28 February 2014 Thought for the Week:

Important new book – “Social Credit Economics”: I have just published a 548-page book on the subject of Major Clifford Hugh Douglas’ brilliant (and too long neglected) economic ideas. These ideas, often referred to under the name of ‘Social Credit’, go to the very heart of our perennial and ever intensifying financial and economic problems : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit.

In sober truth, there is, in a modern, industrialised economy, no good reason for poverty, or for a policy of full employment (with its consequent lack of leisure), or for inflation, or for alternating cycles of boom and bust, or for economic waste and sabotage, or for inhuman financial pressures, or for personal indebtedness, or for public debts, or for high levels and/or unjustifiable forms of taxation, or for social turmoil, or for cultural decay, or for the forced (economically induced) migration of persons from their native lands, or for environmental degradation, or for international economic and political conflict culminating in that form of collective insanity otherwise known as war, etc., etc.
If you would like to know why the present financial and economic systems are dysfunctional, how the dysfunction manifests itself, and what can be done to restore a due order, I would encourage you to obtain a copy of the book, “Social Credit Economics”.
It is available on the Create Space web-site here..... - - Sincerely, Oliver Heydorn February 2014

INDUCTIVE versus DEDUCTIVE LOGIC

by Wallace Klinck, Canada
Clifford Hugh Douglas did by admission and practical necessity, use the inductive method to discover the conditions or processes of industrial accountancy, which led him to formalise his observations in a generalised descriptive form which became known as the A+B Theorem. No working hypothesis—he just started from an initial point and began to explore until he arrived at a conclusive point in his understanding of the issues involved. He clearly indicated in his writings, though, that he believed both inductive and deductive reasoning have a meaningful role to play in human affairs.
I think that deduction is closely related to the imaginative or creative nature of man, which for all we know, may originate in some sort of transmitted inspiration or revelation from a higher plane. We dream dreams and attempt to make of them reality. This is Faith in action, without which, we could not apply our inductive investigative skills to validate or realise our dreams from which we hypothesise.

This combination of inspiration and skill seems to differentiate us from other known forms of life, which have at best, very limited ability consciously to alter their natural environment. A good thing for our survival too—when one considers the frailty of mankind! I personally find difficult to believe the notion that the limited pure reasoning powers of individual humans alone can account for the amazing developments which have occurred in the past, and in our own time at a breathtaking accelerating rate, almost as by a momentum of their own, to further expand what Social Credit describes as our accumulating Cultural Heritage. The latter appears to be a compounding of gifts derived from transmitted inspiration.

Perhaps this may relate to Douglas’s emphasis that Social Credit seeks a realistic integration of means and ends—and his observation that reason itself is like (in his time) a slide rule. It can be used for good or evil.

We are beings endowed with both emotion and reason, and the whole person has balance without being skewed in either direction. Emotions are connected to the spirit or sense of right and wrong, while reason is mere logic. Being totally emotional is a departure from the reality in which we live, and being totally logical is to be blind to the humanity which emotion gives us.

Dialectic materialism and pilpulism* appear to suffer from the latter fatal malady. At some ideal mid-point we become an integrated whole, free from the insanity of the extremes of emotion and logic. As has been said, perhaps with some justification, there is a fine line between sanity and insanity! And so, we refer to the mystical nature of life.

Balance is a critical matter as concerns Social Credit—balance of mind and balance of function as, e.g., with that artificial financial accounting construct which we have called a price-system. In nature we observe balance in homeostasis with regard to the living organism or the principle of sufficiency in engineering, etc. Under a realistic financial and cost accountancy system most of our financial and economic concerns would rapidly disappear. Enough musings for now!

*Pilpulism: Essentially, it is understood to be a Jewish form of logic which allows one to come to a desired conclusion by a dialectical form of excluding or reconciling elements regardless of how they might contradict the desired conclusion. In other words, one determines what one wants, and one is going to get the desired result regardless of the evidence. The result is predetermined.
Readers can draw the relevant implications of this sort of argumentation. A searcher is not going to find much about the subject without a determined search and one gets the impression that it is not especially desired that the general public should know much about the it. The correct spelling is as provided, i.e., “pilpulism”. Read further here…

AND NOW FOR SOME SOCIAL CREDIT GOOD NEWS…

From Therese Tardif, General Directress Pilgrims of St Michael, Ontario, Canada, 17/2/2014:
We have tidied up the English as that is not Therese Tardif’s native language. Having said that, we republish it with great pleasure. She writes: “We know Dr Heydorn, he came here for one week of study. We bought a few copies of his book, and we will take time to read it. He is catholic, he speaks French and Spanish and evidently English. He was a teacher of philosophy in a University in the United States. He came back to visit Ontario - where he was born - a few months ago. I hope his book will be perfectly in accordance with the Social Credit of Douglas.
Now, after our weeks of study on Social Credit, more than 50 bishops of Africa and thousands of priests, teachers in universities; all these people of high class, but very humble, understand very well Social Credit. They are all full of fire to have discovered this great light, and they teach it in the universities of different countries, in the seminaries. They hold meetings, they organise weeks of studies, and a Bishop of Gabon, gave the book of ten lessons on Social Credit to the Pope, and the Pope denounced strongly the idol of money. We have a great hope: two Bishops of Africa who came here for a week of study and understand Social Credit very well, will be created Cardinals by the Pope next week. What a great joy for us.

Social Credit is very well in accordance with the principles of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. Two Great teachers of Jagelone University of Varsovie, Poland, came in contact with Social Credit, and they now reserve their place for the weeks of study in 2015. The next May, we will have the great honour to receive Mrs Christine Menges LePape, teacher in the University of Bordeau in Montauban; she will come with her husband and her Bishop. She holds colloques (meeting of 3 days) on the problems of debt; she invited us, including Marcel Lefebvre our full time lecturer, to give a speech on Social Credit. The teachers of Poland were there, and they were very, very, interested.

We think it is the time of God. He is opening the minds of the people. We continually spread the good news of Social Credit and we pray for its realisation. Thanks to God, the poor of the world will eat every day thanks to Social Credit. This is the reason we give our lives to spread the beautiful Social Credit of Douglas, in the great Movement of Louis Even and Mrs Côté-Mercier (Pilgrims of St Michael) who showed us the road. Thank you for the documents you send us. Let us continue this great work.”

RECORD BREAKING BRIDGE BUILT BY CHINESE:

The following poem is by Joe Thompson, a long time Social Crediter, in response to a new bridge built in China.

"Is that time cut to cross the gorge,
For a longer day still, at the forge?"

Any sense in this? I cannot see.
Perhaps some national jealousy,
To always be biggest, and thereby best,
And eliminate the 'Day of Rest'?

While man-made marvels compete in measure,
How many of them increase our 'leisure'?
Great national pride may well be nice,
But with flawed figures, what is the price?

DO SOCIAL CREDITERS HAVE SOCIALIST SKELETONS IN THEIR CLOSET – AND DOES IT EVEN MATTER?

by James Reed and Chris Knight.
People like us reject the hypothesis of global warming not because we have read all of the scientific literature and made an “objective” assessment (who has the time or ability to do this?), but for political reasons. We are suspicious of not-so-hidden agendas, of how the issue will be used by the elites. Our instincts are of distrust of all UN organisations, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
If we are suspicious of “associations” then what of social credit and guild socialism? Frances Hutchinson in her scholarly book “The Political Economy of Social Credit and Guild Socialism” draws on much historical evidence linking the two. Indeed it doesn’t take much digging to discover, or rediscover, that the journal The New Age edited by O.R. Orage was a leading journal for the Fabian Socialists until in 1913 they founded The New Statesman! But The New Age had featured many articles by C.H. Douglas. Then there were social crediters and guild socialists such as Thomas Tinkler, who was a trade unionist and UK Labour party supporter, and figures such as John Ruskin and William Morris, who attacked industrialism using ecological and decentralisation arguments that came to be popularised decades later by people like K. Sale.

But common to them all is a rejection of narrow liberalism and an expression of the merits of community values, the worth of community and tradition, which is the real meaning of “conservatism”. This same rejection of a narrow individualism can be seen today in a sophisticated form in the work of British philosopher Alaistair MacIntyre (e.g., After Virtue). MacIntyre sees liberalism as composed of a number of mutually inconsistent strands of ideology that have led to many troubling paradoxes. A philosophy of unrestrained freedom can lead to the ultimate undermining of freedom. A philosophy concerned with equality at all costs can become a tyranny once pushed to its limits as we are seeing with the multicultural impact on law e.g., race vilification legislation.

Just as liberalism may have been pushed to absurdity, so has “socialism”. As pointed out by Geoffrey Dobbs in his Introduction to C.H. Douglas’ “Economic Democracy”, the term “socialism” has undergone a radical meaning change. Douglas had no problem publishing “Economic Democracy” in serial form in The New Age, even though it was regarded as a “socialist” or progressive journal. In fact, the socialism of the guild socialists was not the collectivist state solution of Marx and Mao, but a form of community, of seeing people as social beings who anthropologically derive their identity from their communities. Metaphysically the state socialists saw social wholes as primary structures that determined the nature of individuals (social determinism). The liberals saw society as not existing as Thatcher famously said. But the social crediters and guild socialists were social relationists, seeing social entities and individuals as involved in mutual interaction: no societies without individuals, but no individuals (i.e., beings with language, culture and tradition), without society. Douglas himself spoke about “association” which is a relational rather than a reductive ontology.

Guild socialists to a man and a woman, all rejected the philosophy of monopolisation, which is central to Socialism/Communism. They all saw that once power was centralised it became extremely difficult to devolve it. Social crediters have all said the same. They were on the same side. C.H. Douglas in his article “The Pyramid of Power” published in The English Review (Volume 28, 1919) clearly articulated the defects in the ideology of the centralisation of power, to subordinate individuality to some controlling central organisation. Examining Germany of the time, which had fallen victim to centralism, Douglas saw the nation of Schiller, Goethe and Heine transformed into a place “Notorious for bestiality and inhumanity, only offset by a slavish discipline”. Centralism in crushing individuality also served to destroy all that was worthwhile and noble in man.

Hence there are no skeletons in Social Credit’s closet. The association with guild socialists was of historical benefit. But time and language change. “Socialism” today is a word we do not want to be associated with, whatever it meant a hundred years or so ago. As history moves on so does language. Fortunately, the expression “Social Credit” has not been soiled with the bad associations of 100 years ago, and the time to proclaim its truth, once more, has come.

THE TPP, TYRANNICAL GLOBALISM AND THE 1949 LIBERAL PARTY STATEMENT OF BELIEFS

by Peter West:
On Target 7 February 2014, mentioned the 1949 Liberal Party Statement of Beliefs. I have “We Believe, the ninth reprint of October 1964. It is instructive to compare this document to what the Liberals are up to now, especially with the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

We Believe consists of 17 statements, all beginning with “We Believe”. These are taken to define Liberal doctrine, placing the Liberal Party squarely within the classical liberal tradition of the primacy of the primacy of the freedom of the individual. Thus: We believe in: 1. The Crown; 2. Australia; 3. The Individual; 4. The Rule of Law; 5. That the “Class War” is a False War; 6. Liberalism Means Flexibility and Progress; 7. That Improved Living Standards Depends Upon High Productivity and Efficient Service; 8. The Spirit of the Volunteer; 9. That Rights Connote Duties; 10. In Liberty (“not anarchy, but an individual and social liberty based upon and limited by a civilised conception of social justice”). And so it goes on.

My favourite is “We believe that national financial and economic power and policy are not to be designed to control men’s lives”. The statement concludes “but to create a climate in which men may be enabled to work out their salvation in their own way”. The Liberal Party has never held to these classical liberal ideals of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. It is the party of big business and is quite willing to even abandon ideals of Australian sovereignty to give the international financial elites greater control over Australia, and even to abandon the ideal of any sort of economic sovereignty.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a good example. The document has never been released to the Australian public for democratic scrutiny – contrary to the individual liberty principle. Negotiations have proceeded with the utmost of confidentiality and it has only been leaked fragments of the document that critics have been able to examine. For example, special courts will be able to overrule Australian laws, such as environmental protection, in the name of “free trade”.

Recently Andrew Robb, Minister for Trade and Investment, has published his defence of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (The Australian 10 February, 2014 p.10). It is a perfect example of how the Liberals are illiberal. For example, on the issue of the release of the draft negotiating text, Robb says, “It is simply not common practice to release text before agreement has been reached”. He says that “once the text has been agreed to by all negotiating parties it will be made public”. The problem here is that by that time the agreement will already be signed or ready to be signed with no public scrutiny. The existing secrecy is an indication of “bad faith” that will be continued. Robb is concerned about “misinformation” peddled by critics about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. All the more reason to come clean about what the deal involves.
If it really is “nonsense” that the Trans-Pacific Partnership “will open the floodgates for big foreign multinationals to sue member governments for introducing laws and regulations that they simply don’t like” as Robb says, then what about leaked passages of the document that says exactly that?

Finally Robb, as Minister for Trade and Investment says that he would not sign up for anything that does not materially advance Australia’s interest: “Why would I?” Well, could it be that your government is essentially the puppets of the big foreign multinationals and global financial elites who are now consolidating what may once have been known as “Australia” in the Asian New World Order (ANWO)?

‘STOP THE NANNY STATE’ WARNS THE GOOD PROFESSOR

Professor David Flint warns us:
In the latest manifestation of the Nanny State, the federal government is attempting to turn all volunteers in Australia – up to 6 million Australians - into “workers” with all of the legal ramifications which will follow. Ludicrously, beaches, Scout Halls, sporting fields, theatres - anywhere where Australians do voluntary work - will become “workplaces”. Former trade union official Minister Bill Shorten claims that this is a mere codification of the common law. Not true. The common law doesn't fine non-profitable organisations and charities up to $3 million. The common law doesn’t fine volunteers up to $300,000. The common law doesn’t put volunteers in jail for up to 5 years.

The government is giving special rights to trade unions and is extraordinarily protective of trade union officials – just look at the case of the former official now MP has been under arrest investigation for three years by fair work Australia. Under one previous version of this law unions did the prosecuting and took a large share of the fines with employers assumed guilty. It even tried to exclude the supervisory jurisdiction of the courts.
With the licence to punt being planned, it won’t be surprising if Australian volunteers will next have to take out licences.

Now is the time to stop excessive interference and regulation of our lives by and increasingly intrusive government. Say no to the Nanny State. During the life of our country we Australians have volunteered in so many areas to do so much good for our neighbours. We've done it without Canberra imposing some new draconian rules on us. And remember this is only the latest example. So sign the petition to get government out of our lives, share this campaign, and visit our "Resources" menu to consider how else you can make your voice effective.
Go to: https://www.cando.org.au/campaign-hub/current-campaigns/17-stop-the-nanny-state
Sign the petition.

WHY THAT’S MIGHTY ANTI-SEMITIC OF YOU Mr US SECRETARY OF STATE!

John Kerry, Obama’s Secretary of State is being accused of endorsing “anti-Semitic” efforts to impose sanctions on Israel. Kerry, in a Munich talk with Iran’s Secretary of State Mohammad Javad Zarif, said that Israel would face an economic boycott if it failed to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians. (“Kerry Backing anti-Semitic Efforts: Israel” The Age 4 February 2014, p.14) The anti-Semitic criticism came from Ministers in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu said that attempts to impose a boycott on Israel were “immoral and unjust” and doomed to fail. As another example, an official in the Settler’s Council proclaimed that John Kerry had an “anti-Semitic” initiative.

So what did Kerry say? Here are his words: “The risks are very high for Israel. People are talking about boycotts. That will intensify in the case of failure… Do they want a failure that then begs whatever may come in the form of a response from disappointed Palestinians and the Arab community?” That reads like a friendly warning of consequences, not an endorsement of anti-Semitism.

However today all criticism of Israel is being defined as “anti-Semitic” as this is the case illustrates. As anti-Semitism is also by definition “illegitimate”, then any criticism of Israel must also be “illegitimate”, “immoral and unjust”. For example, those wanting sanctions against Israel are criticised for singling out Israel and not conducting campaigns against every other problematic regime in the world. This “singling out” of Israel is argued to be based on an undisclosed anti-Semitism. But – even in the worst-case scenario – if this motive was so, does a mere motive therefore discredit arguments and evidence not based on anti-Semitism? If an anti-Semite presented independent evidence of alleged (emphasis on “alleged” for the purposes of this argument) human rights violations by Israel, wouldn’t logic dictate that those allegations should be assessed on their own merits? Or is it now the case that the soundness of an argument depends upon the morality of who makes it?

Further to the above: Kerry’s brother: “John’s not anti-Semitic – We’re Jewish” NBC News https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/kerrys-brother-johns-not-anti-semitic-were-jewish-n30576

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED MONSTROSITIES AND FAILURES

by Brian Simpson:
One of the alleged advantages of genetically engineered (GM) crops, championed by the multinationals, is that such crops are highly resistant to pests. But according to a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, GM crops are already losing their trumped capacity to ward off pests. The plants in question have mutations from bacteria producing toxins that was supposed to drive off pests by using multiple toxins so that if a pest was resistant to one toxin, the other ones would get it. But it now seems that resistance to one toxin increases resistance to all of the others. Pests acquire resistance to the multiple toxins faster, an unexpected result. Along with all of the other objections to GM crops, this one shows that these crops fail to achieve even basic things for which they were designed. Source: “GMO multi-toxin crops continue to backfire as more insects become resistant to crop chemicals: Natural News.

NOW IT’S OPEN TALK OF THE ASIAN NEW WORLD ORDER

by Peter Ewer
Anthony Bubalo and Michael Fullilove (“Diplomatic Wobbles Reveal Challenges of New World Order”, Sydney Morning Herald 11-12 January 2014, pp.8-9) have made some comments relevant to the above debate. They adopt the standard line that Australia’s future is in Asia, and especially with China, but China could decide to engage in military adventures. So Australia needs to keep up economic ties with China and defence ties with the US – as if that doesn’t involve any longer-term paradoxes.
Bulalo and Fullilove go on to say: “We will need to get used to the idea that as new countries rise, the rules of the international game will not always be made by us, or by people like us – and therefore, that the new rules will not always favour us”.

My interpretation of this is that globalism is acting to undermine the old liberal order, and that in the future the globalist regime could well be dominated by variants of “China values” or “Asian values” that will be illiberal and the antithesis of liberalism. In the Asian New World Order, I suppose the Liberal Party will change its name to the “Illiberal Party”!

HOW THEY PLAN TO EAT THE APPLE ISLE

by Richard Miller:
The article’s title by former Labor Minister Craig Emerson says it all: “Apple Isle Could Be Cherry on our Asia Cake” (The Weekend Australian 11-12 January 2014, p.18) Emerson sees Tasmania as capable of producing fresh, green produce, but as much as “nationalists” may hope that Australia will come up with the capital for development, well Emerson says it just won’t. And you can sing the rest of the song by now, can’t you? China, wonderful China will supply the capital and buy up Tasmanian farms as China is doing on the mainland. The Australian government unlike China, can’t encourage investment because, that’s not fair trade. Tasmania has a relatively low Asian resident population, so that will need to be changed by Asian migration. And so it goes on: Nothing will remain untouched. In manic Capitalism, everything is up for sale!

HEY… MYTHBUSTERS, TACKLE THIS: FOREIGN STUDENTS AND UNI JOBS

by James Reed:
Now there is a glut of accountants and too many unemployable (not just unemployed) accountants. So the Federal Employment department wants this profession struck off the priority list for skilled migrants. (The Australian 29 January 2014, p.27) As the article says: “This list is vital to the hopes of overseas students hoping to parlay an Australian qualification into a permanent residency visa as a skilled migrant”. Nothing about the hopes of local Aussies. And – doesn’t it show the clear link between international students and migration. The glut of accountants is due to Chinese students eager to stay in Australia and a government eager to have them!

As well, in secondary schools there is only a shortage of maths, science and language teachers according to the Federal Employment department, so secondary school teaching should also lose its status as a priority area for skilled migration. (The Australian 30 January 2014, p.5) Uni graduates are also facing worsening job prospects. (The Australian 29 January 2014, p.1) All the more reason to end the international marketing of higher education and control our out-of-control immigration progamme.

CAN IT BE THAT GOOD? WILL WE REALLY MISS THE ASIA BOAT?

by James Reed:
Ken Henry, a former Treasury secretary has said that Australia will miss the boat on Asia because of a lack of infrastructure. (The Australian 10 February 2014, p.17) Australia probably does not have enough port, road and rail links to export its raw materials. Then there is concern that Australia’s entire aviation industry was heading towards collapse, according to Regional Express, as aviation profits were collapsing. Well, infrastructure such as ports, roads and railways should have been built instead of Australia embracing the cargo cults of immigration and multiculturalism, which have stretched existing infrastructure to the breaking point. But on a positive note, if this can slow down Australia’s integration with Asia until the coming global collapse washes all of this globalist nonsense away, that would be a good thing.

THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES ARE NOT A “FIRST PEOPLE”

by Brian Simpson: The New Times Survey of February 2013 , one year ago, had an insightful article by Binoy Kampmark “Race, Ethnicity and Origins Up for Grabs”. The article did not mention the Aboriginal recognition constitutional campaign, but it makes points that are highly relevant. First, as pointed out by I. Pugach (et. al.), “Genome-wide Data Substantiate Holocene gene Flow from India to Australia”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol110, 2013, the researchers detected “a signal indicative of substantial gene flow between the Indian populations and Australia well before European contact, contrary to the prevailing view that there was no contact between Australia and the rest of the world”. This gene exchange occurred about 4,230 years ago during the Holocene (most recent geological period). Who knows then what further genetic exchanges have taken place over thousands of years? Second there is the issue of other non-Aboriginal races occupying part of Australia long before British settlement. The Bradshaw rock art is located in the Kimberly region of Western Australia. Archaeologist Grahame Walsh, most notably in his book “Bradshaws: Ancient Rock Paintings of West Australia” has argued that these paintings, thought to be in excess of 17,500 years old are radically different from Aboriginal art and may have been painted by a group coming from South-East Asia in boats. Claims such as these challenge a “first person’s” view of things and the entire basis for Aboriginal recognition in the Constitution. These facts and arguments need to be kept before the public.

THE MACHINE STOPS Series…

by Arnis Luks
Fifteen years ago, at the start of my ‘computer journey’ I was handed a headless (no monitor) computer that had Linux server software installed. I tried to immerse myself into the system and software over the following 6 months to understand how it all worked, but in the end gave up and went to the MS Windows Operating System with Macromedia Dreamweaver Software to build and control our webpages. The distance between my skill-set at the time and using the Linux Operating System and Open Source Software, was too great for me to cover the gap. When I started to work with film-editing some years later I jumped across to Apple as the preferred choice.

Beata and I have spent the last 7 weeks evaluating different software systems and packages for our future plans. We have been increasingly frustrated by the monopoly marketing strategies of the big players (not limited to MS & Apple) who now require a constant tribute (cloud subscription), rather than a one-off payment for the use of their operating systems and software.
Our needs are extensive for our home office including full office suite, desktop publishing, image manipulation, film editing, sound editing, webpage development and also “server software” (again the deep end for me).

As part of our review and research we found of interest the ongoing struggle to wrestle monopoly control away from the exploiters (‘entrepreneurs’ in politically-correct speak), back to the community. The system of Patents and Licensing from these Patents, is to the advantage of the exploiter over and above getting a just reward on investment. It is the same or similar struggle that mankind has always had to fight in order to re-discover their freedoms. Ref. here….

The Open Source Community share and continuously develop software while they earn a living outside of this. This building of the human knowledge base is essentially the social credit of the software community. It is a free gift for all to use and enjoy similar to using cookbooks to share recipes.

With the demise of the automotive and aluminium industries in Adelaide and Geelong, it is an opportunity for those communities to re-start their own automotive and aluminium industries outside of the multinational’s manipulative grip. The first step would be to ‘wrestle to the ground’ the lapdog political parties, and put in place representatives of the community who ‘will put the interests of their community first’. The second and third steps would be to restore the Peoples Bank this time through a National Credit Authority, with the control of their own credit creation in the hands of an Authority answerable for their actions.

After our extensive review of computer operating systems and software, Free and Open Source software has closed the gap between our skill-set and what we can productively use. It is now capable of providing nearly all of the average user’s requirements. Those tasks that cannot be mastered by such as me, will be maintained by using systems and software previously purchased - until Free and Open Source is also able to bridge ‘that final gap’.

Cost = Effort = 0$

THE PRICE OF POLICE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

by Richard Miller:
Following on from a Federal Court case against the Victorian Police concerning discrimination against African youth, comes this story from the 25 January 2014 edition of The Sunday Age: “African youths In New Year’s brawl”: Community workers claim police played down a violent New Year's brawl between more than 200 youths of African appearance in Melbourne's CBD for fear of being accused of racism. Salvation Army staff say Swanston Street was like a "war zone", with one man carrying a machete and another a knife, as bottles were thrown at police trying to break up rolling fights between two large groups early on New Year's Day.

Major Brendan Nottle, the 2013 Melburnian of the Year, said what he saw indicated serious social problems within the African community. He fears more violence unless something is done to reach out to young people. "Rather than take the approach that we're not going to talk about this for fear of being branded racist, or saying, 'why are these young people here, why don't they integrate', we actually need to say this is a problem and work out a strategic way to address it," he said. "I've experienced anger from some African youths which has been far more deep-seated than anger I've experienced from any other person. If something quite significant isn't done for them around training, around employment opportunities, education around drug and alcohol use, we have a deep concern that in three to five years time we'll have serious gang problems."

Police confirm they are investigating an incident involving a "large group of people" outside fast food shops in Swanston Street about 2am on January 1, in which several officers were hit with bottles. A police media spokeswoman said those involved were of varying ethnic backgrounds. But Anthony McEvoy, who heads the Salvation Army's youth street team, which runs the "chill-out" zone on the lawns of St Paul's Cathedral in Swanston Street, said the people he saw brawling looked almost exclusively African. He said some tried to kick in the windows of a 7-11 store, and at one point the group surrounded the Melbourne East police station in Flinders Lane and threw bottles at a ring of officers. "In my eight years running that post I've never had to make a plan for how we would get staff and volunteers out safely," he said. "But on this night we created an exit strategy because that street did get out of control.

Not everyone in the group was brawling, but there were flowing, running fights." Mr McEvoy praised the police response, saying one line of officers stood at Young and Jackson's pub in Swanston Street, and another line near Flinders Lane, to hold off two rival groups, aged in their late teens to early 20s, before breaking the crowd up about 3am…. Police Association secretary Greg Davies said he was not aware of the New Year's incident in the CBD, but police officers were wary of identifying the ethnic background of people involved in incidents they dealt with. "Nobody's trying to demonise one particular group," he said. "When large numbers of any youths congregate anywhere they cause people to feel uncomfortable. But if they're brawling in the streets in their hundreds, then isn't it about time we realised what the situation is and not just play the racism card every time a police officer speaks out?"

Read more: here....