Fr Claude Mostowik being interviewed at Qatar Climate Change Conference November 2012

Here is the link to the video of the great interview that Claude recorded in the UNFCCC COP18 Climate Studio on 4 Dec - despite being almost voiceless from the ravages of flu!

http://climatechange-tv.rtcc.org/cop18-putting-the-human-face-on-our-disappearing-island-states/

Claude Mostowik , Pacific Calling Partnership

From Qatar: COP18 UN Climate Change Conference 2012 in December 2012

COP18 (04/12/12) – Claude Mostowik, Delegation Liaison at Pacific Calling Partnership talks about the risks to island states from climate change. He says the biggest and most obvious risk is that these countries are sinking from rising sea waters.

He says the extreme weather events, droughts and heavy rains, are affecting the livelihoods of island communities. He says his organisation work to provide a voice for the people so they can speak to themselves.

He says it is about changing the narrative on climate change and presenting the human face of what people are living with everyday. He stresses that it comes back to climate justice, that those with the lowest ecological footprint are paying the highest price.

He says most of these nations want to stay on their islands, where their homes and their cemeteries are but that they are now being covered by water.

A mindfulness walk in peace John Dear S.J.

On the Road to Peace National Catholic Reporter, October 23, 2012

A few weeks ago, I spent a lovely Saturday morning speaking on ‘Thomas Merton and the Wisdom of Peace and Nonviolence’ at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in southern Illinois. We had a good conservation on the connection between Merton's writings on contemplation, prayer and meditation; his thoughts on nonviolence, disarmament and peace; and what it all means for us today. Then we did something unusual. We went for a walk together in silence. We were trying to practice the resurrection life of peace.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist peacemaker and friend of Merton, has been teaching ‘mindfulness walking’ for years, but we rarely hear of Christians who practice this simple exercise. More than 100 of us walked out of the conference center in pairs very slowly, trying to be conscious of our breath, our steps, our thoughts, our feelings and our surroundings. We walked for 30 minutes to a small garden with a large statue of Jesus in prayer at Gethsemane and then slowly back to the conference center.

The goal was simply to experience the ordinary holiness of prayerful peace. By walking slowly in silence with others, we inadvertently encourage one another to be fully aware of our breathing, our walking, our prayer, our peaceableness. Try it, and you'll find how rewarding it is.

Mindfulness walking is a good exercise in the day-to-day practice of nonviolence. It forces us to slow down -- literally -- and to notice the trees, the bushes, the flowers, the sky and the birds, as well as to notice the resistance within us and how far short of ‘everyday peace’ we fall.

Daily exercises in mindfulness help develop our patience, peaceableness, prayer and nonviolence. They not only reduce stress, but can open us to the simple joys of living. This is the flip side to our resistance to the culture of war. While we resist the culture of war and violence, we try to live every minute of every day in peace, hope and joy. One could argue that's too high a goal, but isn't that precisely the journey of the spiritual life? Why not try to reach for the heights and depths and horizons of peace?

‘We walk slowly, in a relaxed way, keeping a light smile on our lips,’ Thich Nhat Hanh teaches in his writings about mindfulness walking. ‘When we practice this way, we feel deeply at ease, and our steps are those of the most secure person on earth. All our sorrows and anxieties drop away, and peace and joy fill our hearts. Anyone can do it. It takes only a little time, a little mindfulness, and the wish to be happy.’

He continues:

People say that walking on water is a miracle, but to me, walking peacefully on the earth is the real miracle ... Each step is a miracle. Taking steps on our beautiful planet can bring real happiness. As you walk, be fully aware of your foot, the ground, and the connection between them, which is your conscious breathing.

When we practice walking meditation, we arrive in each moment. Our true home is in the present moment. When we enter the present moment deeply, our regrets and sorrows disappear, and we discover life with all its wonders. Breathing in, we say to ourselves, ‘I have arrived.’ Breathing our, we say, ‘I am home.’ When we do this, we overcome dispersion and dwell peacefully n the present moment, which is the only moment for us to be alive.

When the baby Buddha was born, he took seven steps, and a lotus flower appeared under each step. When you practice walking meditation, you can do the same. Visualize a lotus, a tulip or a gardenia blooming under each step the moment your foot touches the ground. If you practice beautifully like this, your friends will see fields of flowers everywhere you walk.

If your steps are peaceful, the world will have peace. If you can make one peaceful step, then peace is possible ... Peace is every step.

After our walk, one participant said to me, ‘Everything I do has a purpose, even when I go for a walk. I walk my dog. I walk to get exercise. I walk to get the mail. This was a walk with no purpose, and I found it very hard.’ I told him that was a blessing, that it's a grace to learn to walk in peace for the sake of peace. This is the beginning of peace -- to let go of the outcome, to drop our American addiction for accomplishment, achievement and results, and to dwell simply in the peace of the Holy Spirit.

That's another way to understand walking meditation -- to see it as practice for living and breathing in the Holy Spirit of peace. We can do this any time day during our day: while running errands, doing work or at home. It will help inspire us to be more mindful throughout our day. The goal is to be mindfully centered in the Holy Spirit of peace when we make breakfast, drive the car, engage in work, talk on the phone, do the dishes, wash the laundry, feed the cat, meet with friends or do our chores.

More, this simple exercise in the rhythm of peace trains us to respond more peacefully in the face of pain, anger, rejection, despair, resentment, depression, grief or sickness. We can use this simple exercise to breathe in the Holy Spirit of peace, return to the Holy Spirit of peace and go through any crisis in the Holy Spirit of peace. As we train ourselves to be more peaceful and calm, we prepare ourselves, too, to be more peaceful for the inevitable experience of suffering and death that awaits us all, so that we might go to our deaths in a spirit of peace and mindfulness.

Walking in mindful peace is like prayer, like communion. As far as the world is concerned, it is a waste of time. As far as heaven is concerned, it's a foretaste of the heavenly life to come.

We all experience this mindful walking when we process up the aisle in church to receive Holy Communion. In that moment, we are centered on Jesus. That holy experience summons us to live every moment in peace, mindfulness and communion with Jesus.

I think Jesus did everything nonviolently, mindfully and peacefully. He was perfectly centered, conscious and awake. He taught us to be peaceful and mindful (‘Consider the lilies of the field ...’ ‘Study the fig tree ...’ ‘Notice the birds of the air ...’). He certainly taught, healed and walked with great grace and presence of mind. He was peaceful and mindful throughout his actions, conversations, civil disobedience and death, and certainly in his resurrection, when he breathed on the disciples. In light of Buddhist teachings, walking meditation helps us breathe in the breath of the risen Christ, that we might live in the Holy Spirit of peace.

Anyone who cares about humanity and the earth, who works for justice and peace, who resists injustice and war needs to take special care to practice the art of peace so we don't get swallowed whole by this violent culture of mindlessness. Daily peaceful living is essential if we are to offer the gift of peace to others. But what we're rarely told is how blessed the life of peace can be.

‘The God of peace is never glorified by human violence,’ Thomas Merton once wrote. What Merton forgot to add is that the God of peace is always glorified by human nonviolence. Like Thomas Merton and Thich

On the attack against 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai

Malalai Joya, now 34, has survived numerous assassination attempts and in 2007 was suspended from the Afghan Parliament because of her criticisms of warlords, fundamentalists and the NATO occupation of Afghanistan. Joya sent rabble.ca the following statement on the shooting of Yousafzai.

Once again we see a crime against women by dark-minded and brutal fundamentalists. Malala Yousafzai was shot by Pakistani Taliban because she did not remain silent about the ongoing crimes and brutalities against women; because, despite her young age, she had the consciousness to stand for her rights and say 'no' to the terrorism and misogyny of the creatures of the Stone Age.

I strongly condemn this disgraceful act of targeting an innocent 14-year-old girl. This is the real nature of Afghan and Pakistani fundamentalist Taliban. These dirty rascals pose as 'manly' but this heinous crime shows how unmanly and disgusting they are to kill a defenseless young girl.

Malala was targeted because, in her limited capacity, she wanted to inform the world about the brutalities going on against women by extremists. She wanted to wake up the women of the rural areas of Pakistan to stand up and defend their due rights.

This was a warning for those who only understand the language of the gun. This cowardly attack on her proves that these medieval-minded groups are aware of the potential power of awakened women and are afraid that she may become a role model for many more women. So they tried to stop her in the very beginning. But it was a failed attempt because, across Pakistan and around the whole world, people are on Malala’s side and they are condemning her enemies.

The world should know that the West, and in particular the U.S. government, have nurtured, supported and armed these dirty inhuman bands for the past three decades. They should know that still in our unfortunate Afghanistan, the U.S. and NATO rely on brothers-in-creed of the Taliban -- the Northern Alliance warlords such as Qanooni, Fahim, Ismael Khan, Atta Mohammad, Abdullah, Sayyaf, Mohaqiq, Khalili and others -- who have made life a torture for Afghan women. They should know that Karzai's puppet regime is calling the murderer Taliban ‘brothers’ and trying to share power with this anti-humanity band of killers.

I send my salutations to Malala Yousafzai and am sure that her great sacrifice will not be in vain. She marks the shining pages of history while her enemies will soon go into the dustbin of history.

© 2012 Malalai Joya
Malalai Joya is an Afghan activist and a former elected member of the Parliament from Farah province. Her books include Raising My Voice, and A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice. Her website: http://www.malalaijoya.com/

The dangers of sabre-rattling in Syria

The spread of the Syrian war to Turkey shows how lethal the internationalisation of conflicts can be.

Patrick Hayes

spiked October 8, 2012

Last week, the Syrian conflict entered a worrying new phase. Turkey engaged in cross-border fire with Syrian forces in retaliation for what appeared to be wayward Syrian army shells which killed five in the Turkish border town of Akcakale. This means an actual NATO member, and the nation with the most military clout in the region, is now being drawn into an increasingly messy civil war in Syria.

The UN Security Council president, Gert Rosenthal, ‘condemned in the strongest terms’ Syria’s shelling of Akcakale, and the ruling Assad regime in Syria has since apologised, stating it will not happen again. Even the head of the military council of the rebel forces in Syria, the Free Syrian Army, has not tried to exploit the situation, merely claiming that the shelling was likely a ‘grave mistake’. ‘It wasn’t intentional’, he was reported as saying, ‘[the Assad regime] didn’t want this’.

Yet last Thursday, Turkey’s parliament authorised further cross-border military action against Syria. Turkey has now exchanged fire for five consecutive days. Many on the international stage were similarly angry at the actions of Syrian forces. Rosenthal went as far as to demand, on behalf of the UN Security Council, that the ‘Syrian government… fully respect[s] the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbours’. This was a claim echoed in a statement by US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.

Syria should indeed respect other countries’ sovereignty – and the death of a woman and her three children in Akcakale was tragic. However, it’s a bit rich for the UN, and the US in particular, to hector Syria about respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries. Leaving aside the West’s long history of disrespecting the sovereignty of states, from Kosovo to Libya, it has been intervening in Syria itself since the start of the current conflict.

This is evident even in the reactions to the shelling of Akcakale from Western officials, who were keen to seize the opportunity to heap pressure and moral condemnation upon the Assad regime. A US spokesperson for the Pentagon declared: ‘This is yet another example of the depraved behaviour of the Syrian regime, and why it must go.’ US National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said: ‘All responsible nations must make clear that it is long past time for Assad to step aside, declare a ceasefire and begin the long-overdue political transition process.’

But Western intervention in Syria has gone beyond moral grandstanding and wars of words. Since the beginning of the conflict, the West has burdened Syria with crippling economic sanctions, bringing its economy to a near standstill. Despite no one really believing Syria is developing nuclear weapons, bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been demanding access to Syria to nose around, alongside UN ‘monitors’ who have been keeping an eye on Assad’s military operations. Western leaders have also been threatening to take Assad to the International Criminal Court, and have used the Arab League to monitor and impose sanctions on Syria.

Furthermore, there has been a concerted effort in the West to create an official opposition – the Syrian National Council – out of the rag-bag of disparate rebel groups in Syria, which include radical Islamist factions. In August this year, CNN reported that US president Barack Obama had signed a covert directive which authorised the US to give financial support – alongside other forms of unspecified assistance – to the Free Syrian Army (FSA), despite the US state’s admission that it knows little about the make-up of the rebel groups. While not necessarily directly providing arms to the FSA, the US is providing intelligence, and is ‘cooperating with countries that are arming the rebels, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to help find groups worthy of aid’. The New York Times has reported that CIA officers based in southern Turkey are working with other Assad-opposing countries in the region to provide rebels with ‘automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some anti-tank weapons’.

The level of hypocrisy from Western states is striking. On the one hand, they are preaching that Syria must ‘fully respect’ the sovereignty of other countries. On the other, they are doing everything possible, other than using military force, to undermine Syrian sovereignty and bring about regime change.

Given that the UN Security Council, containing both China and Russia, would be certain to veto any proposed UN intervention, there is speculation that Western countries may use the putative threat Syria poses to Turkey as a pretext for NATO intervention. Indeed, the Turkish prime minister has threatened to use charter five of the NATO treaty – what’s dubbed the ‘one-for-all and all-for-one’ article – which would mean NATO members would be obliged to intervene in Syria on Turkey’s behalf.

Western powers may have little appetite to intervene militarily in Syria, as they did in Libya last year. But recent developments in Turkey show just how volatile the situation is and how rapidly the instability in Syria could spread to a large section of the Middle East. Despite their public disavowals, NATO countries could well find themselves on a slippery slope towards ever-more direct intervention.

Western countries are quick to blame the embattled Assad regime for the internationalisation of the conflict. Yet they are seemingly oblivious to where the blame truly lies. What was a localised if brutal conflict between the Assad regime and disparate rebel forces has been intensified and internationalised by Western grandstanding, meddling and taking sides. There’s no easy solution to the Syrian crisis. But one thing is for sure: the increasing internationalisation of the conflict caused by Western forces looks set to destabilise things further, making a bleak situation even worse.

Patrick Hayes is a columnist for spiked. Visit his personal website here. Follow him on Twitter @p_hayes.

reprinted from: http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/12952/

Sea Level Rise: Within A Decade Vulnerable Islands Have To Evacuate Their Populations

Countercurrents.org October 5, 2012

Vulnerable island states may need to consider evacuating their populations within a decade due to a much faster than anticipated melting of the world's ice sheets. The warning comes from Michael Mann, one of the world's foremost climate scientists [1].

Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University , said the latest evidence shows that models have underestimated the speed at which the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets will start to shrink.

Mann says the Pacific islands, which are only 4.6 meters above sea level at their highest point, are facing the imminent prospect of flooding, with salt water intrusion destroying fresh water supplies and increased erosion.

Mann, who was part of the IPCC team awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2007, said it had been expected that island nations would have several decades to adapt to rising sea levels, but that evacuation may now be their only option.

His warning comes just weeks after the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado disclosed that sea ice in the Arctic shrank a dramatic 18% this year on the previous record set in 2007 to a record low of 3.41m sq km.

‘We know Arctic sea ice is declining faster than the models predict,’ Mann told the Guardian at the SXSW Eco conference in Austin , Texas . ‘When you look at the major Greenland and the west Antarctic ice sheets, which are critical from the standpoint of sea level rise, once they begin to melt we really start to see sea level rises accelerate.

‘The models have typically predicted that will not happen for decades but the measurements that are coming in tell us it is already happening so once again we are decades ahead of schedule.

‘Island nations that have considered the possibility of evacuation at some point, like Tuvalu , may have to be contending those sorts of decisions within the matter of a decade or so.’

Suggesting evacuations would accelerate a change in public consciousness around the issue of climate change, he said: ‘Thousands of years of culture is at risk of disappearing as the populations of vulnerable island states have no place to go.

‘For these people, current sea levels are already representative of dangerous anthropogenic interference because they will lose their world far before the rest of us suffer.

‘I think it is an example, one of a number, where the impacts are playing out in real time. It is not an abstract prediction about the future or about far off exotic creatures like polar bears. We are talking about people potentially having to evacuate from places like Tuvalu or the Arctic 's Kivalina, another low lying island which is already feeling the detrimental impacts of sea level rise.’

Mann, who is one of the primary targets for attacks by ‘climate deniers,’ said that there is still uncertainty about the speed of global warming as it is not clear what the impact of feedback mechanisms could be. In particular, he pointed to the release of methane that will come as the permafrost in the arctic melts.

‘We know there is methane trapped and as it escapes into the atmosphere it accelerates the warming even further,’ he said. ‘But we don't know quite how much of it there is, but there is definitely the potential to lead to even greater warming than the models predict.’

Mann said it was not only island states that were feeling the impacts of climate change and warned that the terrible drought and wildfires suffered by the US this year were just the precursor of far worse to come.

‘If you look at the US , some of these things are unfolding ahead of schedule and we are already contending with climate change impacts that were once theoretical,’ he said.

‘We predicted decades ago that this might eventually happen. We are watching them unfold and there are very real consequences to our economy and to our environment.

‘The climate models tell us that what today are record breaking levels of heat will become a typical summer in a matter of 20-30 years if we carry on with business as usual. Not only will this become the new normal but we will have to change the scale because we will see heat and drought far worse than anything we have seen before.’

The silver lining in all the bad news is that while the political system is gridlocked when it comes to confronting climate change, public attitudes are starting to change.

‘It is going to take a little while to sink in,’ says Mann ‘but there is evidence of a dramatic shift in awareness and the public increasingly recognises climate change is real and if the public becomes convinced of this, they will demand action and they are connecting the dots because we are seeing climate change playing out in a very visible way.

‘I think we are close to a potential tipping point in public consciousness and what will tip it, you never quite know, but another summer like the one we just witnessed we will see a dramatic shift in public pressure to do something about this problem.’

One reason that attitudes are changing slowly, according to Mann, is that scientists are tending to be conservative in their forecasts out of fear that they will be attacked for overstating evidence.

He said the tactics of those who question climate change was not only to intimidate scientists already in the public arena, but also to warn off others from taking part in the public discourse.

But Mann believes the power of the Koch brothers and others in the fossil fuel lobby, whom he believes have been responsible for poisoning the whole climate change debate, is on the wane.

‘I am optimistic,’ he says. ‘The forces of denial will not go down with a whimper and as the rhetoric becomes more heated and the attacks become more concerted, we see the last vestiges of a movement that is dying. The effort to deny the problem exists will have set us back decades but it is still possible to avoid breaching 450 parts of per million of CO2 if concerted action is taken.’

While he is severely critical of those private businesses that are seeking to deny climate change exists, he said there were other businesses who were starting to wake up to the need to change behavior.

‘I personally don't believe captains of business are villains and who don't care about the legacy of the world, even though there are a few bad apples,’ he says. ‘Just look at the reinsurance industry where they face devastating losses if climate change moves.

‘There are an increasing number of companies like Walmart which are ideologically conservative but have a real commitment to sustainability as they realise that as people become more concerned, they will reward companies that are part of the solution.’

The developments are making climate-change denial more difficult to defend.

Glen M. MacDonald, chair of UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and professor of geography and of ecology and evolutionary biology, writes in Los Angeles Times [2] on October 4, 2012 :

The United States experienced the warmest July in its history, with more than 3,000 heat records broken across the country. […] the summer was the nation's third warmest on record and comes in a year that is turning out to be the hottest ever. High temperatures along with low precipitation generated drought conditions across 60% of the Lower 48 states, which affected 70% of the corn and soybean crop and rendered part of the Mississippi River non navigable.

This was the 36th consecutive July and 329th consecutive month in which global temperatures have been above the 20th century average. In addition, seven of the 10 hottest summers recorded in the United States have occurred since 2000. Such rising temperatures and climate anomalies have been documented around the world.

But there's also one bit of good news: The increasingly powerful evidence of a long-term warming trend is making climate-change denial more difficult to defend.

Take ‘Climategate’ — the argument that scientists have based their evidence for global warming on fraudulent science. The Koch Foundation provided funding to physicist Richard Muller of UC Berkeley, a longtime climate-change skeptic, to disprove the widespread consensus on global warming. Instead, his re-analysis showed the exact same warming trend found by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other scientists.

Since completing his research last year, Muller has been vociferously speaking out on the reality of human-caused climate change, including in testimony before Congress. The publication this spring of an expanded weather station analysis by Britain 's Hadley Centre further confirms the trend and suggests Northern Hemisphere surface warming was about 0.1 degree Celsius greater than previously thought. With Muller's and the Hadley Centre's re-analysis, the idea of Climategate has become virtually impossible to take seriously. The planet is warming.

But that hasn't silenced the climate-change deniers entirely; they've simply shifted their arguments. Increasingly, they are accepting evidence of recent warming, but they deny that it is largely caused by humans, attributing it instead to natural factors such as solar variability or the El Niño system. But these arguments don't fly any better than their original ones.

Research by Grant Foster of the United States and Stefan Rahmstorf of Germany has shown that recent variations in the solar cycle, volcanic activity and El Niño/La Niña events actually had a tempering effect on warming. Similarly, Markus Huber and Reto Knutti of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich found by using simulation models that non-greenhouse gas factors could have accounted for only about 1% of the warming experienced since 1950. And this summer a team headed by Peter Gleckler of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory provided strong evidence that the recent warming of the ocean surface could be traced to human activities. The evidence is now overwhelming that by and large the warming we are seeing has an anthropogenic cause.

Another common theme of the skeptics recently is that even if anthropogenic climate change is real, projections overstate future warming. Writing in August in the Wall Street Journal , physicists Roger Cohen (a retired ExxonMobil executive), William Happer of Princeton and Richard Lindzen of MIT — all noted climate skeptics — asserted that greenhouse gases, though possibly having a warming effect, were ‘unlikely to increase global temperature more than about one degree Celsius.’

That 1-degree Celsius, or 1.8-degree Fahrenheit, projection is based largely on a 2011 paper by Lindzen and contradicted by much other research. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5, for example, which represents about 20 climate modeling groups, has in 2012 generated more than 200 submissions and peer-reviewed publications testing and analyzing the newest climate models. The sum result of these improved models reaffirms the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel's projections of an increase in global temperature of 4 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. It is important for scientists to further refine such projections, but it's clear that increasing greenhouse gases are likely to cause a significant rise in global temperatures.

Speaking recently on MSNBC , Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) underscored what has fueled much of the skepticism aimed at climate science: ‘I thought it must be true,’ he said, ‘until I found out what it cost.’ It's true that mitigation and adaptation will be costly. But inaction could carry even higher costs. Economists Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth Stanton calculated that putting off adaptation and mitigation efforts could cost the United States 1.36% of its gross domestic product by 2025, and 1.84% by 2100.

The question is no longer whether the climate will change because of increased greenhouse gases. Now we have to ask what we can do about it, and how much we can afford to spend. It's crucial for scientists like me to provide dispassionate estimates of what the climate is doing now and will do in the future. But in the end, we won't be the ones making the decisions about how best to deal with the warming and its consequences. This will require a broad public conversation and a well-informed public.

Source:

[1] ‘Climate change may force evacuation of vulnerable island states within a decade’, October 4, 2012 ,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/blog/polar-arctic-greenland-ice-climate-change?newsfeed=true



[2] ‘Climate-change denial getting harder to defend’,

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-macdonald-climate-change-20121004,0,5256621.story

Swan Island Convergence 2012

28/09/2012
Citizens blockade SAS training facility on Swan Island
by Sarah Hathway

From Sunday 23rd to Thursday 27th of September, roughly 40 concerned citizens opposed to the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, and Australia’s role in said conflict, gathered in Queenscliff on the Bellarine Peninsula (30km from Geelong) to blockade the only entrance to the Island.

“We believe that all troops, including the SAS troops trained here in Swan Island, need to come home now and allow Afghans to start rebuilding their own country” stated Reverend Simon Moyle, one of the organisers and a participant in the blockade.

Whilst a lot of the activities were planned and lead by Baptist Reverend Simon Moyle, those who gathered to help slow down the Australian/US war machine varied in their beliefs, age, occupation and area of residence. Participants haled from Darwin, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Geelong, and there were two participants who travelled directly from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where they were supporting Julian Assange.

Occupationally wise, there were nurses, teachers, ex-police, and ex-military. With some having decades of experience with non-violent direct action and for others this was their first time participating in such an event.

To start off the week, participants got stuck into banner making and did a letter box drop around Queenscliff about why they were there and what they planned to do throughout the week. They also attached “WAR” stickers in red and white to STOP signs, so that each sign around the centre of Queenscliff read “STOP WAR”.

Sunday night participants watched a 14min documentary by Fairfax media titled ‘Australia’s Quiet War’ which detailed some of what the SAS training facility is being used for. This was followed by a discussion about the various groups using the training facility.

The groups mentioned were the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), Special Air Service (SAS), Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and the Australian Federal Police (AFP). Additionally the facility is used as an intelligence communications hub, for debriefing SAS troops returning from Afghanistan and other countries, and for intelligence seminars for Foreign Affairs and other bureaucrats from Canberra.

Monday was a day for learning. Workshops were held at the Queenscliff Uniting Church on non-violent direction action, and the group explored ideas of what violence and non-violence entailed. Members of the group shared some of their experiences participating in non-violent direct action and together they discussed if such experiences were Principled or Pragmatic/Reformist or Revolutionary. Participants were introduced to the work of Gene Sharp, who has researched and catalogued 198 methods of non-violent action.

Later on in the afternoon participants returned to the church to plan the blockade of the bridge to Swan Island. Everyone introduced themselves and stated how they were feeling in regards to the planned blockade. The general feeling seemed to be mixed emotions of anxiety and excitement for the following morning. It was then demonstrated how to lock on to others, and the various formations, ie. In a line, back-to-back etc.

At 5.15am Tuesday morning, participants proceeded from their accommodation (which luckily was a 5min walk) to the gate to Swan Island. Candles in jars were placed across the road, forming the initial blockade, followed by some sitting down holding photos of Australia soldiers and Afghanistan civilians who have died so far in the 11 year “War on Terror”. Behind those sitting down were banners reading “KEEP THE SAS OUT OF ASSASSINATION”, “NO US WARS NO BLOOD FOR OIL”, “BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS”, “END THE AFGHANISTAN WAR” and “AFGHANISTAN WISHES TO LIVE WITHOUT WAR”. The last banner was created by the children of those who were participating in the blockade.

The police managed to clear bodies twice to make way for a few cars, with some being turned away and told to come back at 8am. At 8.15am the cars were backed up Bridge Street and around the corner on to Wharf Street. The sound of breaking glass echoed around the street as frustrated police began disposing of the candles laid across the road. They then attempted to once again clear bodies off the street. Those holding banners stepped to the sides willingly however roughly 25 protestors had to be physically dragged or carried off the street. Once dragged off, blockaders continued to come back and sit or lie in front of cars, again and again. Until one frustrated police officer was clearly heard saying “This isn’t working.”

It was then explained to each car that the road could not be cleared, as the police were unwilling to resort to harsher means of keeping bodies off the road, or arrest. All cars were turned around, and those who were determined to get to the base, were boated across from the main wharf. By 8.30am, it was time to celebrate and all participates loudly sang and danced along to ‘You’re the Voice’ by John Farnham until the police relayed a noise complaint.

The gate was declared theirs’ and they were told by police that they had won. Participants of the Swan Island Peace Convergence maintained a presence at the gate throughout the night, until they were joined by the majority to repeat the action on Wednesday. In a show of good will blockaders allowed 4 cars through, who were greens keepers of the Golf Course on Swan Island. The Golf Course had been closed for the duration of our stay at the say so of the Department of Defence (DoD).

It was believed that the Police were directed by the DoD to down play the situation as much as possible by not making arrests. Unlike the previous year, there were no mounted police, even though those blockading had doubled in number for the previous blockade.

The irony, as participants discovered that night, was that our efforts (despite those of the police to avoid media attention) made the Channel 10 news on Tuesday night, with the coverage of the day’s events being rather positive. “Not bad for a nonviolent protest with no arrests…” Reverend Simon Moyle posted on Facebook along with the Channel 10 coverage of the event.

All those who participated in the blockade, are to be commended for their resolve in being non-violent throughout the blockade. Even when sleep deprived, dehydrated and sun stroked by day two. The police also handled the situation well, apart from one officer who was over enthusiastic about moving blockaders off the road, who was put on other duties after complaints were made.

Jessica Morrison, the police liaison, was vital in keeping the communication going between police and those participating in the blockade. “Nonviolent discipline has been spectacular. First-timers especially impressive. Courageous and tenacious.” Was tweeted by Reverend Simon Moyle on Tuesday morning.

Participants finished the week’s activities with a march down the main street of Queenscliff to the old Fort, then back down the main street to their accommodation. The march was met with an equal measure of applause and frowns as participants were lead down Hesse Street by a Highway Patrol car.

To view footage from the week’s events please visit the Swan Island Peace Convergence channel on YouTube www.youtube.com/user/swanislandpeace

There are also photos as well as comments from those who participated in the event on the Swan Island Peace Facebook page www.facebook.com/SwanIslandPeace , and on the official page www.swanislandpeace.org

On the killing of eight Afghan women

John Dear SJ on National Catholic Reporter September 25, 2012

On the Road to Peace

If you looked carefully at the news last week, you might have heard a report from Afghanistan about how the U.S./NATO forces bombed and killed eight Afghan women who were out walking in the mountains early in the morning before dawn to collect wood. Eight other women were seriously injured.

But you probably didn't hear that story. Who cares about the death of eight Afghan women from our bombs?

So a few women were killed in our nation's longest war in a remote mountainous region on the other side of the world. That's the cost of war. That's what we call ‘collateral damage.’ There's nothing that can be done. It was probably their fault anyway. They were probably Taliban rebels. Don't give it another thought. What about poor Lindsay Lohan, Kate Middleton, or Katie Holmes? Now there's a real story.

That's what the culture of war would tell us.

The Gospel of peace suggests otherwise. Jesus always, always, always sides with those most marginalized, threatened and hurt by the culture of war, beginning with women and children. If we Christians take the Gospel seriously, then we know the nonviolent Jesus grieves for these women, welcomes them into paradise, and holds in contempt the forces of death that killed them. In other words, the nonviolent Jesus cares - and so should we who claim to follow him.

I know this sounds harsh and judgmental, but what is our response to our nation's massacre of these eight women and the hundreds of other women and children we've killed in Afghanistan?

This week, I invite us to spend some time meditating on those eight women, who were out walking before dawn in the harsh stony landscape in the Laghman Province, near the village of Dilaram, east of Kabul, trying to gather some wood for the morning fire to cook a little food for their families. Then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, they are blown up by our fighter bombers. ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ strikes again.

Think of their lives. Think of their poverty. Think of them walking in the dark before dawn. Think of the struggle they endured just to survive life in the harshest environment on the planet: Afghanistan. And think of that ever-present threat of death hanging over them -- our war planes, fighter bombers and drones, under the benevolent auspices of NATO, ostensibly on the lookout to protect Afghan women from the Taliban. (Of course, we now know that our war is all about natural resources, setting up a new oil pipeline from Iraq through Iran through Afghanistan, a conduit for natural gas and fossil fuels from the basin of the Caspian Sea, and of course, creating a new strategic outpost for the U.S. empire on the border of its future enemy, China.)

The U.S. said afterward its bombing attack was ‘targeting 45 insurgents,’ but tragically, it killed the eight women. The Pentagon offered its ‘deepest regrets and sympathies’ to the families and loved ones of the civilians killed and injured.

Afterward, dozens of tribesmen from Alingar drove to the provincial capital of Mihtarlam, carrying the bodies of some of the women who were killed. They stopped outside the governor's office and shouted, ‘Death to America!’ Pictures of the dead women were front-page news in Asian newspapers, such as The Times of India. Millions of people around the world grieve for these women and rage against the American empire and its wars. There's no wonder that riots and attacks against American embassies occur almost daily now.

‘Scant attention is paid to the plight of the families whose mothers have been slain by U.S./NATO military forces which claim state of the art drone surveillance capacity,’ Kathy Kelly wrote in an email to me after I asked for her comments about the killings. She's now on her way again to Afghanistan, where she spent much of the summer. ‘And yet, U.S. officials have repeatedly claimed that the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is necessary to protect women and children. In spite of the constant drone surveillance which purportedly supplies the U.S. military with intelligence about patterns of life in Afghanistan, the U.S. military seemed unaware that women typically scour the mountainsides looking for firewood so that they can heat water and prepare meals. A BBC video shows that other women and girls who survived the attack are now hospitalized because of their severe injuries. By now, news coverage of families in the Alingar District is likely over, but the effects of this attack will forever alter the lives of the injured survivors, their families and the families and friends of those who were killed.’

Almost 2,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed in our 11-year war on Afghanistan. How many civilians have we killed in Afghanistan? The Guardian of London says in the last six years, 12,793 civilians have been killed. Wikipedia features dozens of reports and puts the numbers generally at ‘tens of thousands,’ but says that's an underestimate. In other words, no one knows. And, it seems, few care. Or perhaps the Pentagon will never allow those numbers to be known.

Earlier this year, for example, a U.S. Army sergeant shot and killed 16 innocent Afghan civilians. Nine of them were children; one was a 3-year-old girl. He shot many of them in the head before he piled together 11 of the bodies and set them on fire.

These days, I'm preparing to head to Los Angeles to lead a retreat on the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. ‘Love your enemies,’ Jesus commands in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘then you will be sons and daughters of your heavenly God who lets the sun shine on the good and the bad and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.’ St. Augustine responded a few centuries later that sometimes the best way to love our enemies is to kill them. Others likewise rejected the nonviolence of Jesus and created the pagan just war theory that still determines our social outlook today. But Jesus calls us to an entirely new way of relating with everyone on the planet. He has something to say about our nation's killing of these women.

For the record, the Gospel insists: No cause is worth the death of a single human being. We are called to practice universal nonviolent love. This stupid, senseless, evil war is not worth the death of these eight women, not to mention the tens of thousands of other civilians killed, or the many more combatants.

We need to end this war immediately. It's a useless exercise in mass murder. For those of us who dare claim to be Christian, it goes against everything the nonviolent Jesus stands for.

‘Blessed are those who mourn,’ Jesus says at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. ‘Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice. Blessed are the peacemakers.’ We won't hear these teachings discussed in the presidential debates, but this is what we should all be addressing -- the need to fulfill Jesus' vision and create a new world without war, poverty and bombs.

I invite us to spend some time these days mourning and grieving the deaths of these eight women and all those killed in our senseless war in Afghanistan. I hope their deaths will touch us, break our hearts, lead us back to the God of peace, and push us to stand up and demand an end to this war and all our global war-making.

Together, let us pray for them, the women and children of Afghanistan, for all our own people who are dropping the bombs, and the end of this war. Let us pray that instead, we might make restitution, rebuild Afghanistan and start down the new road of creative nonviolence.

Coalition of Australian community groups call for urgent action on Palestinian human rights

Pax Australia is a member of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network

Media Release, 7am Sept 24

The annual meeting of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network echoed the call from visiting Israeli historian Professor Ilan Pappe for Australians to be a voice for justice for Palestinians.
The President of APAN, the Reverend Jim Barr, said “APAN joins Professor Pappe in calling for freedom, justice and equality for all Palestinians.
“Over 26 church, union and community based advocacy groups met in Adelaide over the weekend to discuss recent developments within Australia and strategies for presenting the issue of Palestinian rights to a broad Australian public.
“It was inspiring to see such a broad representation of Australians coming together to advance understanding and compassion for Palestinians suffering human rights abuses on a daily a basis.
“If Australia wants to be a responsible and influential global citizen, our government needs to exert more pressure on Israel to comply with their obligations under International law.
“Professor Pappe, at the Edward Said Memorial Lecture, highlighted that the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions Movement is an effective nonviolent strategy for the international community to use to influence Israeli government policy.
“This weekend’s meeting of concerned community groups builds on the great work happening nationally and internationally to support the Palestinian people,” Reverend Barr said.

Resolution as passed on Sept 23, 2012
The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network calls on the Australian Government to make urgent representations to the Israeli Government to comply with its obligations under international law in relation to the rights of the Palestinian people.

Contact: Rev Jim Barr APAN President 0425462277

No Days of Peace in War-Ravaged Afghanistan

Johnny Barber

Common Dreams September 21, 2012


On this International Day of Peace I am sitting in Kabul, Afghanistan with a handful of youth that want nothing but peaceful coexistence in their lives. This in some respects is like a dream because their entire lives have been surrounded by war, death, corruption, and struggle. Peace has been in short supply. For three years the Afghan Peace Volunteers have worked to develop friendships across ethnic lines in Kabul and various provinces throughout Afghanistan. The work has been difficult, trust is hard to come by in this war torn land, but they are adamant that non-violence is the only way forward. I have sat with similar groups in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, America and Israel. Rarely are their voices heard over the drums of war.(Photo: rabble.ca)

Established in 1981, by the United Nations General Assembly, the International Day of Peace was to coincide with its opening session. The first Peace Day was observed on September 21st, 1982. In 1982 the Soviet Union was increasing its troop presence in Afghanistan and facing fierce fighting throughout the provinces.

Thirty years later Afghanistan is still at war. The opponents have changed, and the weaponry has changed. The War on Terror, Armored Humvees, IED’s, suicide bombers, night raids, smart bombs, and drones have all entered the American lexicon.

The constant through all these years is the suffering of the non-combatants. Just this week, a van was blown up by an IED in southern Helmand province, killing 9 women and 3 children. No group has claimed responsibility for the blast. A drone strike before dawn in Laghman Province killed 8 women gathering firewood and injured 8 more. I spoke with a father of six children in ParwanSa refugee camp. He has been an Internally Displaced Person for 11 years, living in a small mud-brick enclosure with a plastic, canvas, and cardboard roof. I asked if the government had offered any assistance for the coming winter. He said the government has done nothing; he could only count on God to take care of his family. Oct 7th will mark the 11th anniversary of America’s war in Afghanistan. 11 years and $550 billion dollars later, peace is still elusive.

The war has pushed the Taliban out of power, but the current government is full of the very same warlords that were carving up Afghanistan prior to the Taliban’s rise. These “representatives” have very little backing among the people, mainly because they have continued to line their pockets while their constituents suffer. The call for peace may fill their speeches, but to work for peace distracts from their income.

The International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) as well as the Afghan Army and Afghan Police force, often employing strong-arm tactics, struggle to bring a semblance of security to the countryside. Security in Kabul is tentative as well, with suicide bombings and armed attacks on the rise. On Sept 18th, a woman rammed a car full of explosives into a van containing 9 foreign workers, killing herself, all 9 foreigners, their Afghan translator, as well as passerby. While temporary security may be imposed with an iron fist, peace cannot be forced.

On Sept 19th, an Afghan holiday in the remembrance of the death of Burhanuddin Rabbani, a warlord turned “peace envoy” who was killed by a suicide bomber in his home, President Hamid Karzai called on Afghans to pursue peace. A generation that has known nothing but war has little faith in government calls for peace while the very same government loots the country. The government led peace initiative seems to have died with Rabbani a year ago.

The past week has been disastrous for Afghans, and points towards more mayhem in the future. While profits are still being generated for arms suppliers, reconstruction experts, and contractors, peace has not been generated for anyone. In America, peace is never spoken of outside the context of war or security. In Obama’s acceptance speech in Charlotte, he mentioned America’s “pursuit of peace” exactly once, shortly after getting cheers for claiming, “Osama bin Laden is dead.”

A partial list of American military involvement since 1982 includes Lebanon, Grenada, Chad, Libya, Honduras, Bolivia, Columbia, Peru, Philippines, Panama, Iraq, Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Haiti, Serbia, Afghanistan (currently, America’s longest war), Sudan, Iraq (again, after years of crippling sanctions that killed half a million children), and Libya (again). This is not an exhaustive list, it doesn’t include covert attacks, special operations, or America’s special relationship with Israel, which has rained down horror on Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli drones continue to kill people in Gaza on a nearly weekly basis. American drones are currently killing people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Syria and Iran loom on the horizon, with American threats of intervention and war ramping up. Death is a top American export.

On the anniversary of Sept 11th, a hate filled Anti-Islam movie trailer was a catalyst sparking widespread protests and attacks across the world, leading to 30 deaths. On Sept 19th a French satirical newspaper, under the guise of “free speech” released vulgar cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (Peace be Upon Him) adding fuel to an already volatile fire. Peace Day is likely to be fraught with violence, like most any other day.

Activism in the name of peace
CathNews September 14,

2012

At the Ministry of Defence (MoD) headquarters on London’s Whitehall, members of Pax Christi must be familiar figures, reports Jonathan Tulloch in The Tablet.

Demonstrations by the peace organisation often take place there, with campaigners kneeling in prayer. But they often deface the building too, are then arrested and prosecuted.

“When we appear in court,” says Pat Gaffney (pictured), the coordinator of the British section of the worldwide movement, “our defence is that we committed a small crime to stop a larger one.”

Last week, three of her members appeared in court and were found guilty of causing criminal damage after writing pacifist slogans on the MoD’s headquarters during a Pax Christi peace vigil. They have all said that they will refuse to pay their fines. As Gaffney knows herself from personal experience and serving time in Holloway, that means facing a prison sentence.

Jail sentences, peace protests, becoming expert on war and its weaponry: it suggests a person who is deadly serious, who might even be wretchedly careworn.

But earlier this year Gaffney – who has worked tirelessly for peace across four decades, been arrested 11 times, imprisoned on three occasions and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize – appeared in The Independent’s “Happy List”, devoted to people whose life and work enriches others: capitalists of the human spirit.

Her warmth is immediately apparent as we meet for tea in the magnificent, highraftered, green-tiled tea room of the Leeds Art Gallery and Library. “So, how does it feel to be on the happy list?” I start. Gaffney laughs. “I didn’t believe them. When they rang to tell me, I thought it was a joke.”

Her commitment to the peace cause is undoubted. A former biology teacher, she has been British coordinator for the worldwide Catholic movement for 22 years. In that time, the organisation has successfully campaigned against major banks’ secret investments in cluster bomb manufacturers.”

FULL STORY All in the name of peace (Tablet)

Soldiers Who Refuse to Kill

David Swanson

Dissident Voice August 10, 2012

One of the most inspiring events thus far at the Veterans For Peace National Convention underway in Miami was a presentation on Thursday by several veterans who have refused to participate in war. Typically, they have done this at the risk of significant time in prison, or worse. In most cases these resisters avoided doing any time. Even when they did go behind bars, they did so with a feeling of liberation.

Gerry Condon refused to deploy to Vietnam, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, escaped from Fort Bragg, left the country, and came back campaigning for amnesty. President Jimmy Carter pardoned resisters as his first act in office. Condon never ‘served’ a day, in either the military ‘service’ or prison.

Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist refused to fly to Iraq, choosing instead to sit down on the tarmac. Ben Griffin from VFP’s new chapter in the U.K. refused to participate in our nations’ wars and has been issued a gag order. He’s not permitted to speak, and yet he speaks so well. Mike Prysner of March Forward and Camilo Mejia of VFP here in Miami described their acts of resistance.

Mejia did us all the enormous favor some years back of putting his story down in a book — an extreme rarity, sadly, for peace activists with great stories to tell. Mejia’s book ‘Road From Ar Ramadi’ is a terrific introduction for anyone wondering why someone would sign up for the military and then refuse to kill people. Mejia, who now works on domestic civil rights issues in Miami while remaining part of the antiwar movement (another rarity), is a co-convenor of the VFP convention.

In October 2003, Mejia was the first U.S. soldier to publicly refuse to fight in Iraq. At that time only 22 members of the U.S. military had gone AWOL from that war, a number that would quickly climb into the thousands as the war worsened and as belief in the various rationales offered for the war evaporated. Soldiers also began to refuse particular missions that would be likely to kill civilians or to put themselves at risk for no purpose other than the advancement of a commander’s career — a commander safely giving orders from a base. Veterans of the Iraq War would soon work with Veterans For Peace to form a new organization, Iraq Veterans Against the War. But at the time of Mejia’s refusal to fight he stood virtually alone.

Mejia joined the military largely for the very same reason most Americans do: the lack of other options. He had worked his way through high school and community college. But the government cut off his financial aid, and he couldn’t afford the college bills. The Army offered him college tuition and financial security. That was enough. This son of Sandinista revolutionaries headed off to Fort Benning, the home of the School of the Americas, where he would train to kill for U.S. empire.

Mejia learned to dislike the military. His commitment was due to end in May 2003. But in January 2003, the Florida National Guard shipped off to begin the invasion of Iraq that President Bush was publicly pretending to try to avoid and privately concocting harebrained schemes to get started. Mejia’s contract was extended to 2031 (not a typo), and he was sent to Jordan. He was neither for nor against the military or the war in any simple sense. He was aware of the massive peace demonstrations around the world. He disliked many things about the military and about this particular war, which he believed was a war for oil. But he was loyal and obedient, not yet convinced of the extreme immorality of the operation in which he was playing a part.

Mejia’s first experience in Iraq involved the abuse of prisoners. He disliked these practices but did not resist. Mentally he tried to brush them aside as the work of ‘a few bad apples.’ Or he tried to justify doing what he was doing out of loyalty to the soldiers around him.

Mejia gradually became aware of Iraqis’ desire that the occupation end, but he believed it would end very quickly. During an Iraqi protest, a young Iraqi man was about to toss a grenade, and Mejia aimed and fired — as did others around him. The young man died instantly, but the trouble the incident aroused in Mejia’s soul did not.

Mejia was troubled by his fellow soldiers’ racist hatred of all Iraqis. Innocent Iraqis were imprisoned and interrogated, when they weren’t shot. Their dead bodies were mistreated by joking soldiers snapping photos with their prize pieces of flesh. ‘It occurred to me,’ Mejia writes of some Iraqis who observed such actions, ‘how upsetting it must have been for them to see their relative in the dirt, half naked and covered in blood, being laughed at and humiliated even in death.’

The beginnings of resistance among the troops arose out of their growing awareness that their commanders were using them in a competition for the most fire fights, the most kills, and the most prisoners. The needs of this competition outweighed justice or even strategy. Returning to base with innocent prisoners was far preferable to returning empty-handed. There was no grander goal driving any operations, as far as the soldiers could see. They went on patrols the entire purpose of which was to guard themselves as they patrolled.

As Iraqi resistance grew, so did U.S. fear, to the point where troops would fire even on unarmed children if the soldiers couldn’t be certain that the children posed no danger. Mejia understood both points of view, and came to realize that in war the choices are bad or horrendous. The only good choice, he began to see, is to not cooperate with war at all.

At one point Mejia tried to explain to some Iraqis something he barely believed any longer himself, that the war was aimed at bringing ‘freedom’ to the people of Iraq. One of the Iraqis who knew something about Mejia’s situation pointed out that Mejia wished to leave the military and could not. ‘So how,’ this Iraqi asked, ‘can you bring freedom to us, when you don’t have freedom for yourselves?’ When Mejia took part in raids of Iraqi houses, he viewed the terror the Iraqis showed of U.S. capture and ‘detention’ as misguided. Surely prisoners would all be fairly tried and released if innocent, he told himself. ‘As it turned out,’ Mejia admits, ‘the families . . . knew my own army much better than I did.’

Yet the troops that left the bases knew more than the commanders who didn’t. The latter, falsely believing that resistance was coming from outside the local area, ordered all the wrong roads blockaded to no purpose. The soldiers who knew such decisions were wrong dared not say anything for fear of what challenging a ‘superior’ can do to your career.

Mejia was able to return to the United States for two weeks’ leave. He went AWOL with assistance from peace groups, and turned himself in to face possible imprisonment. He’d ‘served’ more than the eight years he’d agreed to. And he believed the war was killing human beings for no useful purpose whatsoever.

A mockery of a charade of a pretense of a trial convicted Mejia and sentenced him to 1 year in jail. ‘That day,’ as he went to jail, Mejia recalls, ‘I was free, in a way I had never been before.’



David Swanson is an anti-war activist. Read other articles by David.

Dear Supporter,

"Sixty-seven years ago today, the first uranium bomb was exploded above Hiroshima with the force of 15 thousand tons of TNT.

Tens of thousands were killed by the blast and fireball that engulfed the city, and a similar number died of radiation sickness and injuries in the days and months that followed; in total 140,000 dead by 1945’s end. Three days later, Nagasaki was shattered by a plutonium bomb.

...As we remember the devastation wrought by two relatively small nuclear bombs in August 1945, we cannot afford to be complacent.... A treaty banning nuclear weapons is urgent, necessary and achievable, and negotiations on such a treaty should begin. Now."

ICAN Vice-Chair Rebecca Johnson from the article 'Preventing Another Hiroshima' - the complete article is now online here http://icanw.org/node/6119

To commemorate Hiroshima Day this year, ICAN has just completed a new booklet 'Catastrophic Humanitarian Harm' Please paste into your browser : http://icanw.org/node/6116 that examines the catastrophic effects of nuclear weapons on our health, societies and the environment.

The booklet aims to help reframe the nuclear weapons debate placing health, social and environment concerns at the centre of all discussions about nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

We hope that this booklet will both inform and help to provide you with new materials to help build the growing movement towards the abolition of nuclear weapons.

We invite you to download the booklet by clicking here or on the image above.

Kind regards,

The ICAN team
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Who's protecting whom from what? Who's protecting what from whom?

Joan Chittister
From Where I Stand
National Catholic Reporter July 30, 2012

Here's an American statistic for you about "American exceptionalism" that seems to get lost under the headlines about a slowly recovering economy and a growing number of billionaires. This figure -- at least between attempted massacres like in Austin, Texas, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Aurora and the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, to name a few -- rarely surfaces. The fact that we lose 48,000 people a year in this country to the attacks of private people using privately owned guns seldom makes headlines. Only the atrocities they leave behind them sell newspapers.

There is not another country in the world with that much gun violence on their streets. In the United States, there are 88 guns for every 100 people. That means we already have a privately owned gun for almost every man, woman and child in the country. Only the Arabian Peninsula nation of Yemen comes anywhere close to that kind of civilian firepower, with a ratio of 54 guns to every 100 Yemeni. So does democracy work or doesn't it? Clearly, "the land of the free and the home of the brave" is fast threatening to become the land of the gun and the home of the dead.

But oh, we cling to them. We shout treason, in fact, in the face of anyone who questions their numbers, their types, their easy availability. "It's un-American," we argue, to dare to challenge even the sale of them, let alone their use. On few other subjects does the pitch of the public discourse reach such frenzy. Politicians shout and pound desks; otherwise mild men turn blue in the face at the thought of even allowing a public discussion of the issue.

You've heard all the arguments against gun control, I know: "Guns don't kill people," the posters say, "people do." As if anybody is arguing that guns, as in "Toy Story 3," just get up at midnight and shoot people.

Or better yet, these days the argument goes: "If everybody else in the theater in Aurora, Colo., had a gun, so many other people would not have been shot" -- all notion of body armor and strategic weaponry notwithstanding.

Or, as a young man told me yesterday, the purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the First Amendment. As if that is all that assures the continued functioning of the First Amendment in this country.

Or, this is a free country -- and, apparently, the reduction of violence is an impediment to that.

Or it's unfair to hunters to control gun sales. As if 6,000 rounds of ammunition is necessary during deer season.

Or, a new one: If we take away the right to bear arms, "the government will lead us where we don't want to go, and there won't be a thing we can do about it." As if voting or going to court or passing new laws or protesting peacefully doesn't work, despite the fact that it did during the labor and the suffragette and the civil rights movements. Massive and unrelenting gun wars on the streets have never solved America's problems before. Why would we set ourselves up to do it now?

More to the point, perhaps: If we pass gun-control laws, the National Rifle Association will not be able to buy so much influence in Washington. The NRA will not be contributing so much money to congressional election campaigns. Representatives and senators will not get the big campaign chests that assure their re-election and so guarantee that the country will never get gun-control laws.

Indeed, under all those social tensions, two questions beg to be considered. First: Is federal control of public behavior ever possible in a free country? And second: If so, what kind of controls, if any, can possibly be acceptable?

Well, think about it: The government regulates drugs, even drugs that are critical to a citizen's self-preservation.

We don't think twice about the necessity to regulate driving speeds even of cars capable of speeds of over 100 mph on highways that are surely capable of holding them.

We regulate alcohol and restrict its public use in order to assure the greatest degree of safety for all.

We regulate food sources, animal care, food products and food processing in the interest of the public good.

We define certification requirements to assure competence in life-altering professions like medicine, air travel, police personnel, lifeguards and lawyers.

And in the midst of it all, in response to the second question about the kinds of controls possible, the Supreme Court has ruled that though U.S. citizens have the right to bear arms, the Second Amendment is liable to "reasonable restrictions."

We also, then, must have a right to be protected from the wanton, uncontrolled, unbalanced, dangerous use of guns in the public arena. We have a right to be protected from Wild West gunfights masking as personal or public defense in our public life. We have a right to protect people who are in no mental state to protect either themselves or someone else from the demons with which they struggle but have no little or no control over themselves. We have a right to be protected from the rise of private arsenals in a country that claims to be a nation of law and order.

We have a right to be protected from chaos promoted in the name of security. Otherwise, dissolve the police forces. Save your money and do it yourself.

What we really need is the right to be protected from an uncontrolled NRA that refuses to be controlled, even reasonably.

Or to put it another way: Why is it that both Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama were clearly for gun control before they were elected, but not now? Now one won't discuss it at all. The other one finally talked about the problem -- quietly, a bit, sort of -- but notice that there's no specific proposal and definitely no clamor from either side of Congress to support it. No one's lining up to press for such legislation on-camera for this one. Not in an election year. Even as they tell us that they are brave enough to be president, none of them is apparently brave enough to take on the NRA? So much for leadership.

From where I stand, this is a conversation long overdue. Our record for violence in this country is a blight on our public presence as a rational nation among the community of nations. Our refusal to seek a common solution -- better yet, the insistence by some that the answer to violence is more violence, more guns, more shooting, more civilian warfare -- approaches the irrational. At very least, it is a dangerous moment of public docility in the face of one more invisible bully in a nation where bullying has become a national disease -- this time, it seems, by adults.

And, oh yes, by the way, I do come from a family of hunters who never, ever set out to terrify rabbits with AK-47s, 6,000 rounds of ammunition and a drum magazine.

Fighting the Vampire Within - Paul Balles

‘Murder is not an anomaly in war.’ - Chris Hedges

Information Clearing House July 22, 2012

Early warriors massed on bloody battlefields with everything from sticks and screams to swords, bows and arrows, muskets and cannons. That scene remained both disgusting and ridiculous.

The grim reaper heard the call of wild, raging bloodthirsty troops who could never get enough of head-slicing swords and cannon fodder.

If that description of what goes on in battle is heinous and upsetting, waken to the reality that we encourage at a distance, nourish and sponsor and celebrate when the young--willingly sacrificed--return in body bags for burial.

It's not only the buried dead who rattle the Gatling guns of our souls. Listen to the unforgiving voice of ex war correspondent Chris Hedges:

If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be impossible to embrace the myth of war. If we had to stand over the mangled corpses of schoolchildren killed in Afghanistan and listen to the wails of their parents, we would not be able to repeat clichés we use to justify war.

Warfare has now reached the psychotic stage of comfortable blood-letting at a distance with remote controlled predator drones.

Comments Glenn Greenwald, "The military slang for a man killed by a drone strike is 'bug splat', since viewing the body through a grainy-green video image gives the sense of an insect being crushed."

How psychotic it is when a warrior sits comfortably at a computer guiding an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) hundreds of miles from his target to a "bug splat".

Instead of growing up, maturing after centuries of mass murders at the whim and fancy of bloodthirsty madmen, we satisfy our murderous desires at a safe distance from the exploding bodies that splat like bugs!

America's drones are nothing more than a clever attempt to distance America's vampires from their bloody victims.

In the past decade 30 countries have been involved in one kind of war or another--from America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to separatist movements, civil unrest, insurgencies and uprisings, religious and ethnic conflicts.

After WWII, the United Nations was founded to avoid further catastrophic wars. But there have been more conflicts in the world since the founding of the UN than during any previous period in history.

In any war, nightmarish atrocities become commonplace. People get used to hiding and running in fear, to refugee camps, secretly hating the blood-letting violators of decency.

“War is always about betrayal," says Hedges, "betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians.”

Those who bleed, those who bear excruciating pain, and those who struggle to take their last breath have all been betrayed.

As Hedges reminds us, “The violence of war is random. It does not make sense. And many of those who struggle with loss also struggle with the knowledge that the loss was futile and unnecessary.”

That the people of 30 countries continue to struggle with the futility of war doesn't seem to faze any but a few idealists with no control over their own fate, much less that of others.

Unable to control their bloodletting urges, America, Iran and Israel are sabre-rattling to prepare for yet more murder and maiming sessions of missile madness.

Netanyahu's government reserves the right to strike directly at Iran if it doesn't believe Washington and others are doing enough--through diplomacy or sanctions--to stop it going nuclear.

When are we going to reach the stage where useful energy replaces the vampire within and empathy replaces violence?



Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years.

Tamil deported despite desperate pleas

Sydney Morning Herald July 25, 2012

Daniel Flitton

A desperate bid to stop Australian immigration officers deporting a Tamil man back to Sri Lanka has failed — despite fears from his family he will be killed on his return.

He is the first Tamil asylum seeker to be forcibly deported directly from Australia since the latest spate of arrivals begin in 2008 and follows revelations this week about the torture and abuse of other failed asylum seekers returned to Sri Lanka.

Immigration authorities took the man — who his family insists suffers from mental illness — from the Maribyrnong detention centre this morning and packed him off to Melbourne airport.

An 11th hour bid by refugee advocates to make a legal challenge to prevent his deportation failed to materialise.

He was placed on a flight out from Tullamarine at around 2PM to be returned to Colombo via Bangkok.

The man — who the National Times has chosen not to identify — has failed in his bid for refugee status but his family insist he is in grave danger at home.

‘If he goes there, they kill him,’ his tearful sister said before the flight left.

‘What sort of country do we live? Please give him to me – I will look after him.’

She said the man, originally from the northern city of Jaffna, suffers from mental illness and arrived in Australia in 2010 by plane, seeking asylum.

But he exhausted all appeals for refugee status, though his supporters say they have lodged an appeal with the United Nations for a review.

Tamil newspapers have published photographs and personal details about the man, including a purported arrest warrant.

He had been living with his sister in the Melbourne suburb of Dandenong but was called into the Immigration department in the CBD last Tuesday and given a letter that told him authorities have judged ‘you are removable’.

He was then immediately taken into detention.

His supporters mounted a weekend protest outside the centre in an attempt to stop his deportation.

His brother-in-law said he had asked to be allowed to see the man before he was deported, but was refused.

An immigration department spokeswoman refused to confirm the deportation.
‘We don’t comment on operational details and won’t comment on removals until after they occur,’ she said.’

Further comment is being sought.

Letter sent to Politicians and Church Officials from Pax Christi Australia

Pax International
Christi Christian Peace Movement
Australia

National President: Father Claude Mostowik MSC
61+2+9550 3845
0411 450 953
mscjust@smartchat.net.au


July 6, 2012

The Hon Julia Gillard
Prime Minister
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2602

Dear Prime Minister

I am writing to you on behalf of Pax Christi Australia, which is a section of the international Christian movement for Pax Christi International. This letter is supported by the three branches of Pax Christi Australia, Pax Christi Australia (NSW), Pax Christi Queensland and Pax Christi Victoria.

Our members are deeply committed to peace and justice issues, and as some of us work on a daily basis with asylum seekers and refugees, we are committed to a humane, compassionate and welcoming attitude towards asylum seekers.

As we followed the recent parliamentary debates, we have shared the concern and pain felt by members of parliament for the plight of the asylum seekers. We understand that compromises need also to be made to save the lives of people taking dangerous journeys in their search for freedom and protection. But, we have looked for action from our political leaders as have many Australians who have been left angry and helpless. We have been concerned that the emphasis on the arguments has been about people smugglers and stopping boats rather than saving lives and providing services that obviate people from making genuine claims closer to the home countries.

Our membership is aware of the situation of many of the people who seek asylum, and we are distressed about the needless loss of life as people take huge risks in trying to seek asylum. We know that there are many compassionate Australians who feel the same as we do.

Pax Christi Australia (NSW) is aware that this is not an easy issue to deal with, but we call for:

o a change of attitude and focus that seeks to help rather than hinder people from making claims, that is, provision of resources at consulates and embassies close to their country of origin where the claims for asylum can be processed. In some countries this may not be possible, as in Afghanistan, but would be possible in neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Iran.

o an immediate increase in the humanitarian intake as both of the major parties have already suggested

o onshore processing of people who have already arrived in Australia – as is their right.

o request the Minister for Foreign Affairs to have a conversation with the leaders of Malaysia and Indonesia that might lead to their countries signing the Refugee Convention and then also fulfill its requirements in practise.

Again, we recognise the difficulties in dealing with the plight of asylum seekers. A change of attitude and focus would at least present to the world that we are really are caring and compassionate nation; that we are a responsible neighbour in the Asia Pacific region; and that we take responsibility also for our contribution to the increase in people seeking asylum because of our military involvement in Iraq and ongoing involvement in Afghanistan

We look forward to your response to our suggestions and concerns.

Yours sincerely



Father Claude Mostowik msc jp
National President

Copies
Hon Tony Abbott, Leader of the Opposition
Hon Chris Bowen, Minister for Immigration
Hon Scott Morrison, Opposition Spokesperson for Immigration
Senator Christine Milne, Leader of the Greens
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Australian Greens spokesperson for Immigration and Citizenship,
Bishop Christopher Saunders, Chairman of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council,
Father Maurizio Pettená CS, National Director, Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office
Mr John Ferguson, Executive Officer, Australian Catholic Social Justice Council

A more sustainable approach to alleviate the plight of asylum seekers to Australia

Dear friends,

I forwarding this on behalf of the Australian Catholic Migrantion and Refugee Office for your information and possible interest. Please feel free to forward this to people who may be interested.

Peace

Claude Mostowik msc


Dear Episcopal Vicars and Directors,

The Australian government is looking to determine what support may be available from the Australian community for the possibility of having community groups and congregations directly support the resettlement of refugees.

The Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office has been engaging with government authorities to reach a more sustainable approach to alleviate the plight of asylum seekers and refugees in full accordance with Catholic Social Teaching. On the outset, this may be a wonderful opportunity for Catholic communities to be “a comfort for the afflicted, a refuge for the persecuted, a homeland for the exiled” (Pope Pius XII Apostolic Constitution, Exsul Familia Nazarethana, 1952)


The attached document explains further what the government is proposing.

Essentially, the government would like to know whether community groups;

1. Would like to be directly involved in the resettlement of refugees?

2. Who would they like to sponsor?

3. Could financially support refugees to come to Australia?

4. Could provide support with pastoral care, accommodation, household items, furniture, food, utilities, clothing etc?

5. Could help refugees rebuild their lives and gain employment?

The ACMRO will begin preparing a submission which must be finalised by Friday, 27 July 2012.

To help us prepare our submission we are seeking your views, opinions and interest in the community sponsorship program. You can greatly assist us either by addressing the five questions proposed above, or by directly referring to the attached discussion paper and providing advice in regards to any or all of those 18 questions.

It is important to note that this program is in the proposition stage, and therefore will raise a lot of questions, I would encourage you to express any concerns and put forward any suggestions.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated and will help us to make an informed submission which more accurately reflects the views of the Catholic community and potential for a refugee sponsorship program.

I kindly ask that you provide any advice before Monday, 23 July 2012 to allow us time to collate the information and prepare a succinct submission.


On behalf of Fr Maurizio Pettenà,
National Director ACMRO



Kind regards,



Joe Moloney

Research and Information Officer

AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC MIGRANT & REFUGEE OFFICE
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference

GPO Box 2720 Canberra ACT 2601

T: (02) 6201 9895

F: (02) 6247 7466

E: joe.moloney@acmro.catholic.org.au

Australian Story Monday 16 July ABC1

Warne forms great partnership with teenage refugee
Christine Sams
Sun-Herald July 15, 2012



HE WAS an asylum seeker on a leaking boat intercepted near Christmas Island. But now 17-year-old Jaffar Ali counts Shane Warne among his high-profile supporters, after three years living in Australia.

Warne has entered the refugee debate by voicing his support for the teenage boy whose story of survival has inspired an episode of the ABC1 series, Australian Story.

It comes after a heated debate between major political parties ended in parliamentary deadlock over how to process asylum seekers arriving on boats.


Warne agreed to record a televised introduction for the story of Jaffar because he compared the boy's harrowing experiences with the privileged life of his teenage son, Jackson. Jaffar's older brother and sister were killed by Taliban in Afghanistan before his family fled to Pakistan.

‘Meeting Jaffar Ali, who was 14 when his family sent him off alone [from Afghanistan] to try and find a safer place to live, I couldn't help but think of my own son, who had celebrated his 13th birthday just the day before,’ Warne said.

‘The contrast in those two boys' lives is huge and what Jaffar has experienced in his 17 years is very sad. But the Jaffar that stood before me was a very bright teenager who loved school and loved his cricket. We made a pact to hit a few balls together this Australian summer.’

Warne's meeting with Jaffar signifies a humanitarian touch from the famed cricketer who did not hesitate to show his support for the teenager.

Jaffar's story involves a chance meeting in an Indonesian detention centre with Melbourne barrister Jessie Taylor. She gave him her mobile phone number in case he made it to Australia.

The teenager was later picked up by authorities on a boat near Christmas Island but he never let go of the phone number. He lodged a formal application for refugee status and when he was granted permanent protection, Ms Taylor was appointed as his full-time carer and foster mother.

The episode featuring Warne airs tomorrow night on ABC1.

Best lessons come from life itself

Best lessons come from life itself
Hugh Mackay.

Sydney Morning Herald May 19, 2012

The only way to change someone's mind is to let them draw their own conclusions from personal experience, writes Hugh Mackay.

If you read this essay backwards, starting at the end, you'll unlock the secret code that reveals how Malcolm Turnbull will replace Tony Abbott as Liberal leader and how Julia Gillard will claw back popular support.

Sceptical? Of course you are. (Well, most of you.) We tend to be sceptical in the face of propositions that seem ludicrous, or that come from someone we have learnt not to trust, or that simply do not accord with our experience of how the world works.

Back in the late 1960s, many thousands of people fell for a worldwide rumour that Paul McCartney was dead and that the words ‘turn me on, dead man’ were embedded in the words of the Beatles song Revolution No.9 when played backwards. (Not sure how we were supposed play a record backwards, but never mind. Conspiracy theories do not always come with the details fully worked out.)

Most of us assumed the rumour was nuts and got on with enjoying the song, right way around. If only it were always so easy to dismiss things that sound crazy, but just might not be. Heavier-than-air flying machines, for instance.

Gullibility is an ever-present danger for us. We are obliged to take so much information on trust that we regularly have to place our faith in experts - doctors, airline pilots, nuclear physicists, plumbers, auto electricians, economists and climate scientists.

A recent ABC television program, I Can Change Your Mind About … Climate, pitted former senator and climate-change sceptic Nick Minchin against Anna Rose, co-founder and chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. They were carted around the world to meet a variety of people with a variety of barrows to push on the subject of climate change.

The protagonists set out with such strong views that anyone who knew anything about the process of attitude change naturally assumed the program would end as it began, with Nick and Anna as confident as ever of their own positions. They would not budge an inch, we thought, because all they were being subjected to was verbal attacks on their existing beliefs.

The program was brilliantly produced and directed. The location shots were magnificent. The experts wheeled up to confront our heroes were unfailingly interesting - eccentric, charming, deeply wise or patently mad, depending on your point of view.

Nothing happened, of course. Nick was Nick - urbane, avuncular, charming, plausible and utterly unflinching in his commitment to the proposition that all this so-called ''science'' was unproven and that, in any case, politics and economics would determine the ultimate outcome. Anna - passionate, earnest and offended by any signs of scepticism on this topic - was equally impressive in her immovability.

Desperate to show this had not all been a waste of everybody's time and money, the producers finally got Nick and Anna together on a deserted beach back home in Australia to determine whether either might have shifted one iota in any direction. Could there perhaps be some chink of compromise, some glimmer of possible agreement on anything?

Well, now … let's see. Of course there could! They were perfectly happy to agree on the proposition that clean and renewable energy is conceptually preferable to the burning of dirty fossil fuels that will eventually run out. They had both clearly thought this all along; it's just that no one had raised it until the end, when the camera could fade on a romanticised picture of smiling agreement.

The program was immediately followed by an episode of Q&A, with Nick and Anna both on the panel. All Nick's hardline positions were intact, as were Anna's. When someone in the audience claimed to have been impressed by the protagonists' willingness to compromise, their own looks of astonishment were eloquent.

Neither had budged at all, and each was clearly puzzled by the suggestion that they might have. Their point of agreement was just that - a point of agreement, not a matter of compromise. Along the way, each of them had learnt a great deal about the other's position, but that was merely useful intelligence to be filed under ''E'' for enemy, ready for future battles.

In other words, they did what we all do. They used the contest to shore up their defences. Argument almost always does that: if you attack someone's existing attitudes head on, they will not crumple or compromise. They will defend their position and, in the process, reinforce it.

You can see that happening every day in politics, religion, in the culture wars, and even in the petty disputes that create family friction. Argument is not about change, it's about the reinforcement of prejudice. Indeed, if you really want to convince someone to stick to their guns, attack them.

Look what happens when religious or ethnic minorities are persecuted. Do they shrug and say: ‘We're annoying people with these beliefs and practices - let's give the whole thing up.’ No, the history of persecution says that minorities thrive on it. Their religious faith or sense of ethnicity is strongly reinforced by having to be defended against persecution.

So how do people ever change their minds?

Argument is not about change, it’s about the reinforcement of prejudice.

Strangely enough, we have another TV documentary to thank for a demonstration of how you do actually change someone's mind - not by aggressive or even seductive words designed to persuade them, but by exposure to new experiences from which they can draw their own conclusions.

SBS's Go Back To Where You Came From took a group of people with openly declared hostility towards asylum seekers and subjected them to experiences (not arguments) that showed them, first hand, what it must be like to be a refugee so desperate for asylum that you would cross an ocean in a small boat, only to be imprisoned like a criminal, dehumanised and offered no prospect of early relief.

Not surprisingly, the participants were deeply moved by the experience. Their attitudes were softened and their compassion aroused. The things that had actually happened to them - not simply what someone had said to them - became part of them. And, yes, their attitudes were changed as a result.

That's the way it works for most of us, most of the time. Experience is the great mind changer, the great teacher. Our most significant attitudes and beliefs - as opposed to the top-of-the-head opinions we spout daily - are based on lessons from life itself.

That's why attitudes are so resistant to change. We know this stuff from our own experience: why should we change our minds just because someone asks us to? Another person's experience might have taught them something different from mine, but so what?

Smart advertisers know this. There's no point trying to change someone's purchasing behaviour by simply trying to change their attitudes and dispositions via advertising. You need to work directly on their experience - offer them a free sample, drop the price, change the way you distribute or display the product, run a promotion with inbuilt inducements to buy.

Advertising is still powerful, of course, or so many billions would not have been spent on it. But its power lies mainly in preaching to the converted, reinforcing the favourable attitudes of loyal customers and supporting all the marketplace measures being taken to win new customers.

So what might Julia Gillard do about the negative attitudes towards her and her government that have now taken root in the community? One thing is certain, it's a not an attitude-change challenge. Gillard herself knows, from her bruising ‘no carbon tax’ experience, how circumstances change our declared attitudes.


No doubt she meant it when she declared there would be no carbon tax under a government she led. That was her attitude. It wasn't a lie, any more than ‘I will love you forever’ is a lie when it is said by people who subsequently fall out of love.

Gillard's attitude was changed by the change in her experience: being the leader of a minority government in a hung parliament forced her (as it would have forced any leader) to modify some positions so as to achieve a workable compromise with the Greens.

It's the classic pattern: changed circumstances produce changed behaviour, and changed behaviour produces changed attitudes.

What about dramatic religious conversions that look like the product of pure persuasion? In most cases, they turn out to be the result of significant, even traumatic, changes in people's lives that have led them to seek comfort, relief or resolution. Religion's offer of salvation came at just the right time.

So back to Gillard's problem. What she must be hoping - and perhaps it's her only hope - is that, come July 1, we will respond more warmly to the government because of the change in our circumstances, courtesy of tax cuts, pension increases and other measures designed to compensate us for carbon tax-related price rises.

Whether that will be enough to shift such deeply entrenched attitudes remains to be seen, but it could happen. At the very least, our experience of the new carbon-price regime might convince us that our fears (if any) were unfounded and that the dire predictions of harsh economic consequences were mere hysteria.

And perhaps, like Nick Minchin, we'll be encouraged in our belief that, all other considerations aside, clean and renewable energy is a good idea. Higher energy prices might also lead us to the conclusion that, regardless of compensation measures on offer, we could actually reduce our energy bills if we used less energy.

‘Turn the light off when you leave the room,’ my abstemious mother used to say, but there was no behavioural incentive to back up her message so, like most kids, I regarded it as irrelevant nagging. As the price of electricity rises, perhaps turning unused lights off will seem a good idea. If we start behaving differently to save money, even our attitudes will change.

We didn't take drink-driving messages seriously until random breath testing made a direct impact on our behaviour. Then our behaviour changed and, in turn, our attitudes. It's not ‘all in the mind’, after all.

(gnihtyna eveileb ll'uoy edoc terces a si siht eveileb uoy fI)