Listen To Your Elders

I have observed that there are two ways of living life, one is positive and the other is negative.

Positive people are resilient and bounce back whereas the negative people never win.

To be positive one has to have a few essential characteristics, one is to have hope, the other is to not expect too much from life and be pleased when things go well.

Negative people seem to have no hope, and even if things go well they tend to think that it is no more than they deserve and don’t appreciate their good fortune.

I’m aware that it is easy to say be hopeful but it seems that some are and some aren’t, for example, in situations of great stress such as concentration camps or sickness and the like, even though there may be many that are in similar conditions, some will be hopeful and look forward relief and others will give up almost immediately and go into depression. If relief comes, the positive ones will be grateful and the negative ones will think that it is as it should be.

I wonder if it is the case that positive people enjoy life more whereas negative people believe that they are entitled to things regardless of effort. Negative people also seem to be often picked on and bullied.

I also wonder if these characteristics are genetic or acquired through environmental events?

These subjects interest me in that they seem to me to be all so far fetched as to be beyond belief.

Firstly, if one accepts that the latest astrological observations are factual and that the theory of evolution is the only theory, which stands up to any sort of scrutiny, then it is impossible to believe in divine creation and the interference in life of a divine entity.

I can understand why so many people like to believe that they will have a life after death, especially when they often have such a rough trot in this life. However; life for all creatures is a matter of reacting to the various stimuli that we are faced with from day to day, these experiences make us what we are and are really the very essence of life. We are faced with such things as love, hate, ambition, satisfaction, happiness and sadness and all these things are part of living, and they are what make those that believe wish to live after death in the hope that the second time around they will get only the good things that they missed out on the first time around. One can’t imagine there being procreation in the after life so what the hell are all these second rounders going to do, to live again they will have to go through all the experiences of their first innings without the consolation of eventually dying. Doesn’t sound such an attractive outlook to me and I’m old enough to be approaching the time for this ultimate event.

Finally, the matter of eternal life, this is a horrific thought, eternity is forever, such a state is impossible to imagine. If one has eternal life then it means that one can’t die so we don’t need to breath, eat, sleep, exercise, and copulate. Taking it to its extreme we wouldn’t need a body so we would really be extinct which is dead!

Some talk of inheriting the earth but the life of the earth is finite as we know so, what happens when the earth is destroyed and taking it further, what happens when the solar system is destroyed, as we are informed it will be.

Some talk of going to heaven but where is that? We have looked some 2 billion light years into space and found only more rocks and space, so heaven must be further away than 2 billion light years. If this is the case and people saw their favourite prophet rising into heaven, it means that the prophet would have been rising at well below the speed of light so he wouldn’t probably be outside the influence of our solar system yet. As to getting to the ultimate heaven and back, the earth wouldn’t be around by the time of the return.

To me it is so stupid to worry so much about an after life when there is so much that we can do to make the life for future inhabitants of the earth so much better and all we do is waste the time we have available to us trying to amass fortunes and possessions which when we die will be squandered away by after generations.

Why can’t we try to forget all the evils of the religions and concentrate on trying to give a good life to as many peoples of the world as possible? I’m sure that if the prophets could see the outcomes of the preachings, they would regret having ever preached. They mainly preached love and co-existence yet the heads of the various religions can justify murder, suppression, torture etc., all in the name of some man made god, we have progressed but have failed to overcome our basic fears and instincts.

I read that Hicks is to be charged with opposing the US army in Afghanistan, is it now a crime in war to fight for a cause which opposes US government’s aggressive intentions?
What about all the Germans, Italians, Vietnamese, Koreans, etc that have fought against the US army, could the US now rope them in and confine them in a concentration camp, like Guantanamo Bay and try them for daring to oppose the US army?

It is obvious that the US under the direction of Bush is only interested in finding Hicks guilty of something, just to make it appear that the US is superior to all and needs to pay no heed to international law or justice.

Unfortunately, we have a gutless government which is only interested in dancing to Bush’s tune and not to defend the rights of our citizens. I fail to see how Hicks can possibly maintain any sense of reality or hope for a future when he faces such an apparently all mighty and soul destroying persecution by governments which should be protecting all the worlds citizens from injustice rather than concentrating so much evil force against one individual!

Irecently read a bit of rubbish by Ackerman stating that David Hicks is guilty of all sorts of heinous crimes, however, at that time Hicks hadn’t been even charged with any crime so how he could be judged guilty and of what is beyond me.
Piers also likened the trial of Hicks to the trials of Nazi war criminals after the 2nd world war, this if of course even more stupid a claim. I am old enough to have been part of the Second World War and if Piers wants to see the difference between the Hicks trial and the war trials he should look at records of Belsen and other concentration camps, there is no need there to torture witnesses to talk up and the evidence of the crime is plain to see.
Piers should also note that it wasn’t the victims of the concentration camps that were on trial but the prison guards and camp commanders. A similar trial should be arranged for the Guantanamo Bay staff, I’m sure that they weren’t tucking Hicks in every night for the past 5 years.
Undoubtedly, Hicks was silly as a young man but there is no hard evidence that he actually got to even fire a shot in anger and definitely no evidence that he killed anyone during his stay in the war zone. None of these things are really the nub of the matter, the whole point is that Hicks hasn’t been represented as an Australian citizen by the Howard government, even though Howard, Ruddock and Downer have all appeared in public and said that Hicks can’t be brought home to face trial because he has committed no crime!!
If these government people say Hicks has done no crime, how did Piers come up with his guilty verdict?
I want to see us return to a sovereign country where we maintain our codes of justice and fair play even in the face of a strong ally. A good friend isn’t as Howard seems to think, a party the always gives an answer that they think the other party wants to hear. A really good friend is one that gives an honest opinion regardless as to it’s popularity.

Government lawyer, Solicitor-General David Bennett, QC, told the court a general obligation for the Federal Government to protect citizens abroad “is simply something that the law has never recognised”.

This seems a strange claim to make since we Australians have been paying big bucks to obtain Australian Passports for our security when travelling abroad, why if our Government has no obligation to afford us protection from wrongfull incarceration or other infringements of our safety

It appears to me, that we should not only have stayed with a foreign head of state but have also returned to being part of the British Empire. At least with a British Passport, one has some protection when travelling as is proved by the fact that there are no British detainees in Guantanamo Bay

I note that under questioning, Mr Rudd was asked if he would squash any conviction if Hicks was returned to Australia to serve out his sentence, his response was interesting in that it gave Mr Howard a chance to comment on the credibility of the Atorney General.

Mr Rudd responded “he would take advice from the attorney-general’s department. “That’s the proper thing to do and that is precisely how I would act,” “. A good answer but it has one shortcoming as observed by Mr Howard.

Mr Howard noted that “the response was not good enough.”, and I must agree with him. If Rudd is faced with an Attorney General as ignorant of the Australian law and the application of the presumption of innocence and correct gathering of evidence, as Mr Howard has, then Mr Rudd’s cause is lost.

This farce has gone on long enough, Hicks is doomed to get a Life Sentence, even if the US has to eventually charge him with jay walking, so why can’t the Australian people start to enact the much vaunted ” Australian Mateship ” and act to protect a fellow citizen from a great injustice and have him returned to face a fair trial here where the rule of law applys, we hope.

I have 3 children, 7 grandchildren and 3 ( nearly 4 greatgrandchildren ). The children and grandchildren have all gone to public schools and obtained different levels of attainment ranging from top professionals to simple passes in HSC. I presume that they all had the same level of teachers and so the different level of attainment wasn’t due so much to the teacher’s skills as it was to the students desire for success and the drive and encouragement obtained from the parents.

If I look at the students in any one class that my offspring attended, though they all had the same teacher at any one time they didn’t all obtain the same academic levels. So in any one class, if I look back, there are students that ended up ranging from doctors, teachers, engineers, etc down to in some less fortunate cases, criminals. Which level obtained do we reward the teacher for?

It seems to me that it would be more appropriate to grade the parents of students, this is where the motivation springs from. Nowdays parents seem to want the teachers to train the children in self discipline, morality, social responsibility etc, and also to have their little Johnny or Mary end up as top scholars. It is not a viable proposition, our teachers should be able to teach their students to think for themselves and learn the subjects set. The other things are for the parents to teach outside the school gates.

If we had more parents that instead of buying boats and other luxuries (supposedly for the children but really to satisfy their own egos) that would sit down for only a half hour or so a night with their children and try to teach manners etc as well as to help with their home work, then we may have a better education system.

As for the threat to cut off finances if the state school teachers don’t comply with this arrogant education minister’s edict, she should realise that the money she is talking about is our money and we have paid it in not for her to obtain political advantage but to finance a decent education system.

If she has a logical argument it should more likely follow the line of testing all future parents for their suitability and perhaps mark them out of 100 and adjust their income accordingly!

When will politicians realise that they train forces of other countries at their peril.

Back in the 30’s the British navy trained and help build the Japanese navy. The CIA trained and built up the forces of al Qaeda and the Taliban. I wonder if the training of the Iraq armed forces will have the same successful outcome as did these other examples of stupidity?

Why would a country spend all that time and money and young lives to defeat the armed forces of another country only to then build up the forces of the defeated country? Only a politician could see the reasoning behind such a farce. If they really had the interests of the Iraqis at heart they firstly wouldn’t have attacked them and now they have done the dirty deed they should spend their money trying to reestablish the infrastructure of Iraq. The Iraqis are probably fed up with the fighting and killing and would rather have an honest and just system of law and law enforcement which doesn’t mean having armed troops running around shooting and kicking in doors etc.

It’s about time that the world admitted that Iraq is in civil war and the only people that can settle that is the Iraqis themselves and it will most likely follow the pattern of other civil wars and involve a lot of blood letting and suffering before the leaders come to their senses. The presence of foreign troops would be like a red rag to a bull and they will always be to blame for the trouble and will accomplish nothing.

Whether Peter Garrett changed his mind is not the issue, the issue is why do our Australian politicians want to cede parts of our nation to foreign countries?

We should adopt the US constitution requirement that bans any state or the federal government ceding any part of the US to another country.

We should learn from history and understand that there would not be too many Cubans that think that it was a good idea to let the US have soveriegn power over so much of their country. It is obvious that the US isn’t using their control to advance the welfare or dignity of the Cuban population today.

Wake up Australians, keep our country for ourselves!

How can Howard talk about Hicks having a fair process when he still is letting it be known that he considers Hicks guilty even now before he has been officially charged.

For Hicks to have a fair trial it is first necessary for any such trial to be held in a proper court where the laws and rules of law are respected and apply to all persons.

This court that Howard is prepared to accept is a court set up specifically to find Hicks, and the others being held, guilty of something and then being sentenced to life imprisonment. It has nothing to do with justice as recognised in any of the civilized countries.

Hicks may well have trained in terrorism etc but if the civilized world is to protect it’s standards of justice and libery, it is essential to ensure that Hicks is, firstly charged with a proper crime, and then to ensure that he is given a fair trial in a properly constituted court of law.

I feel that there is more at stake here than Hicks innocence or guilt, at stake is the whole credibility of the legal systems of the USA and Australia. To date the outlook is pretty sad for the future of our justice systems.