It is generally assumed that mining companies are bad and green groups are good. This general impression is so well entrenched within western civilization that many environmental activists have got used to being able to tell stories about mining, logging, fishing and farming operations that are misleading, exaggerated or simply wrong. They have got used to professional journalists just repeating their propaganda.
Of course, not all environmentalists mislead, just like not all mining companies are bad. But gee it can be hard getting people to accept this. Most environmentalists are seen as angels with absolutely no vested interests.
It can also be hard getting people to understand that "making poverty history" is about more than attending a rock concert or making a donation. Development and industry are real solutions to poverty and they often involve some environmental harm. Miranda Devine makes some comment on this issue and also gives the new documentary 'Mine Your Own Business' a plug in her column in today's Sydney Morning Herald:
"AT U2's Sydney concerts last week, Bono urged the audience to text their names to a Make Poverty History phone number. Later he flashed the names on a big screen and sent a thank you text to all those mobile phones in Telstra Stadium. As an act of charity it doesn't come much easier, unless you count wearing wristbands.
This is not to sneer at Bono for raising consciousness of the world's poor, or his audience for making a gesture.
But as protesters and green activists gather in Melbourne this weekend to lay the usual blame for poverty on the greed of developed nations, a powerful new documentary shines light on a different villain.
Mine Your Own Business, which opens this week, shows that the "powerful group telling the world's poor how to live, how to work, even how to think" are not the world leaders gathered in Melbourne. They're not even wealthy multinational corporations, but wealthy multinational environment groups such as Greenpeace.
Read the complete article here: http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/make-poverty-history-first-by-getting-rid-of-the-greens/2006/11/18/1163266827937.html
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For information on when and where the documentary is screening this week in Australia visit: www.ipa.org.au
Stewie - apologies for the confusion. We staked out an acre with white posts on the corners then pulled down an old shed from Cambarville up the road and built a one room shack with a pick in the corner and a pan hanging on a nail on the wall. That was the full extent of our gold mining tools and they never saw the light of day again. We were 16 year old proto-hippies listening to the Doors and reading 'Lord of the Rings' having a ball trashing the place, but learning how to grow radishes, build, fish and explore......knew diddly about prospecting and know diddly now.
I did go to a seminar on prospecting in the late eighties with a view to getting into it, but the consensus was I'd only be pulling wages for buggering the bush, so I passed it up.
Still, I find the fossicking bug very appealing. Maybe one day....
Gavin - my old man got the inside running on Poseidon in the sixties from a neighbour that was in the know. He passed on it. Sometimes if I want to wind him up......
Pinxi: A word or two about resistance. Soon after the Korean war began I was inducted into a very young anti communist army. We built forts and weapons, set up sub groups and trained leaders in other districts. We also stayed up late and did night patrols. One evening after the younger one went to bed uncle’s old shingle covered barn and stables caught alight then burnt down.
I as guest had a lot of explaining to do about slow burning oil lamp experiments. Uncle also fell over a series of hidden trip wires as he stumbled around in the after glow with his stirrup pump and buckets trying to save grandfathers old harness and a few bales of hay. Later on headmasters stepped in and confiscated pocket weapons at various schools.
Some in that group later became key local elements under Santamaria DLP NCC the Cardinal. etc but by then I was watching from the far side in big smoke their big attack on the left around trades hall.
Every now and then I joined in with the marching boys at the mill where I worked. We had our own big banner in town for national industry campaigns. One of Laurie’s greatest fans cried when I left. Simply we were more often up the road than in.
Pinxi thanks but there is no one on this blog more familiar with lets say some sad cases or a great load of tired old brain washing rhetoric
I think Stewie and I have bonded - we gave each other a good bludgeoning but now we're cool. I think you actually like us Stewie. Where else can you have a relatively clean stoush with people of totally opposing value systems. I'm feeling good coz I just pooned Rog like a noob on another thread. Got him right in the value system.. .. that'll teach him for messing with pros.
So you would vote Greens just because our 'relationship' is going thru a bit of a rough patch? Oh dear, dear, dear.
How much for your property?
stewie, tell my baby ears of some of these noble compromises you've reached and what they achieved.
Seeing you know everything, I'm content to believe everything you say. I'll even swallow all of your typecasting. Answer his q's gavin you ole bugga! Waaaa, waaaa. Oh excuse me, my nappy needed changing.
I must declare that in my entire life, I've never voted for the greens. I think you & Motty & rog together have just persuaded me to do so at the next opportunity. I might even sell some property and donate the proceeds.
Come on Gavin. Answer a few of the questions I raised approx 20 posts back.
Let's here the world according to Garp.
Varp: I was tempted by a young telecom guy who had been to Box Hill camp previously. He took a canoe and so did some others. That’s where the ducks came in. Local tipped us off about nuggets in the crop. Don’t bother with dredging, just eat more duck. I won’t go into wise china men hey.
I wont forget the Upper Yarra terrain as the guys at camp had some extra training on their schedule, out over the edge 80 feet up on the end of a rope looking down er way down. Later we managed a couple of hundred feet on another face above the road. Tall skinny blokes are top heavy with climbing gear and a stack hat on. There is always a first time and a probably a last time I thought then.
I had a contact in town who lived free in a penthouse but worked as a minder/cleaner for management. He and several mates had lots of claims they shared on weekends but they mainly worked for gems. He had a good collection of opal, star sapphires etc and a handful of mixed pale and dark diamonds from the north.
One day a huge fellow showed me a bag full as I looked at his brand new slr camera up for sale in the AGE. This chap offered me a choice, his cameras or his exploration shares.
I took his Minolta and avoided a mortgage on our family home and walked away from a ground floor stake in Agyle knowing full well what I’d just done.
Previously, my fossicking mate had tipped me off; nobody in Australia could properly cut the darned hard things. Next week those penny dread fulls went up over two dollars. About a month later DeBeers turned their backs. The shares went up again about ten years later
Fk my stomach hurts. Just can't stop laughing.