Michael
An impassioned, wideranging and not necessarily logically presented piece,
but I am moved to totally agree with you.
And the worst of them all is ---- the popular media. Thank God for the ABC
and may she always protect them from the creeping menace.
Bob Cook
----------
> From:
> To: Birding-aus <>
> Subject: Re: birding-aus maybe one day humankind will wake up to itself
> Date: Thursday, 12 August 1999 12:39
>
> Alan Morris said "However even if only one penguin is affected it is one
> penguin too many!"
>
> I agree in a way but look at the media and governmental beat-up with law
> suits, prosecutions etc. over a mere 80,000 litres of light oil spill.
> The media had to quote it in litres because 100 tons (trivial when
> compared with the major oil spills) would sound too small.
>
> Compare the thousands of little penguins no longer in existence along
> the south/eastern coast of Australia due to a disease of no known source
> (I understand AQIS does not check imported fish meal for disease - so
> that's alright and the lobby for more fish farms can continue
> unhindered); the grotesque array of foreign organisms destroying our
> harbours (and penguin food), brought in by ships, the football grounds
> of native vegetation daily blighted by unsustainable farming and logging
> (with serious academic projections that my great-grandchildren will live
> in a world with 30-40% fewer avian species in the world and in
> Australia); the new fires in Indonesia (scarcely receiving a comment
> while that country heads towards a potential Balkans situation with
> Australia so focused on East Timor that it can't see the woods for the
> trees); this country encouraging use of petroleum products through
> expensive and destructive highways and even a REDUCTION of fuel taxes
> although car usage is likely to be severely curtailed within 40 years.
>
> And today the Australian parliament is consumed with the
> republic/monarchy question with the media (controlled by
> ever-so-democratic community-oriented tax-paying "Australian" citizens)
> just so happy to pounce on the Duke of Edinburgh's latest gaffe. Never
> mind that he has supported the World Wildlife Fund almost since its
> inception, never mind his "Wildlife Crisis" book of 1970. Never mind
> his son's - and our future head of State's ? - antagonism to GM
> foods... Yes, despite our sacred constitution our head of state's
> family has made more significant calls about our environment than ANY
> politician.
>
> Let's get on with worrying about agendas promoted by merchant bankers
> (Turnbull is one) and the chance of making a few bucks on the latest
> stock exchange float... and accept the loving injection of media (didn't
> someone say "media are the opium of the masses") while the oh-so-Labor
> and oh-so-Liberal and oh-so-National/Country parties proceed with their
> tawdry vote-buying policies within which none dare to think beyond the
> next election and want to have this country's head of state someone who
> WANTS to do the job but will be the mouthpiece of the party system. A
> party system which at the last Federal election said it was OK for 4WDs
> to have a tax advantages - because...
>
> Michael Norris
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this list, please send a message to
>
> Include ONLY "unsubscribe birding-aus" in the message body (without the
> quotes)
To unsubscribe from this list, please send a message to
Include ONLY "unsubscribe birding-aus" in the message body (without the
quotes)
|
