A Cruel And Indifferent Layer Of Bureaucracy

*



OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveler from an antique land,
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 1792-1822

I am frustrated by the fact that many people, including some leading politicians who privately express similar views to my own, are publicly silent. Environmentalism has become a quasi-religion. It is an ideology that shares much in common with Marxism. Climate change is the new recruiting strategy for the anti-capitalist, socialist, communist army. They are both monolithic belief systems designed to suppress human freedom.
Those who would otherwise reject socialism for what it is -- a system which destroys personal freedom - are regrettably receptive to global climate change fears.

Propaganda on the false impact of global warming is now being taught by so-called environmentalists to high school students -- just as virtues and correct thinking was taught under communism decades ago.

Politicians have been searching for a new topic -- for a very long time -- through which they could control the people because communism and socialism is dead. Global warming is perfect because of escapism. We are far away from the future so that politicians cannot be held responsible for their actions now.

When I listened to the G8 meeting in Tokyo a few months ago, each politician proposed ever more ridiculous goals to reduce global warming -- the results of which would not be realized for 100 years. Since the so-called Kyoto global warming treaty was signed, the countries agreed to a reduction of 50% in CO2 goals. Japan’s emissions are up 6% -- yet Japan’s Prime Minister promised to cut Japan’s emissions by 80% in 100 years. Since that meeting just a few months ago, half of those leaders have gone. The Japanese Prime Minister resigned in the first week of September. I am now in Tokyo to meet the head of government. Who should I meet?

We will command the wind and the rain! This was an old communist saying well known in the Czech Republic. When I listen to Al Gore, I hear the same objective, except now it’s not the wind and the rain they want to control, it’s the global environment.

Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic.



The authorities were not just out of touch, they had become a caste unto themselves, a cruel and indifferent layer of bureaucracy. Shells were scattered along the beach front. Evil birds continued to squawk overhead. He was profoundly frightened, and not just of the future. He had been so outspoken for so many years surely someone would have noticed. Would the police come knocking at his door? Your thoughts are out of order. Your attempts to expose corruption will see you terminated. They cannot accept that someone thinks differently. Callous and disregarded, they came from a time when individual freedoms were valued, when people were encouraged to express their views, without fear of arrest. It was a frightening world.

It had been as beautiful a morning as any in the two months he had been there. Molly had made the tea and they sat companionably at the makeshift table he had built, watching the astonishing landscape of the city dump change colours as the sun began its journey into the sky. They had names for all the chooks and he fed them first, because he loved them, almost as much as he was beginning to love her; and everything about this place. And then the Hooray Henrys came, blundering drunkenly through the church ruins. Someone lives here, I'm sure of it, one of them declared. I'm sure I can smell smoke, damper. They could smell their breakfast, and he shivered behind a column.

Get the gun, he heard one of them order his colleague; and he heard the man at the giant, T-Ford style car the Hooray Henrys had made their own. Get the gun, and we'll see what we make of this. They're harmless, Harry, he heard a woman's voice say. He could see the lichen on a rock, as he tried to stop breathing. Molly, he knew, was hiding in a mound a 100 metres away. He didn't know why he had refused to leave the church. They had found the table, and their lean-to hut. Look at this darling, isn't this cute, the woman said. They shouldn't be here, the man's voice replied. They could spread disease. There's no one out here to spread disease to, the woman pointed out, but the man was having none of it. Don't be silly, he said, they shouldn't be here.

He heard them begin to wreck the chairs and table he had worked so hard to build. He heard the crash of the cups he had foraged from the deserted suburb. He stayed hidden, although he felt like rushing out and attacking them, screaming you pompous horrible twats why were your kind born with no compassion, why is it you don't understand a single thing about being human. And these strange people, in this strange time... He cowered even further into the wall alcove where he was hiding, glad they didn't appear to have a dog. He would have been undone then. He put his mind into some strange, other worldy space, as he heard their meagre belongings being smashed against the hard ground.

Tears started into his eyes. Why were they so cruel, why did they hate them so much? Why was it that ordinary Germans stoked the ovens for the Jews; why was it that in his own time one group turned against another, one of their own kind killed another, and after the plague millions had died at the hands of other humans. He couldn't understand how one came to another. They came very close to his hiding place. And then suddenly the woman was staring directly at him, with big brown startled eyes. She stared at him, began to speak. He could see, oddly, the cheerful baubles on her hat, a collection of artificial cherries, her smile frozen in the makeup. She stopped talking, and just stared at him. And soon enough the voice of one of the other Hoorays asked: are you alright, Denise?

Yes, yes, she said, and winked at him and then disappeared. He could see his heart thumping beneath his ragged shirt. He kept trying not to breathe, trying not to make a sound. And then he heard them packing up, bored already, as was characteristic of their kind. They've run away, he heard one of them say. And I wanted to get a bit of hunting in. I need the practice. Oh darling, don't be silly, they were human once. They shouldn't be here, he heard the man say, as the car doors slammed and he heard the engine start. He thought he heard the word Polizia. It wasn't safe here any more. He heard the car burst into life and then sputter off down the road; and he breathed freely as silence descended onto the ruined church once again.



THE BIGGER STORY:

The text of the preamble of Malcolm Turnbull's first media conference as Opposition Leader.

Well, it's a great honour and privilege, humbling, to be elected today to lead the federal Parliamentary Liberal Party of Australia.
Ours is a great party, a party whose values are as important to the prosperity and security of Australia in the years to come as they have been in years gone by because they are values that are based on freedom of choice, on respect for the individual, on fairness, on ensuring that Australia remains a land of opportunity.
I do not come to the position of leader of the Liberal Party from a lifetime of privilege. I know what it is like to be very short of money.
I know what it is like to live in rented flats. I know what it is like to grow up with a single parent, with no support other than a devoted and loyal father.
I know Australians are doing it tough and some Australians, even in the years of greatest prosperity, will always do it tough. We know that this is a tough world.
And our job as Liberals is to ensure that our society is a fair one; a society of opportunity; a society where people can, like my father and I, be able to take advantage of those opportunities, to seize those opportunities and with enterprise and energy, and good luck and hard work, do well.
We are a party of opportunity and this, my friends, is a land of opportunity.
Australians and Australia can do anything. We can do anything, but we need to have confidence, we need to have leadership.
We need, above all, to have the opportunities to do well. And that is the great difference between our side of politics and Labor, because we believe that governments role is to enable each and every Australian to do their best, to exercise their freedom of choice to do their best.
Labor believes government knows best. We are not so vain as Mr Rudd.
We know our job is to empower and enable the enterprise, the dreams, the ambitions of Australians - of all Australians. And that is what I commit myself to doing today as the leader of the Liberal Party, as the leader of the Opposition.
I want to say thank you to all of my colleagues for their support. I want to say a particular thank you to our leader Brendan Nelson, who stood down today.
Brendan has led the party through very difficult times - they have been very challenging times.
He's done that very well, and we all owe him a great debt of gratitude. And I honour him today.
I want to say also how delighted I am to be working with our deputy, Julie Bishop. Julie Bishop is a very dear friend of mine. We have worked together over many years. We know and trust each other very, very well indeed.
And I know that together with the rest of our colleagues, we will be a united, a cohesive team - one that draws on the abilities and the intellect, the ideas and the energy of each and every member of our parliamentary party and reaches out beyond that.
Because truly, we need to network out into the community as we develop the policies and the programs that will take us forward.
But they must, above all, be policies that reflect the values upon which our party is founded, and they are values of freedom and fairness. A free society, a fair society; it cannot be free if it is not fair.
That is the society Liberal governments have created. That is the environment that we have enabled to develop. And we will do so again when we are re-elected in 2010.
So I thank you all, my parliamentary colleagues, for your support...

***

For most people, being the president of a country would be enough to keep one busy, but not so for Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic. He directs as much time and energy as he possibly can to campaigning against those he characterizes as global warming alarmists. That is why Klaus was delighted when a major Czech daily newspaper ran the complete text of a speech he gave last week -- in Tokyo -- to the The Mont Pelerin Society, a prestigious international economics organizationof which he is a member. Klaus, who has been President of the Czech Republic since 1993, holds a doctorate in economics.

The Tokyo meeting gave President Klaus an opportunity to introduce his new book, "Blue Planet in Green Shackles." The book’s subtitle -- What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? -- reveals Klaus’s concern about the totalitarian agenda of environmentalists. He sees no difference between the ideology of communism and that of climate change. He says he is no longer simply concerned about the consequences of politicians using global warming to gain and wield power over ordinary citizens. Klaus describes himself now as “angry.” He agrees with author Michael Crichton. “The greatest challenge facing mankind is distinguishing between reality and fantasy, truth from propaganda” as regards global warming.

After he delivered his talk before the MPS, President Klaus sat down for a private interview with HUMAN EVENTS. The man whom Al Gore refused to debate in public when the Czech President challenged him had much to say.

I am frustrated by the fact that many people, including some leading politicians who privately express similar views to my own, are publicly silent,” Klaus began. He believes the global warming issue “is not being debated in a rational way, but is being thrust into the public consciousness as one-sided propaganda.” He invokes the term “silent majority” to describe rationally thinking people who do not speak out against global warming propagandists.

Klaus believes that the goal of climate change alarmists is nothing less than a continuation of the socialist model of the centralization of economic control. “They invoke the image of apocalyptic imminent danger in order to trigger the need in others to have a savior -- a messiah,” Klaus contends. Then he adds: “The constraints of political correctness are tougher than ever. They are being enforced and only one permitted truth is -- yet again -- imposed on us. Everything else is being denounced.”

Klaus contends that global warming has also become “a false identity for the failed United Nations which seeks power over governments and the citizens of the world.” Although he concedes that environmentalism evolved from humble and legitimate origins, Klaus calls Al Gore’s claim -- that Earth is headed toward ”a planetary emergency” -- absurd. He labels it as “scaremongering.” “What is being attempted now (by the environmentalist movement) is a form of human behavioral modification, not for purposes of improvement, but for political power.”

“Environmentalism has become a quasi-religion,” Klaus asserts. “It is an ideology that shares much in common with Marxism. Climate change is the new recruiting strategy for the anti-capitalist, socialist, communist army. They are both monolithic belief systems designed to suppress human freedom.” Klaus sees those “who would otherwise reject socialism for what it is -- a system which destroys personal freedom” as being regrettably receptive to global climate change fears. “Propaganda on the false impact of global warming is now being taught by so-called environmentalists to high school students -- just as virtues and correct thinking was taught under communism decades ago.”

These are strong words for someone who had to survive under Soviet domination for decades.

“Politicians have been searching for a new topic -- for a very long time -- through which they could control the people because communism and socialism is dead. Global warming is perfect because of escapism. We are far away from the future so that politicians cannot be held responsible for their actions now,” Klaus observes.

“When I listened to the G8 meeting in Tokyo a few months ago, each politician proposed ever more ridiculous goals to reduce global warming -- the results of which would not be realized for 100 years. Since the so-called Kyoto global warming treaty was signed, the countries agreed to a reduction of 50% in CO2 goals. Japan’s emissions are up 6% -- yet Japan’s Prime Minister promised to cut Japan’s emissions by 80% in 100 years. Since that meeting just a few months ago, half of those leaders have gone. The Japanese Prime Minister resigned in the first week of September. I am now in Tokyo to meet the head of government. Who should I meet?”

“We will command the wind and the rain! This was an old communist saying well known in the Czech Republic. When I listen to Al Gore, I hear the same objective, except now it’s not the wind and the rain they want to control, it’s the global environment.

Most people make the mistake of thinking that Mr. Putin is their enemy. They are wrong. Their real enemy -- who would steal their money and personal freedoms -- is Mr. Al Gore.”

It is no surprise then that Klaus views global warming quotas and promises by politicians as a means of inflicting untested ideas -- in the form of market controls -- on the international economic engine. This, Klaus says, “gives new life to top down government and controls over people’s lives.”

“Serious economic consequences are seldom, if ever, discussed,” he notes. “Cost benefit studies on plans to reverse global warming are not carried out. Economic theory is discounted.” Sadly, he points out, “Less developed countries have been taken hostage by this debate. Environmentalists have placed the growth ability of lesser-developed countries in jeopardy by limiting progress via increasing controls and restrictions. The ultimate victims of green ideology will be the world’s poorest people.”

“Environmentalism is a movement that intends to change the world radically regardless of the consequences (at the cost of human lives and severe restrictions on individual freedom). It intends to change humankind, human behavior, the structure of society, the system of values -- simply everything,” Klaus warns.

President Klaus stresses this point because of his commitment to free market economics. The economist who most influenced his worldview was the late Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, whom Klaus regards as the greatest economist of the 20th century. Friedman was one of the original founders of The Mont Pelerin Society.

Klaus describes himself as a short run pessimist, but a long-term optimist. He believes that rationality will trump global warming fundamentalism. He thinks that future generations will look back on this era with amusement and pity for the passion with which this wrong-headed ideology took hold over the minds of primitive 21st century humanity.

In one of his previous books -- which is comprised of speeches given in both Europe and the U.S. between 1996 and 2004 -- Klaus writes, “I came to politics at the age of 48 (after the Velvet Revolution) without thinking about it and without consciously preparing for it.” Critics of Sarah Palin, please take note.

***

A man and woman have this afternoon been charged with numerous offences
relating to the alleged neglect of a number of children aged between
three and 15 years.

Police attended a home in the Blue Mountains Local Area Command on
Tuesday afternoon in relation to concerns about a number of children
living unsupervised at a home.

When police arrived they located a number of children aged under 15
years and allegedly without the care of an adult.

The children were removed and remain in the care of the NSW Department
of Community Services (DoCS).

Late this morning a 40-year-old man and 32-year-old woman attended a
government agency in Katoomba and were subsequently arrested by police
without incident.

They were taken to Katoomba Police Station where they have been
assisting officers with inquiries throughout the afternoon.

The man and woman have each been charged with:

* Two counts of abandoning or exposing a child under seven years
* Six counts of failure of person with parental responsibility to
care for child
* Eight counts of neglect child

They have both been conditionally bailed to appear in Katoomba Local
Court on October 8.

Police Media release.




The rocks at Merrewether Beach, Newcastle, NSW, Australia.