What "Transgression against us" are you talking about, Garum Masala?

First it's not me thats complaining , the Academics don't like the Common Mans aggressive attitude towards them .
Academics don't respect the Proletariat , they come with a loaded gun their Leviathan is a Great Big University , in a political sense they can defeat the ambitions of the common Man in a nutshell Academics distort Democracy to defeat the Common Sense and Life Experience and Integrity of the Common Man and Woman .

Oh, those "transgressions".

Thanks for the explanation, whatever it meant.

That's fine CJ , I understand . Pedestals are relatively easy to climb and very testing to descend .

Not being familiar with the Tasmanian forestry scene, I won't make comment on whether it is being well or badly managed. But I can comment with some authority on the political games that were played on the people of WA during the Regional Forests Agreement debate of the late 1990s. At that time here in WA, the anti-logging movement used every devious trick in the book to convince electors in the lead-up to the 2001 state election that logging of native forests was morally evil and environmentally destructive. Similar to the public letter from 26 Tasmanian academics, we saw groups such as the Royal Society of WA come out with 'position statements' against logging, claiming credibility for their opposition on the basis of their academic affiliations more than the facts contained in their statement, even though they had not consulted with or gained approval from the membership of their organisations for the content of their statements.
Some government scientists also claimed their employment was at risk if they dared to speak out against existing government policy or industry practices, yet such people played and continue to play major advocacy roles in the WA environment scene without losing their jobs or doing harm to their academic or bureaucratic standing.
If the 26 academics had a genuine message of concern to pass on to Tasmanians, they should have made their positions public in the months and years prior to the state election, not 4 days beforehand.

Suppression - CASE 4:

Name Dr Philip Keane
Position Lecturer in Botany, La Trobe University (1975- ).

"Background: Published an article in a national weekly newspaper (January 1977) about the spread of cinnamon fungus in Victorian forests.

"Action: Chairman of the Forests Commission of Victoria applied great pressure on the University's Chancellor, Acting Vice-Chancellor and the Deans of Science to take action - nine letters written and hand-delivered between 3rd and 24th February 1977.

"Status: Unchanged by events. The University Council was informed of the attacks and the appropriate officers (Chairman of Department, Dean of School of Biological Sciences) resisted all pressures and strongly rejected the allegations made.

"The Chairman of the Forests Commission was further informed that all Australian University Statutes are framed to allow staff to speak publicly on controversial issues thereby preserving academic freedom.

“A typical pattern for a suppression attempt seems to be as follows.

"A person makes a public criticism, a critical analysis in a research document, or some other 'threat' to the forestry establishment. Leading foresters, for example in the government forest services, then apply pressure on the individual's boss to have the criticism stopped, for example by making verbal complaints in person or by telephone, or by sending letters of complaint.

“Steps taken to prevent recurrence of criticism include informal comments about the individual's competence and motivations, hindering of research, blocking of appointment or promotion, and threats of dismissal. Such efforts, even when immediately unsuccessful as in the cases of Keane and Rawlinson, can by setting an example serve to reduce the future likelihood of research in sensitive areas or of public comment by others.

“Besides the forest industries, some other prime sources of suppression - either directly, or indirectly via subservient government and academic bodies - are chemical industries, pharmaceutical industries, electrical industries, mining industries and automotive industries.”

The Ecologist, Vol. 11, No. 1, January-February 1981, pp. 33-43.

http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/81ecol.html

>Thirty years hence and the more things change, the more they stay the same and cinnamon fungus continues to spread across the nation, infecting hundreds of thousands of hectares of native vegetation.