When I Lay Down My Old Guitar

The Blowfly Theory of Politics ®

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BUCHAN LOOKS ON THE MIGHTY WESTERN CIVILISATION

This is a critique of an Arena article by the Griffith University (Qld) academic Bruce Buchan

It can be found at:  https://arena.org.au/look-on-my-works-ye-mighty-and-despair-by-bruce-buchan/

“Australians are inhabitants of ‘an antique land’. For us Western Civ appears as once mighty Ozymandias, a tumbled monument from a former time when the claims of civilisation were thought to justify the horrors of colonisation. Now the ruins have been exposed by the actions of our own governments, which have invoked civilisation in more recent service to power: deceit to justify the ‘Forever War’ on terror . [ITS?] ; spurious security  [ITS?]  to justify brutality on our borders. . [ITS?]

“Like the ‘two vast and trunkless legs of stone’ standing in the desert, how are we to understand the ‘colossal Wreck’ of civilisation resuscitated for our times?”

 (The square-bracketed expressions [ITS?] the reader will encounter in the quote above are not in the original. They are short for “Is That So?” I found places to insert nine of them in the course of my critical reading of my downloaded copy of Bruce Buchan’s piece above. Also, all emphasis via italicisation of text below is mine, and not in Buchan’s original.)

 Buchan argues that there should be no distinct field of study entitled ‘Western Civilisation.’

 “As it was used in Western Civ courses and its textbooks, civilisation referred to a globally significant culture that subsisted in the salient institutions, norms and values that transcended the petty divisions between language groups, empires, nations, churches and ethnicities. Inherently, however, Western Civ gave voice to a fundamental assumption that civilisations were also hierarchical. While many cultures may at different points have been significant, the civilisation of Europe was the most desirable because only that civilisation gave expression to the highest yearnings of the human spirit for freedom, humanity and truth.

 “This inherent normativity was built into the very purpose and structure of the courses. That explains much of the success and wide appeal of the curriculum but also its great weakness as a pedagogy. The normativity of the courses created a fissure in their credibility. Western Civ was supposed to be an account of a process of development adorned by Europe’s invention of humanity itself. [ITS?] “

 I assume that by ‘hierarchical’ Buchan means not internally, but rather ‘externally’. As all functional societies down to and including families, are internally hierarchical in terms of age, experience, authority etc, we can only assume here that Buchan means falling into a hierarchy when compared with each other. So the question becomes ‘is Western Civilisation, however defined, superior overall to say, Islamic Civilisation or Oriental Civilisation, however defined: taking the civilisation categories from Samuel Huntingdon’s The Clash of Civilisations?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_P._Huntington#%22The_Clash_of_Civilizations%22

 “Democracy, human rights, liberty, science, the Renaissance, artistic beauty, poetry and literature, architecture, and the self—these were all located in the narrative of Western Civ as originating in Europe and transmitted to the rest of the world. And yet from its inception Western Civ was not merely a narrative of development; it was also an assumed telos or end point of that process of development. It was not just history; it was also and at the same time its culmination.”

 So let us examine that section I have put into italics here:

 Democracy, human rights, liberty, science, the Renaissance, artistic beauty, poetry and literature, architecture, and the self—these were all located in the narrative of Western Civ as originating in Europe and transmitted to the rest of the world.

 Democracy and human rights as written-down concepts began as far as I am aware in Periclean Athens, though they have been strong in communities isolated by geographic boundaries as in mountain valleys and on remote islands. But liberty? Nice topic for a seminar. And someone known presumably to Buchan but left unidentified here believes that  ‘science …, artistic beauty,  poetry and literature, architecture, and the self [!]’ originated in Europe!

 But there is an easy way around this. Just define the well-known Babylonian, Egyptian, Indus Valley, classical Chinese and other Asian civilisations as European; and their art; and their architecture; and their music...  I am genuinely surprised that nobody has thought of it. ;-)

 And the clincher: there is apparently someone known to Buchan who believes that horse shit, and Buchan puts it forward as an excellent reason for banning any and all academic study under the rubric of Western Civilisation. Yet I venture to cautiously guess that Buchan would be dead-set against banning a course on Islamic Civ because Islamophobia. Or Eastern Civ. Or Whatever Civ.

Except not Western (choke! caaargh! splutter! hawk! spit!*) Civ.

 Which brings me to my final point about this dubious article. Buchan does not believe in citing any sources. Nor when he says “we are told….” does he condescend to tell us by whom. (Though I suspect he refers to Samuel Huntingdon and Francis Fukuyama.)

 If Buchan’s rant were a term assignment submitted for assessment in some undergraduate course, it would be ploughed. Well at least, it would have been in my undergraduate days.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_P._Huntington#%22The_Clash_of_Civilizations%22

QUADRANT ONLINE VS RENEWABLES

If you happen to be looking for 'scepticism' regarding mainstream climatology, you can do a lot worse than ask why climate 'sceptics' are so against renewable sources of energy, like say, wind and solar.

But first consider the list of scientific organisations worldwide that endorse the mainstream science, which says that human-produced greenhouse gases (the main one being carbon dioxide, CO₂₎ are reponsible for potentially dangerous global warming....

List of 198 Scientific Organizations Worldwide

The following are scientific organizations that endorse the proposition that Climate Change has been caused by human action:

[Note please the highlighted ones: The Royal Society; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and Australia’s own CSIRO]

Academia Chilena de Ciencias, Chile

Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa, Portugal

Academia de Ciencias de la República Dominicana

Academia de Ciencias Físicas, Matemáticas y Naturales de Venezuela

Academia de Ciencias Medicas, Fisicas y Naturales de Guatemala

Academia Mexicana de Ciencias,Mexico

Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Bolivia

Academia Nacional de Ciencias del Peru

Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal

Académie des Sciences, France

Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada

Academy of Athens

Academy of Science of Mozambique

Academy of Science of South Africa

Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS)

Academy of Sciences Malaysia

Academy of Sciences of Moldova

Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, Egypt

Academy of the Royal Society of New Zealand

Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy

Africa Centre for Climate and Earth Systems Science

African Academy of Sciences

Albanian Academy of Sciences

Amazon Environmental Research Institute

American Academy of Pediatrics

American Anthropological Association

American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Association of State Climatologists (AASC)

American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians

American Astronomical Society

American Chemical Society

American College of Preventive Medicine

American Fisheries Society

American Geophysical Union

American Institute of Biological Sciences

American Institute of Physics

American Meteorological Society

American Physical Society

American Public Health Association

American Quaternary Association

American Society for Microbiology

American Society of Agronomy

American Society of Civil Engineers

American Society of Plant Biologists

American Statistical Association

Association of Ecosystem Research Centers

Australian Academy of Science

Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Australian Coral Reef Society

Australian Institute of Marine Science

Australian Institute of Physics

Australian Marine Sciences Association

Australian Medical Association

Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society 

Bangladesh Academy of Sciences

Botanical Society of America

Brazilian Academy of Sciences

British Antarctic Survey

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

California Academy of Sciences

Cameroon Academy of Sciences

Canadian Association of Physicists

Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences

Canadian Geophysical Union

Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society

Canadian Society of Soil Science

Canadian Society of Zoologists

Caribbean Academy of Sciences views

Center for International Forestry Research

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) (Australia)

Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research

Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences

Crop Science Society of America

Cuban Academy of Sciences

Delegation of the Finnish Academies of Science and Letters

Ecological Society of America

Ecological Society of Australia

Environmental Protection Agency

European Academy of Sciences and Arts

European Federation of Geologists

European Geosciences Union

European Physical Society

European Science Foundation

Federation of American Scientists

French Academy of Sciences

Geological Society of America

Geological Society of Australia

Geological Society of London

Georgian Academy of Sciences 

German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina 

Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences

Indian National Science Academy

Indonesian Academy of Sciences 

Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management

Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology

Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand

Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UK

InterAcademy Council

International Alliance of Research Universities

International Arctic Science Committee

International Association for Great Lakes Research

International Council for Science

International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences

International Research Institute for Climate and Society

International Union for Quaternary Research

International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics

International Union of Pure and Applied Physics

Islamic World Academy of Sciences

Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities

Kenya National Academy of Sciences

Korean Academy of Science and Technology

Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts

l'Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal

Latin American Academy of Sciences

Latvian Academy of Sciences

Lithuanian Academy of Sciences

Madagascar National Academy of Arts, Letters, and Sciences

Mauritius Academy of Science and Technology

Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts

National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, Argentina

National Academy of Sciences of Armenia

National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic

National Academy of Sciences, Sri Lanka

National Academy of Sciences, United States of America

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

National Association of Geoscience Teachers

National Association of State Foresters

National Center for Atmospheric Research 

National Council of Engineers Australia

National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, New Zealand

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

National Research Council

National Science Foundation

Natural England

Natural Environment Research Council, UK

Natural Science Collections Alliance

Network of African Science Academies

New York Academy of Sciences

Nicaraguan Academy of Sciences

Nigerian Academy of Sciences

Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters

Oklahoma Climatological Survey

Organization of Biological Field Stations

Pakistan Academy of Sciences

Palestine Academy for Science and Technology

Pew Center on Global Climate Change

Polish Academy of Sciences

Romanian Academy

Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium

Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain

Royal Astronomical Society, UK

Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters

Royal Irish Academy

Royal Meteorological Society (UK)

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research

Royal Scientific Society of Jordan

Royal Society of Canada

Royal Society of Chemistry, UK

Royal Society of the United Kingdom

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Russian Academy of Sciences

Science and Technology, Australia 

Science Council of Japan

Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research

Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics

Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Slovak Academy of Sciences

Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Society for Ecological Restoration International

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

Society of American Foresters  

Society of Biology (UK)  

Society of Systematic Biologists

Soil Science Society of America 

Sudan Academy of Sciences

Sudanese National Academy of Science

Tanzania Academy of Sciences

The Wildlife Society (international)

Turkish Academy of Sciences

Uganda National Academy of Sciences

Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities

United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Woods Hole Research Center

World Association of Zoos and Aquariums

World Federation of Public Health Associations

World Forestry Congress

World Health Organization

World Meteorological Organization

Zambia Academy of Sciences

Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences

 

Against these, we have 'conservative' outfits like Quadrant Online, and a heap of others cited

at Hotwhopper 

Quadrant Online is dead-set against renewables. It speaks for the extreme right of the Liberal Party, as led by Tony "the future is coal" Abbott. 

 Against this, we have the shills for the fossil carbon industries, admirably (in a most limited sense of the word) represented by the Tony Abbott Cheer Squad at Australia’s own said Quadrant Online.

I used to be a subscriber there. although myself inclined to the anti-totalitarian, anti-Islamic (nb not Anti-Muslim) left (which was quite compatible with that subscription.)

I failed to realise how beholden the Quad Online crowd was to the fossil-carbon industries and interests. Only slowly did it dawn on me that no other explanation would fit the reality: that they were down on renewable energy and renewable sources: as can be seen by perusal of the following links:

#	TITLE / URL
1	The Renewable Energy Myth — Quadrant Online https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2014/11/renewable-energy-myth/
2	Get Them Young, Make Them Green — Quadrant Online quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/04/get-em-young-make-em-green/
3	The Great Renewable Energy Rort — Quadrant Online quadrant.org.au/magazine/2010/07-08/the-great-renewable-energy-rort/
4	german green energy — Quadrant Online quadrant.org.au/tag/german-green-energy/
5	Finally, Warmists Find a Real Threat — Quadrant Online https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/.../finally-warmists-find-real-threat/
6	Going green costs jobs — Quadrant Online quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2011/03/going-green-costs-jobs/
7	They Make It Easy Being Green — Quadrant Online https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2016/03/make-easy-green/
8	Teach 'em Green, Raise 'em Stupid — Quadrant Online https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/.../teach-em-green-raise-em-stupid/
9	The Green Gulf Between Fact and Fancy — Quadrant Online https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/08/green-gulf-fact-fancy/
10	Aug 14, 2015 - The solar- and wind-power capacity to meet Labor'srenewable-energy target would cost between $80 billion and $100 billion dollars. Tony Thomas, Opinion — Quadrant Online https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/tony-thomas/
11	Inherit the Wind (and not much else) — Quadrant Online quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2015/02/inherit-wind-much-else/ Feb 5, 2015 - Submissions to the latter inquiry are online here. ... The rationale for renewable energy is that its use reduces the consumption of fossil fuels by ...
12	Green dream jobs — Quadrant Online www.quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2011/.../green-dream-jobs Sep 22, 2011 - Australia's economic advantages are not aligned with moving towards a green energy future. China's are because, unlike us, they like nuclear, Coal, There's Just No Alternative — Quadrant Online
13	With Friends Like Oxfam... — Quadrant Online https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/09/oxfam-part-2/ Sep 10, 2015 - “We have arguably the best renewable energy sources in the world, in the form of large expanses of land that can feed wind, solar, geothermal
14	Blinded By The Sun — Quadrant Online https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2016/07/blinded-sun/ Jul 28, 2016 - Let's be generous and say that serious development of the two main renewable-energy technologies commenced in the 1980s. So how far ...
15	Banking on the Climate Hustle — Quadrant Online https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/.../banking-climate-hustle... Jan 3, 2016 - It wants to shift at least USD600 billion of other people's money into renewable energy projects. But only if governments establish 'legal ...
16	Young Heads Filled With Green Mush - Quadrant Online - JIM BALL www.jimball.com.au/.../young-heads-filled-green-mush-quadrant-online/
17	Which is probably by now a very incomplete list. http://notrickszone.com/skeptic-papers-2016/#sthash.BMXWtI2v.YtVR02hf.dpbs

Even if one believes fervently that venting CO₂ from burning of fossil carbon to the atmosphere in whatever amount can do no possible harm, it still makes sense to stretch the Earth’s finite reserves of coal over the longest possible time, and to make them last as long as possible. Renewable sources of energy (chiefly wind and solar photovoltaic generation of electricity) would be welcomed by the fossil carbon interests, their lobbyists and shills, one would think. But they are not. Quite the contrary.as the above table shows.

Those who have secured for themselves proprietorial rights to the world’s deposits of fossil carbon want them burnt up and converted to $$$ in their own bank accounts as soon as possible.

This despite the fact that oil and coal are essential as feedstocks for the road tar and chemical industries. Presumably, the descendants of these 'sceptics' will not be driving cars on macadamised roads, but flying helicopters: while the rest bounce along over bullock tracks.

Venus has an atmosphere which is around 98% CO₂. The Russian Venera space probes showed that it is also the hottest planet of the solar system: with a surface temperature hotter even than the surface of Mercury, closest planet to the Sun. It was that fact that inspired Jim Hansen of NASA to come up with the global warming hypothesis, which is now mainstream science.

To my knowledge, the mainstream scientists have never tried to silence the contrarians, though the latter disagree. But the converse is not true. Just google <Tony Abbott, attack on CSIRO, climatology> and see what comes up. That stupid chook Gillard was bad enough (“there will be no carbon tax under any government that I lead”) but Tony Abbott was truly the Prince of Darkness. (Befitting a former trainee priest of that Satanic Brotherhood known as the Hierarchy [nb not the Lay Congregation] of the Catholic Church.)

http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/02/science-deniers-try-to-change-facts.html 

I also draw the reader's attention to the excellent review of the denialist Ian Plimer's book Heaven + Earth written by the astronomer Michael Ashley, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of NSW.

I have also published my own 5-part review of Plimer's classic sequence of howlers on my site Noah's Rainbow Serpent, under the title Plimer's Climatology (101-105).

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/books/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/news-story/21 1cf8e7a30d14ff69e97f5bb3ba5cf1?sv=bfe16b22838fd5715b9155455b7da92a

ISLAMISTS STRIKE IN PARIS

 

Christianity began as an offshoot of Judaism and a political/religious response to the Roman Empire. Its founder preached accommodation and compromise rather than resistance to those under Roman domination. So it began as a religion of peace, and some would say of peace at any price. Though its scriptures deliver a message of peace and non-violent submission to authority, any philosophical problems that the message might pose have been successfully overcome, at least to the satisfaction of successive Christian clerics and leaders of Christian armies. Often enough, that religion of peace became one of war.

By contrast, Mohammad was a 7th century Arab trader who, after being inspired by a religious experience became convinced that he was God’s prophet on Earth. He set out to build an army and to lead it in a war to unite all the tribes of Arabia into one huge super-tribal force: a combined religious and military organisation, with himself as supreme commander and chief theocrat. His Islamic Empire in time spread from the borders of India to the gates of Vienna, and from Spain to Nigeria.

Islam thus began as a religion of war, with a bible (ie the Koran) that was and remains a warrior’s manual. Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom have arrived in Islam via birth rather than conversion, have cherry-picked the scripture and have tried to re-badge the creed as one of peace, but with limited success. A further difficulty lies in the fact that the founder Mohammad forbade additions or alterations to the Koran. It is literally a closed book. So while proclaiming their Islam as a religion of peace, Islam's clerics have never been able to shake off its origins as a religion of war.

Muslims also have a problem when trying to live peacefully beside non-Muslims. Their Koran tells them on every other page that they are the elect of God and that their (inferior) infidel neighbours are headed for eternal damnation in Hell’s fire. Peacefully-inclined believers continually and in the main sincerely try to market Islam to themselves and others as a religion of peace. But periodic outrages are carried out by a youthful and militant minority of their fellow Muslims who incline to take their unalterable Koran a bit too literally. In the absence of serious efforts by Muslim clerics to denounce them, these outrages look like proceeding indefinitely into the future.

Typically, a multiple murder-suicide event as occurred in New York 2003 or in Paris in 2015 is followed by an Irish stew of analytical angst with a variety of conclusions drawn: it is all the fault of the victims, or of the West in general; it is not the fault of Islam; it is the legacy of the Crusades… Afghanistan... etc... Iraq… etc.

See Andrew Bolt’s dissection* of the statement by the Australian National Imams Council. See also Mehdi ('Yes... But') Hasan on the same subject in the Grauniad:

Let me be clear: to explain is not to excuse; explication is not justification. There is no grievance on earth that can justify the wanton slaughter of innocent men, women and children, in France or anywhere else.

The savagery of Isis is perhaps without parallel in the modern era. BUT the point is that it did not emerge from nowhere: as the US president himself has conceded, Isis “grew out of our invasion” of Iraq. [Caps not in the original: IM.]

If in France or any other non-Islamic majority country the number of outrages per year increases sufficiently, the result will be series of government responses from restrictions on Muslim immigration to a religious civil war: with unknowable consequences.

 

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/sack_the_mufti_now_no_the_paris_massacre_wasnt_the_fault_of_the_west/

*NB: Bolt may be the literary equivalent of a right-wing radio shockjock, but that doesn't prevent him from sometimes being right.

ABC TO BE ABOLISHED, BROKEN UP AND SOLD OFF

A Liberal politician said something that a young Muslim and alleged former jihadist took exception to, and the young Muslim and alleged former jihadist said in reply something like "that's the sort of attitude that causes young Muslim men to become jihadists."

If the conversation had taken place in a pub, club, street, cafe or anywhere else the participants would have most likely just shrugged and moved on to something like the weather or the footy; probably.

 But it didn't. It took place on LIVE TV! And not just that: ON THE ABC! ON THE TAXPAYER-FUNDED ABC! ON ABC-TV! AND IN FRONT OF A NATIONWIDE AUDIENCE CONTAINING PROBABLY MILLIONS OF TAXPAYERS!

 And as every jockshock will tell you in private, taxpayers are easily confused, corrupted and led astray. It stands to reason. The fact that they are paying any tax at all in this age of artful dodging by the entitled shows that they have to all be a brick short of a load, or at least simple-minded.

No wonder Mr Murdoch and his army of loyal scribblers and commentators are upset! That taxpayer money would be flowing in good part their way WERE IT NOT FOR THE TAXPAYER-FUNDED ABC! Also upset; very, very upset, are the jockshocks, and for much the same reason one would guess; not to mention the IPA!

 If there had been an outbreak of the Black Plague in a taxpayer-funded ABC building, there could not be more commotion and indignation.

 NOW THERE HAS BEEN SET IN MOTION A TAXPAYER-FUNDED INVESTIGATION OF THE WHOLE SORDID BUSINESS OF THE TAXPAYER-FUNDED ABC!

 HEADS WILL HAVE TO ROLL! THE TAXPAYER-FUNDED MAD MONK DEMANDS THEY WILL!

(Originally published at Omar's Oasis.)