Daggett, yup I did not respond to your question, for good reasons. Firstly I
don’t dance to your agenda, so will decide what matters or doesent, secondly
I think that your question is irrelevant.

To give you an extreme analogy. Lets say that the guy who invented the wheel,
invented it to squash the heads of his opponents at a very fast rate. Would that
make the wheel any less beneficial to our society?

The thing is, I am not bogged down by your ideology, my politics is four on
the floor, I judge things by what works in the real world. I am far more interested
in analysing human behaviour and understanding why people do things, then
wondering about who had a good idea.

Economics is complicated, so many who vote would not understand the factors
involved, but they still judge things by how they are affected. The extreme end
of politics has moved to the Greens etc. On that basis, 90% of people still vote
ALP or Liberal. My politics goes along with those 90%, so is mainstream.
Clearly the large majority of Australians do not go along with Greens politics,
or they would vote for them.

As to China’s pollution, don’t kid yourself that you can change the views
of the Chinese Govt. Eventually, as has happened in the past, in every growing
industrial economy, people wake up that they are choking on their own pollution
and start to do something about it. China is just starting to realise all that.

If society wants to be sustainable, perhaps they should start by providing
birth control measures to those women who want it. They have not even
been able to achieve that. So they might need to learn the hard way, just
like the Chinese and their pollution.

Yabby wrote: "... yup, I did not respond to your question, for good reasons. Firstly I don?t dance to your agenda, ..."

It's not about dancing to my agenda. You made the claim that your "politics are very mainstream, a mix of both labour and liberal points of view, depending on the issue."

If you choose not to substantiate statements made in the course of the discussion, then that's your funeral and not mine.

I challenged that statement asking you to give examples of genuine labour "points of view" in which you believe, rather than phoney labour "points of view" which during the Hawke and Keating years just happened to also be liberal "points of view" - the deregulation of the finance sector, the deregulation of telecommunications, the "National Competition Policy", privatisation of retirement income, privatisation of the Commonwealth bank, QANTAS, the CSL, flogging off public buildings, "enterprise bargaining", privatising electricity in NSW, privatising the Dalrymple Bay coal loader (http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com/content/4/dalrymple-bay.html) etc, etc.

As far as I am concerned (and I expect most would agree) support for these sorts of policies makes one's politics very right wing, rather than "middle of the road", and if we add into this mix the even further right wing policies of the Howard Government, including "Work Choices", "Welfare to Work", corporatisation of universities, etc, etc then that's extreme right wing in my books.

Of course, you are still entitled to insist that these are "middle of the road" policies, but let's at least be clear what you mean by this term.

---

Yabby wrote: "As to China's pollution, don't kid yourself that you can change the views of the Chinese Govt."

If I can see that the Chinese government's policies are harmful to the Chinese people and the rest of the planet, then it would surely be reasonable to assume that so can many Chinese. Of course I am not claiming that it would be an easy task for the Chinese people to change their Government's policies. However, if this country were to set a good example for them to follow (...tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove), rather than the extremely poor example that you, for your part, are doing your utmost to see is continued with, then it would make their task easier.

At least I think it's worth a try. Those who say it cannot be done should at least have the decency to not try to make it harder for those who are trying to do it.

This specious argument is essentially little different from your earlier argument: "So you think that South Americans, Arabs, Venezuelans, Nigerians, etc, won't be burning more oil, as their wealth increases? Think again. You can save all you like, they will burn it faster then you can save it."

My response to that was:

"Who knows Yabby?

"Maybe they are all just as selfish and uncaring as you are, but please don't assume that they are in order to excuse your own greedy selfishness."

--

Once again, you have shown that it doesn't matter how I, or anyone else, responds to what you write. As Mr Smith has pointed out, as soon as the context of the discussion shuffles, all the same assertions are repeated without any regard to those responses, as if they had never even been written..

I am sure that this could continue this until Christmas 2009 without any further progress having been made.

Daggett, what is "phoney" labour view or "genuine" labour view
is not for you to decide, but for the people who vote for the
parties that present their policies to the public.

My point remains. My politics is pretty mainstream. On some issues
I support the labour point of view, on some the liberal, just
like 90% of the public. More extremist views are represented by
other parties, I have not seen the majority of the public flock
to them.

Daggett, the Chinese can look at examples from all over the world
and make their own decisions. If you look at pollution, in
virtually every country that industrialised, things started off
polluted, then they cleaned up. It happened in Europe, the US,
etc. The air in London is now cleaner then it was 100 years ago,
as they don't have all that coal dust pollution.

Who knows on your other question? Just study human behaviour around
the globe and the countless examples of the past. Thats a pretty
good guide. If an exception comes along, well great, but its
highly improbable, based on the odds. Most countries, when their
citzens become wealthier, increase the amount of meat they eat and
want to own cars etc. That is exactly the problem with China and
India, all wanting our kind of lifestyle. Other 3rd world
countries becoming richer, are doing the same.

I was arguing this stuff in the early 70s, when I felt that
the population issue should be addressed and that all women
should have choice, when it comes to family planning. People
laughed at me. Ok, so be it. I certainly don't stress about
it anymore

Yabby wrote, "... what is 'phoney' labour view or 'genuine' labour view is not for you to decide, ..."

OK, fine.

Let's for argument's sake accept that the deregulation of the finance sector, the deregulation of telecommunications, the "National Competition Policy", privatisation of retirement income, privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank, QANTAS and the CSL, flogging off public buildings, "enterprise bargaining", privatising electricity in NSW, privatising the Dalrymple Bay coal loader (http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com/content/4/dalrymple-bay.html) etc, are all 'genuine' labour policies.

Can you then tell us, then, if there are any 'genuine' labour policies which you support, which are not also supported by the Liberal Party and which did not originate from the Chicago School of Economics?

Also, where's your evidence that the public support these sorts of 'genuine' labour policies? Keating went to the 1993 election promising not to fully privatise the Commonwealth and promptly broke that promise upon winning Government. 75% of Australians opposed the privatisation of Telstra at the time the Liberal Government passed the full privatisation legislation in 2005. Every other poll on these questions of which I am aware has revealed equivalent public opposition.

Daggett, I don’t mind admitting that for a long time I was against the privatisation
of Telstra, back in the days of Mr Blount. But I had run in after run in with them,
whilst they were charging 9$ an hour for internet services, whilst Canadians and
Americans were paying very little. I eventually had to concede that the people
who worked there, did not give a stuff about customers, their main concern was
their own cushy jobs. If their figures looked ok, they might also get a pay rise
or a promotion. I conceded that nothing but a bit of good old competition would
ever shake them out of their complacency, for self interest was their predominant driver.

The people who worked at Qantas were no different. Everyone was busy feathering
their own little nest. So the list goes on, stark reality made me drop my illusions
and change my viewpoint.

I’ve always supported Medibank/ Medicare, but I think there need to be options
to that too.

On the deregulation of prostitution in WA, I am strongly in favour of the labour
policy and think that the libs are completely wrong.

In fact on most of the so called moral issues, the liberals are far too influenced
by the catholic agenda, IMHO and its been labour and minor parties who has been the driving force for change. I was disgusted when the libs did a deal with Harradine,
to suit his little religious agenda. It was the liberal Catholics who drove to stop
euthanasia in the NT. The list goes on.

I actually had quite a bit of time for Mark Latham, as he understood that the best thing
you can do is empower little people to help themselves. He understood the value
of lots of little people owning shares for instance. His temper was his problem,
some of his philosophies were quite sound