Friends, tomorrow, in Australia, it’s New Years Day. If only I could wake up in a different world, one the opposite to the one I live in.

What would I like to see?

- that war had been banished and all Armed Forces had been disbanded and corporations that manufacture weapons had been closed down and all members of the Armed Forces were receiving counseling to undo their conditioning to kill.

- that greed had been condemned, made a crime, and that the rich had had their wealth and possessions confiscated and redistributed to the poor.

- that all self-serving politicians (is there any other kind)  had been sacked and, in their place, were ordinary citizens whose names  had been drawn out of a hat, citizens who had three years to serve their nation before they were replaced by another group of citizens.

-  that all the rich nations and their corporations had been made responsible for the poor nations and had to feed them and help them to grow their own food and look after their health.

- that all the world’s media had been taken from the media tycoons and placed in the hands of thinking people who were dedicated to telling the truth, not making profits.

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Complete devastation in Gaza and nothing has changed!

This is what real tyranny means, Obama!

Friends, while watching Al Jazzera this afternoon I saw a program on the anniversary of the attack on Gaza by Israel one year ago.

The footage was horrific but what was most disturbing was that in the news headlines shown at the bottom of the screen came the caption shown in the title of this post.

Of course, as you’d know, the Gazans are still living under siege and nothing much has been rebuilt since the Israeli slaughter which killed 1,400 Gazans including 400 children. They are short of medical supplies, food, and have little industry or hope.

Then the thought struck me: Instead of putting the boot into Iran, why doesn’t Obama condemn the tyranny of Israel which has been ongoing for 60 years?

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“Hey, Chuck, remember, the more you kill, the quicker they’ll love us!”

Friends, this may come as a shock to you (it did to me too) but, when I think about it, WW3 has been underway for years, perhaps decades.  Like WW2, its genesis came out of the World War which preceded it (the 1914-18 war).

WW2 ended with the defeat of Japan and Germany but there was deep suspicion about the intentions of Russia and its potential to become a superpower. So the existing superpower, the U.S., began its push to amass the biggest and most powerful army in the world. Russia followed.

By spending more money on defense than most of the rest of the world combined, and by stockpiling nukes, and by developing ballistic missiles, the U.S. set the pace. When the missile crisis in Cuba developed and the Americans put a man on the moon (though there is real doubt about this), the Russians backed off otherwise we’d have had WW3 then and there. Gradually Russia, which couldn’t match American defense spending, fell behind and eventually gave up the arms race.

While the Cold War was happening the Korean war began in 1950, a war against the spread of communism. That was followed by Vietnam between 1962 and 1975 ( a war in which America was defeated). And of course who was leading the charge? The U.S. of course!

There were a lot of other wars too, ones that probably didn’t get much attention, covert wars in South America, wars in South-east Asia, the Middle East. For example, the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. America backed Osama bin Laden in his war against the Russian occupation. America backed Israel in its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories.

America has backed Royal Despots like those in Saudi Arabia and Political Despots like Mubarak in Egypt and Musharraf in Pakistan. The list is endless! In every case America uses whatever means it has to to achieve its ends: military force, bribes, conditional aid, the funding of rebels to overthrow democracies, the funding of coups to set up puppet democracies. Hypocrisy is not in its dictionary and neither is morality.

With all these wars and coups and insurgencies, the U.S. used its now familiar, duplicitous themes: ‘we’re God’s army spreading democracy and human rights, we’re only protecting the homeland, we’re just ensuring our military and economic interests and those of our allies are being advanced, we’re fighting them there so they can’t attack us on our soil, etc.

Friends, the bottom line is that the U.S. wasn’t and isn’t doing any such thing. What it was doing, after a short delay, was taking over where Hitler left off. It is, slowly but surely, seeking control of the world using military and economic force.

Now you may think that David G. has lost his marbles but take a minute to consider the following:

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Friends, as we approach Christmas the most christian nation on earth is engaged in two wars, is using drones in Pakistan, has just launched two cruise missiles at so-called  ‘terrists’ in Yemen, is now building military bases in Columbia, and is still threatening to nuke Iran or allowing Israel to do so.

As an ex-Christian, I know full well what Jesus preached and it sure as hell wasn’t about encouraging folk to become involved in endless war and killing and it wasn’t about praising things like greed, racism, imperialism and injustice.

However, we have talked about these things constantly throughout the year and, importantly, we have made our voices heard.

During this holiday break I’d like to present you with an image of peace and simplicity, a rare commodity in this crazy world.

I hope that, during the festive season, you will find moments of peace and love. I hope too that you will recharge your batteries so that, together, we can continue to try to make the world a better place in the New Year!

Take care of yourselves and many thanks for your great contributions throughout the year.

P.S. I’ll be monitoring the blog until the 2nd of January. After that, things may be rather sporadic.

This is one, a Texas oil refinery. It is active twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Pollution in Texas alone exceeds the total pollution of many nations in the world.

Despite the fact of global warming, the search for oil continues across the world as does the refining of oil and the manufacture of cars that use petroleum.

Australia has huge deposits of coal both of the black and brown variety (see above). Australia exports this coal to other countries including China, Japan and India, billions of tonnes of it.

Australia also has uranium which it exports overseas but it mainly uses coal in its power stations and has no nuclear power stations (although the matter might be discussed in the future).

Australia has the highest per capita generation of greenhouse gases of any country in the world. China, because of its huge population, has the lowest but is now the world’s biggest polluter having just overtaken the U.S.

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Who is he?

Adina thinks it might be this man!

Friends, I have been closely watching the events at Copenhagen. There was one world leader who, without excuse and acting like  God, arrived on the last day. He quickly gathered around him the leaders of four other nations: China, India, South Africa and Brazil.

These people, behind closed doors, discussed then formulated a third treaty.  This treaty was then shown to 25 other world leaders including Kevin Rudd and Gordon Brown. These selected leaders then rubber-stamped the treaty without consultation with any of the 162 other nations who, at that stage, weren’t even shown the new treaty.

This world leader then held a press conference in which he told the world that there was a treaty, one that allowed each nation to set their own greenhouse targets but no one would be bound by any of their targets including his country.

Then this man left the Conference before a final vote had been taken by the assembly and, on the same day that he arrived, jetted back towards his own nation.

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A man has emerged from Copenhagen who stands head and shoulders above other world leaders. That man is Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia, a tiny country in South America.

He is a straight-talking member of the indigenous people of Bolivia, one who tells it like it is. According to al Jazzera, he said: “The principle obstacle to combating climate change is capitalism. Until we put an end to capitalism, it will continue to be a big obstacle for life and humanity.”  Wow!

He added that he does not believe there will be a deal in Copenhagen and he lays the blame with the world’s richest countries, increasing industrialization and the pursuit of profit. What a scathing condemnation of the Western world and its ‘values’.

It comes from a man who observed that the ‘white poncho’ or snow which covers the mountains in his country is melting and with it goes Bolivia’s water supply and that means difficult times ahead for his people who are already poor. He is a leader like Chavez. He cares deeply about those who live in poverty.

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Children love to imitate. Or are they taught to imitate?

Friends, have you even wondered why the world never seems to change at least as far as human behaviour goes? Perhaps the reason is simple.

Basically each new generations copies the one before it. Each child, from birth, imitates its parents and is rewarded for doing so and is punished when it doesn’t. It soon gets the message. But imitation means that, logically, all progress is stopped, evolution is stopped and true freedom is stifled. We become clones.

Daily, we pour into our children’s minds the same stuff as we were taught, tonnes of it. Day by day we force feed our children. We, as parents, do, television does, teachers do, clerics do, the radio does, peers do.

Children are encouraged to study hard, do well, compete to win, accept religion, be a good citizen, to accumulate, to see themselves as superior to others, to go to college, get a prestigious profession, climb up the ladder, make lots of money, live in a good neighborhood, send their kids to a private school, serve their country, be patriotic, etc. This is not freedom! This is servitude, servitude created by imitation, servitude created by social pressure, servitude that makes a few people very rich.

True freedom brings with it loads of choices.

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Young, concerned faces, thousands of them, marching to save their world.

But the vested interests are there too, arresting people, trying to stifle dissent, crush it!

Friends, it’s all happening in Copenhagan. The collision that is occurring there has immense ramifications. On one side we have the scientists and the thinking people of the world who see what climate change is bringing  and what it portends.

On the other side we have the Corporate World, who worship profit and greed at any cost, who don’t want anything to change. Their willing pawns, the Politicians, whose survival largely depends on the largess and taxes of the Corporate World, promise they will do something while they do little or nothing.

The two photographs show the clear divisions. The people march to try and save their world while the police, following orders from their pro-capitalism, pro-business Governments, swoop and arrest them. All too often, the army is also used to control the people, to strike fear into them, to deter them, to render them mute.

While the politicians talk and promise, the Corporate Fat Cats spread their lies and deceptions and threaten huge unemployment if they are controlled or forced to change their environmentally damaging ways.

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“Of course I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize!

After all, I could’ve sent 60,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan…

Afghanistan is another of our ‘just’ wars and I decide what is just!

You laugh. Damn, what else do I have to do to convince you?”