Sorry, the first sentence in the previous post should have been:

"I note that mil-ob has respond[ed] to hardly any of the points in my most recent posts including two perfectly simple direct questions.

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(continuedfromabove) ... particularly when he fails to include any actual words of those he attacks, such as Jared Diamond.

(BTW, I happen to think that Jared Diamond's books have limitations and flaws, but they remain groundbreaking and invualuable.)

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Regarding, mil-ob's cheap shot at me for my election result (his 2nd, so far):

I stood as a candidate, because it seemed unlikely that any other would raise issues that I considered critically important. These included, apart from opposing population growth:

* Opposition to privatisation

* Opposition to Premier Anna Bligh's environmentally criminal plans to triple Queensland's already record high coal exports by 2030;

* Opposition to the destruction of farmland and wildlife refuges in order to increase our coal exports;

* Implementation of a proper full employment program along the lines of that proposed by Professor Bill Mitchell of the Newcastle University The Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE) at http://e1.newcastle.edu.au/coffee/pubs/reports/2008/CofFEE_JA/CofFEE_JA_final_report_November_2008.pdf downloadable from http://e1.newcastle.edu.au/coffee/

* Opposition to water fluoridation and water recycling and the Traveston and Wyaralong dams;

I would have gladly thrown my weight behind any other candidate who would have stood on a platform as broad as mine, but there were none of which I was aware.

The alternatives to standing as a candidate myself would have been:

1. to have tried to raise these issues as an onlooker, rather than a participant in the elections;

2. to be a footsoldier in the Greens' election campaign even though the official Greens' campaign only touched on a fraction of the issues that should have been raised,

3. Campaign whichever of the Labor Party or the Liberal National Party that I judged to be the lesser evil.

4. Do nothing.

I believe the choice I made was sound.

Unfortunately the newsmedia, including Your ABC savagely discriminated against myself, other independents and the Geens.

I have written of this at http://candobetter.org/node/1159 in an ... (tobecontinued)

Daggett has raised an interesting point.

The question must be asked. What are the chances of the Federal Greens running on an anti-population platform?

It would do to them what the GST did to the old Dems. King makes this point and others have as well.

The Greens might try it out at a local level and I they may get some support from the misanthropic, anti-capitalist left but they've got more chance of bringing back Trotsky.

It's quite fascinating how the Unsustainable People lobby use third class evidence to support an unelectable and unsubstantial position.

Lets cut to the chase. They would Enforce their views if they could.

Daggett

Your recollections of an old ABC program and the reported opinions of some of your unnamed mates are not sufficient evidence to support your preposterous claims about pre-conquest Britain.

They weren’t called the dark ages for nothing.

Maddison says:

“In the year 1000, the average infant could expect to live about 24 years. A third would die in the first year of life, hunger and infectious disease would ravage the survivors.”

Doesn’t sound like the 1900s to me.

And you still haven’t responded to my challenge to provide evidence in support of your contention that life expectancy fell in 19th century Britain.

*Religious ideology also contributed to the country's deepening demographic
problems. The majority of Rwanda's population were Catholic. Despite Rwanda's
evident overpopulation, those in the church and government hierarchy not only
refused to promote birth control programs, they actively opposed them. Radical
Catholic pro-life commandos raided pharmacies to destroy condoms with the
approval of the Ministry of the Interior*

A snippet from http://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/volumes/2002/2-1/magnarella2-1.pdf

which explains the reasons for genocide in a bit more detail.

I love MOs simplistic analytical skills. Rwanda owed the World Bank
money, commodity prices dropped, ah, that must be the cause of
genocide! Never mind that lots of countries owe the World bank
money or have commmodity prices drop, we will forget all that.

Mugabe has of course shown us all how you can give a man like
Mugabe a country on a plate, with infratructure in place and he
will trash it completely in some cases, given half a chance.

Even now Africa's population is unsustainable, or they would not
need to shoot the remaining wildlife for meat supplies, as they do.
The bushmeat trade is cleaning out the forests, all very sad
really. Clearly in MOs world, other species have no right to a bit
of space on this planet, just wall to wall humans it seems

"You might find Australia's debt is actually much larger than that when considering its $14 Trillion+ derivatives exposure. Ethiopia would not be in the ball park there, but there is hardly any comparable functions between the two countries' respective debt liabilities. Of course, the two types of "debt regime" have related money trails and interests, but the dynamics have been essentially different in Africa's under-developed condition."

I believe that the problems of Ethopia can draw little source from foreign entities. About as much as Yabby would attribute Zimbabwe's collapse to foreign entities I would think. If Mugabe had concentrated on Zimbabwe's development instead of getting even with the foreign settlers, there might have been a few more skilled workers to keep things going today. There comes a time when you have to stop blaming mum and dad and take responsibility for your own circumstances.

I am no fan of the World Bank or the IMF, and no doubt they contributed to the problems that led to the genocide. If they and the Rwandan politicians, who had their own motives for promoting trouble, had all behaved like angels, then the collapse might have been delayed.

To understand why it would have only been delayed and not prevented, you need to put yourselves in the position of a typical Rwandan farmer. You have an area of land equal to three quarter acre blocks, including the land occupied by your house and any outbuildings. Many families have even less. On this land you need to supply all the nutritional needs of 6 people, and quite possibly more. This means growing fruit, vegetables, and legumes, as well as corn or cassava. You also need a cash crop for the goods and services that you cannot grow, make, or provide for yourselves: tools and other agricultural inputs, cloth or clothing, school costs, health care costs, taxes and government charges, etc. Now consider that the population has a doubling time of less than 25 years, so the next generation will have half as much. Only Cheryl or Mil-ob would think that this is a great situation.