Is it my email account or is it something else, why do I keep getting 2 copies of the same email by a powderworker?
Beth Curran <bcurran@columbus.rr.com> wrote:
Boy, do I agree with this article, especially because I'm not much
younger than PG. There's significant validity in working for
incremental change. It doesn't mean someone has sold out, only that
they've decided to try another tactic. Working within the system always
means compromise, which isn't necessarily bad if it's the way to get
long-term results.
And so we have the young PG working aggressively for immediate major
change in the morning of his life, and patiently pushing for smaller,
and, hopefully, inexorable advances in the afternoon. So often when we
have all our lives before us, we want immediate results, yet later we
change to a longer view, knowing full well that we may only see small
advances during our own lives. Yikes, I sound old! (Shut up, Heidi) -
Beth
----- Original Message -----
From: TimC
To: ashokachowta@optusnet.com.au ; powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 3:12 AM
Subject: RE: [powderworks] Your opinion of Pete's approval of the Pulp
Mill
Since you bring this up, I read an article on Crikey.com.au that I
wanted to share with the list but was foiled by it's untimely demise ;-)
Mungo: Garrett abandons utopia for results
Mungo MacCallum writes:
You have to feel sorry for Peter Garrett. He's had a pretty rough time
since he joined the Labor Party more that three years ago, and it all
came to a head last week.
When Garrett, on behalf of the ALP, signed off on the government's
decision to approve the Tamar Valley pulp mill, the Greens turned
carnivorous. From being a trusted environmental warrior, Garrett had
become a sell out and a cipher, the shadow minister who didn't cast a
shadow. As everyone had predicted, the Labor Party had chewed him up and
spat him out. From being an idealist and a man of principle, Garrett was
now just another politician.
Well yes, he was, and this is precisely the point. After spending his
youth banging his impressive head against various brick walls in pursuit
of noble causes, Garrett has now grown up. In 2003 he became convinced
that actually achieving change for the better, imperfect though it might
be, was more useful than spending the rest of his life yearning for an
unattainable green utopia. Whether consciously or not he accepted the
truth of Gough Whitlam's dictum: the impotent are always pure. He may
even have turned it around: the pure are always impotent.
From the start he knew politics would involve compromise, that he
would no longer be the free spirit his fans had idolised at Midnight Oil
concerts. He would have to balance the interests of the many against the
dreams of a few. But he made the choice, and to his great credit he has
stuck with it.
Moreover, he has seen how dire the consequences of uncompromising
idealism can be. In 2004 Labor under Mark Latham went down the deep
green path in Tasmania. Seduced by the Greens Leader Bob Brown, Latham
was persuaded that a policy of quarantining large areas of forests from
loggers would be vote winner both in the state and across the mainland.
Garrett embraced the move and campaigned vigorously in the short time
remaining before polling day.
The result is now history: not only did Labor lose the seats of Bass
and Braddon in Tasmania, but the party forfeited any chance of picking
up mainland forestry seats like Eden-Monaro and Gippsland. The policy
did not lose the election for Labor, although the contrast between
Latham sneaking away from timber workers through an underground car park
while Howard was cheered by them in a mass rally was one of the enduring
images of the campaign, and one which would have swung many waverers to
the government in the final week. But there is no doubt that the net
cost was at least two, probably three seats. Those on the left now
excoriating Garrett's pragmatism might care to remember this if in 2007
Howard scrapes back by a similar margin.
There is no doubt that the man himself feels uncomfortable with the
pulp mill decision, or that he is hurt by the attacks from former
friends and allies. But he has held the line and will continue to do so.
And he can take more than marginal comfort from the fact that Labor's
primary vote continues to run at 47 percent, while the Greens are at
just 7.6. As a result there is every possibility that in two month's
time Peter Garrett, Minister for the Environment, will be signing the
ratification documents for the Kyoto treaty and preparing to implement a
radical and far-reaching program on sustainable energy, pollution
control and climate change, while Bob Brown, Greens leader in the
senate, will still be leading futile demonstrations against a pulp mill.
The purists will no doubt dismiss the political rise of Peter Garrett
as his 30 pieces of silver, the wages of treachery. Those of us more
interested in results than rhetoric will applaud it as a hard-earned
laurel wreath, a reward for courage and vision, but above all for common
sense.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
From: powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au
[mailto:powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au] On Behalf Of
ashokachowta@optusnet.com.au
Sent: Tuesday, 23 October 2007 12:55 PM
To: powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au
Subject: [powderworks] Your opinion of Pete's approval of the Pulp
Mill
I want to know something, what's your opinion on Peter Garrett giving
the approval for the Pulp Mill to go ahead, even though he says as long
it meets the environmental standards or something like that?, I know
he's losing fans, one fellow what's his money back from 11 Oils albums
be bought, there are people including environmentalists in his
electorate who are planning on voting him out, the Labor Party are
thinking of chnaging his portfolio. So what do you reckon, u think he
has sold out or not etc etc?
Personally I'm not jumping to any conclusions, I don't think we've
heard the full story of Peter's reasons. All will be revealed when if
the Labor Party wins
Oh and another thing and this makes me smirk now when I think about it
but I thought one of the reasons that Powderworks was closed might be
because of my and others occasional swearing.
Ashoka Chowta Graphic Designs
Myrtle Bank SA, 5064
Australia
Mobile: 0404 217 028
Tele: 8379 8756
Ashoka Chowta Graphic Designs
Myrtle Bank SA, 5064
Australia
Mobile: 0404 217 028
Tele: 8379 8756
