like your chances of succeeding.

Another big-hitter in the I’m a Jew and I Hate-Israel movement is Norman Finkelstein. I would call Finkelstein a failed and long discredited academic who never achieved like Chomsky did, and is nothing more than a bitter failed man trying to eke out a living with baseless rants no more worthy than David Duke's.

If you are looking for scrupulous work on these issues, you should start with Benny Morris. He is a left-wing Israeli historian who was a darling of the Left. Righteous Victim and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, The latter is acknowledged as peerless in its sourcing of long-classified Israeli government documents from 1947 and 1948 and both of which are tour-de-forces of historiography and scholarship. In 2004, the Lefties went beserk when Morris a published a more nuanced and much more pro-Israeli update of his thinking.