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.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
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.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
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.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
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
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
Monday, July 16, 2012
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
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
Sunday, July 15, 2012
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.
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)
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)
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