Early this month, having been told twice my website couldn’t be viewed from within Parliament House in Canberra, I did some investigating.

I reported the story in Big Brother filters Parliament House websites and tweeted a few politicians to make sure they knew about the issue.

Initially I was told by Parliamentary staff that NO websites are blocked for ANY parliamentarians. When I pointed out my own site was blocked, I was then informed that ALL sites with a .info suffix are blocked. This was explained as a spam prevention measure. Further details were politely denied to me.

One parliamentarian – Greens Senator Ludlam – did some follow-up recently via the Senates Estimates Committee. Kudos once again to Scott Ludlam, who delves into IT-related snakepits where others fear to tread…

Ludlam’s resulting media statement was entitled A tale of two filters: more than 35 million sites blocked to senators and staff. Here’s an extract (emphasis added):

More than a year on from the defeat of the Government’s proposed mandatory net filter, Australia’s parliamentarians have instead elected to heavily filter their own web access.

In budget estimates hearings this morning, Australian Greens communications spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam established that the entire .info top level domain is blocked to Parliament House, knocking out an unknown number of sites including an anti-war blog and sites on energy policy and nuclear disarmament.

“Bizarrely, an additional blocklist containing upwards of 35 million sites is in effect for Senators and staff, but not House of Reps members and staff,” Senator Ludlam said.

“I could walk to the nearest public library and access a ‘.info’ website but they are banned to people working within the Commonwealth parliament. I spent two years campaigning to prevent a filter being imposed on the general public, who might now appreciate the irony of a vastly more expansive filter being imposed on MPs.”

So it turns out politicians who were (mostly, although with honourable exceptions) timid in their defense of public internet freedom, are themselves rather used to being treated like a bunch of junior school kids. Many of them have probably been unaware this censorship has been in place – although I did hear back from one MP who said he took regularly used his own laptop at work to access an unfiltered wireless connection.

Are there good reasons behind the censorship?

The overt reason given for blocking .info sites is because, in recent years, a significant proportion of sites with the .info TLD (top level domain) have been used to send out spam.  Yet it’s massive overkill to block web access to all the sites with a .info suffix – and that point seems to be recognized. According to IT blogger Matias Vangsness, the block may soon be lifted.

What about the 35+ million additional sites, specifically filtered out for Senators and staff?

Here’s what Vangeness says about this:

The block of some 35 million domains is a separate matter.

Back in 2008, Family First’s socially conservative Senator Steve Fielding was shocked to discover that, unlike their staffers, Senators could freely access websites containing “inappropriate” material including “pornography, illegal drug references, gambling, games, racist or hate sites, violence, illegal weapons manufacture or procurement”.

As a result, the filtering imposed upon Department of the Senate employees was extended to all senators and their staff.

“Should a senator require access to a website that may be restricted by the filtering system, they can arrange temporary or permanent access through the Usher of the Black Rod,” the Senate’s Deputy President said at the time.

Fielding ceased to be a Senator on 30 June 2011.

It seems to me that while the generic .info block is an absurdity, this additional block on Senators’ web access is actually more sinister.

The business of filtering is indeed a business. Companies compete to provide “out of the box” censorship solutions – for individual users and for large networks such as the education sector and government departments. Whichever “filter” the IT people in charge of the Senate’s self-censorship use to block 35+ million sites, at its core its a huge database of blacklisted sites generated by an editing process. How was the editing carried out? That’s their secret – akin to the recipe to Coca Cola. I’d guess there’s some poaching between competing lists; once a website gets on one blacklist it may well end up on most if not all of them.

The notion that it’s a simple matter to make an objective decision about what should be blocked and what should not is silly. Filters inevitably “undersample”. For example some hardcore pornography sites may not be on the database and therefore won;t be blocked as intended. But filters also oversample. That’s more serious. Legitimate sites with valuable information may get filtered out for no valid reason. I think that may apply to a LOT of websites I’ve found to be important sources of information over time.

The concept of “hate sites” is especially problematic. What is a “hate site”?

The usual response is they are websites that promote “hate” and violence”. Sometimes “anti-Semitism” is given as a specific example.

If the goal of this censorship of “hate sites” was truly to banish “hate” from the media as a whole, I’d have some sympathy – although it wouldn’t overcome my general insistence on free speech and information flow. But of course that’s not the case at all! “Hate” is easy to find on the mass media and its certainly plentiful on the web. There is, for instance, a huge amount of Islamophobia around. There’s blatant war warmongering in the mainstream media – and lots of it. Does anyone seriously imagine all that ”hate” will be filtered out for Senators? Of course it won’t! They’re free to watch as much Fox News, CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera as they wish – all of them over the last year alone purveying war propaganda as they’ve spun a one-sided case for aggression against Libya, Syria, Iran etc.

What does get blocked by these filters is material the editors hate. What that is depends on who they are and what guidelines they implement.

My impression – and I invite feedback on this – is that whoever is in charge of these filters, they generally have a zionist bias. Hence material that’s highly critical of that sectarian interest is likely to be blacklisted. Labelling what they dislike “hate sites” is a clever way to rationalise censoring it. Yet some of that material, arguably, is most important political and historical commentary.

As for “anti-Semitism” – a bizarre, invented term that dates only from the late 19th century and can be regarded as zionism’s siamese twin – why should any one group of people be singled out in this way? Why should anti-AnythingElseism be acceptable – but not “anti-Semitism”? We can’t have double standards, can we?

A common answer is that Jewish people have experienced quite unparalleled suffering throughout history – especially during the Second World War. Yet these claims are contended by some scholars, Jewish and non-Jewish. Surely the only way to develop an informed view on the matter is by examining the full range of views?

In this context, Australia’s Senators may like to try a simple experiment. People using the internet via networks in public libraries, government departments, schools and universities can also try this test. In fact, anyone can do it – in Australia or elsewhere, to get some insight into whether or not your computer or mobile device is subject to unwarranted zionist censorship.

Here’s the test: do the following links work for you?

• Dr Arthur Butz: The Hoax of the 20th Century
• Campaign for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) Library
• Dr Alan Sabrovsky interview on Press TV about 9/11
• John Cornelius: The Hidden History of the Balfour Declaration
• Israel Shamir: The Pardes
• Dr Israel Shahak: Jewish History, Jewish Religion, The Weight of 3,000 years
• Gilad Atzmon’s Political Writings

I’d argue all these references have significant value for anyone trying to make an informed decision about whether blocks on what some influential people designate as “hate site” are appropriate or not.

Do these links take the viewer to cesspools of tasteless, ugly and content-free malevolence? Or are they references to works of some scholarship – however contentious the subject matter?

If Australia’s Senators can’t access web pages such as these while at work, how can they make informed decisions about censorship? If they can access all these links… well, I hope the references may be of some interest anyway.

Blocking so-called “hate sites” is a particular concern, but logically the argument can be extended to “apolitical” sites as well – including gambling and porn. In my view it should. How can politicians decide whether to ban things they can’t see? It’s a nonsense.

The Reverend Fred Nile MLC - does his homework, prayerfully

This precise topic came up in the New South Wales Parliament back in 2010, as I reported in Two sides of a sex-obsessed Parliament. At that time, the story broke in the media that some NSW politicians had been accessing pornographic websites via their Paliament House computers. Unknown to most of them, their internet access was being monitored..

One such politician – who happened to be a Minister – must have had a guilty conscience. He apologized and resigned, thoroughly humiliated.

Then it turned out the office of none other than the moral crusader The Reverend Fred Nile had also accessed copious amounts of porn. Fred’s old enemies – and there are many – rubbed their hands in anticipation.

But instead of going into moral meltdown, Nile pointed out that an upstanding Christian parliamentarian who seriously wants to crusade against wickedness on the web must have full access to the material and at least have staff check it out. Nile’s staff members, he assured us, are all righteous types and weren’t just “sitting there perving”. Not at all! They’re were all doing legitimate research work!

Many folk chuckled at the extraordinary nerve of the man – and I was among them. But Fred faced down his critics and got away with it. He got away with it, ultimately, because he’s right.

Even sewers need inspecting occasionally.

The NSW Legislative Council apparently “gets” that rather obvious proposition – but the Senate doesn’t. Being substantially older than the Federal Upper Chamber, perhaps it’s more mature?

The Australian Senate, at the time of writing, remains in short pants.

Time to let go of the Ring of Power!

From time to time on this blog I’ve covered the topic of the overseas polices of the Australian Greens – in an attempt to blow the whistle on polices I’ve seen as more and more at odds with Greens’ principles.

My efforts go back a few years now and I probably need to face reality: they’ve been spectacularly unsuccessful.

Should I just shut up and forget about The Greens? Perhaps. Should I roll over and accept that Bob knows best? That at least is not an option. It might be nice to rejoin the fold, but I KNOW it would be based on a lie. Bob does not know best; he’s making a real hash of foreign policy.

Not ready yet to leave The Greens in peace to support war, this is my best attempt to portray graphically what’s most fundamentally wrong with decision-making in the Australian Greens on foreign policy issues. If it isn’t dominated to a most unhealthy degree by Bob Brown and a few close (and nameless) advisers, The Greens do a great job faking it.

Bob Brown’s expertise in foreign affairs doesn’t seem substantial to me. That’s a factual observation – not a judgment. The Senator has been an effective advocate in many other policy areas and his role in building The Greens in Australia already assures him a place in history. No-one can know everything.

Yet Bob Brown hogs the Foreign Affairs, Defense & National Security portfolios within the Greens and has done so for years, although (Burma, East Timor & West Papua have been spared Brown’s incompetence in the latest allocation of responsibilities – lucky for them!). It’s a real shame for most of the world, because these days whenever Bob says anything about somewhere overseas he’s rarely mentioned before (Libya and Syria spring to mind), it makes me feel like wincing. I can almost guarantee – even before I’ve heard his words – that he’s got hold of the wrong end of the stick and is poking it in the wrong direction.

Under his dismal mismanagement, the Party with an exemplary Charter that advocates non-violent conflict resolution, self-determination and grass roots democracy has morphed into a routine supporter of NATO military intervention and the crude imposition of forced ‘solutions’ on nations that were actually managing OK beforehand – and certainly gain nothing from bombing, infiltration by western spooks and all the rest of it. Oh – and I nearly forgot to mention, these weird neo-imperialist polices are issued like edicts by Bob and one or two other equally imperious Parliamentary “leaders”, without any regard to opposition from rank and file Greens members or (what remains of) Australia’s peace movement. So that’s “Grass Roots Democracy” Bob? Pull the other leg!

Under Bob Brown, the Australian Greens took almost a month, after the Israelis began savaging Gaza from air, sea and land back in 2008/9, before any of them said a word about it in public. When Bob’s statement came it was wishy-washy in the extreme.

It’s true the Greens now oppose Australia’s troops fighting in Afghanistan – but even there the record is blemished. As recently as 2007 Brown was criticising the USA for not putting more of its war offort into Afghanistan!

In the case of Libya last year, Bob Brown & co led the Greens into uncritical support for UN “intervention” – a euphemism for massive and sustained NATO aerial bombing over many months, funding and training of “rebels” with very dubious backgrounds and motivations, injecting special forces into the mix and actively formenting civil war that continues to this day.

After half a year of one-sided brutality, NATO’s bombing spree culminated in the destruction of both government and governance in a nation that prior to “humanitarian intervention” had achieved the highest UNDP Human Development Index rank in Africa and proudly boasted the continent’s highest life expectancy & lowest infant mortality.

Libya was a nation that,a year ago, had hundreds of billions of cash reserves, close to double digit economic growth, highly ambitious infrastructure projects and free public healthcare and education. It was noted for women’s rights. It had helped fund projects in Africa as a whole that had helped transform the life of hundreds of millions.

All this apparently didn’t impress Bob (if he was even aware of it – one can’t be sure because he never responded on these points to critics and needless to say the media never asked him to). Bob  knew best what was best for the Libyan people and rushed to join the pack of mainstream media and conformist politicians, as soon nas well-crafted zionist propaganda painted Ghadaffi as the devil incarnate and a gaggle of instant Libya experts, purportedly motivated by (one-off) concern for the well-being of Libyans appeared on the scense, shrieking in outrage about alleged Libyan Government atrocities that have since been exposed as falsifications.

After “humanitarian intervention” morphed into hell on earth, and a Libya “No Fly Zone” turned into 8,000+ bombing sorties entailing tens of thouands of deaths, hundreds of thousands of refugees and the ruination of a nation – I naively hoped Bob Brown & his advisers might at least realise they’d been fooled. Bob Brown’s lack of public contrition, I assumed, was the result of embarrassment.

But no, Senator Brown is now onto the Syria Crusade in much the same way – again backing the wrong horse, demanding the demise of one of the last remaining secular and pluralistic states in that region, on the say so (presumably) of the same knaves and charlatans who sold him the utterly disastrous Libya “intervention” a year ago. He made his first statement about Syria last July, hours after the zionist commentator Ted Lapkin goaded him in the media. Then a long silence… until last week, when Bob tried to upstage the Gillard Government in his passion for “regime change” in Syria by suggesting it’s time to close the Syrian Embassy in Canberra.

It’s even possible I played some small and inadvertant part in this latest debacle. Last week, I tweeted Brown regularly on the topic of Syria – mainly to beg him to raise questions in Parliament about the trashing of the Syrian Embassy in Canberra on February 4th, in which some 40 thugs invaded the Embassy, terrorised staff, vandalized the place then vanished. Australia’s burgeoning “Counter-Terrorism” forces (another charade?) have apparently been unable to find any of the culprits since. A day or so later, a Syrian man was shot three times in the legs by two armed assailants in Punchbowl, Sydney; he was shot on his doorstep and may be permanently crippled as a result. As he happened to be pro-Assad, the media showed little interest – and none at in recent days. I asked Bob Brown to take up both matters in the Senate. I received no reply to any of my requests, as usual – but perhaps Brown’s statement that the pesky Embassy should probably be closed was my answer.?

Under Bob Brown’s leadership, the zionist bias of the Greens has arguably become worse than that of the Australian Government itself – mirroring the disgusting pro-war, pro-Israel role played by Euro-Green zionists in countries like Germany. On the issue of whether or not to break diplomatic ties with Syria, Brown’s position approaches the one-sided mania of the fanatical zionist Labor MP for Melbourne, Michael Danby.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so very sad. But it’s worse than sad, it’s dangerous. Once Bob Brown issue a statement on foreign policy, the Greens’ loyalty syndrome kick. Once he passes judgment on who should be in power in Libya, Syria etc, few Greens are willing ro speak openly in favour of alternative approaches. Thus it is that a peace movement that’s already weak in this country is effectively throttled inside Parliament – silencing even the handful of politicans who were, in part, put there by activists who care passionately about peace and international justice.

It’s time Bob Brown hands on The Ring of Foreign Policy to safer hands within the Party.

The way things are heading now, The Greens should be challenged at the next Federal election by politicans and parties who WILL speak out loud and clear for PEACE and against this sordid revival of imperialism. Unless they change course fast, the Australian Greens need to be opposed by candidates who, not to put too fine a point on it, are sufficiently savvy about zionism to have graduated from wearing short pants. In the Senate contest there may well be a significant vote for outspoken peace candidates. At the very least, this would force the Greens to justify their own polices in open debate.

In this year, 2012, with the drums of war beating along the Road to Damascus and beyond – beating as loud as at any time over the last 50 years – we need articulate peace advocates in Australia like never before.

Sane, moral and courageous international policy is too precious to be one man’s personal possession.

_______________________________________

It takes about ten minutes to see through the lies and nonsense perpetrated during last year’s furore for “regime change” regarding Libya.

Have Bob Brown and his mysterious foreign policy advisers ever taken that time to understand the lies they helped to spread about a formerly prosperous nation that had done Australia no harm?

Who knows? They probably just rely on advice from a chosen few, such as “Amnesia International” (watch the vid!) and the creepy zionist Euro-Green Franziska Brantner whose named was sometimes mentioned in a reverential tone on the rare occasions critics were able to get anything resembling an answer from Greens HQ apologists for Bob Brown’s Libya policy.

More must-see videos at TheHumanitarianWar.com

Yesterday I had the unusual experience of actually feeling empathy for Australian Parliamentarians.

After years of watching their antics from afar with increasing disgust, outraged iter alia at what they do and don’t do to preserve the civil liberties, free speech and internet access of ordinary Australians -  it dawned on me these people are actually treated like bigger idiots than we are.

It must be bad for the morale of Senators and MPs – and probably reduces their IQ. I know if I ever lack access to an unrestricted internet connection for any length of time, I find myself feeling more stupid – as it leaves me unable to double-check disinformation churned out by so-called journalists working for the bought-and-paid-for mass media.

Here’s what happened. I was in the process of hassling some members of Parliament via Twitter and email on a foreign policy issue. I do this from time to time. While it rarely (if ever) achieves any noticable results – it’s a form of therapy for me – and moral insurance. At least I’ll be able to look any grandchildren in the eye and tell them I did try to stop the world going to hell in a hand-basket.

On this occasion, one of them actually communicated back – and mentioned my website (this website) isn’t viewable in Parliament House. I decided to find out why.

I phoned the Parliamentary Webmaster, who in turn referred me to David Kenny, Acting Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services. I sent him an email. The resulting correspondence is brief and self-explanatory, so I’ll reproduce it here:

1 Syd Walker to David Kenny

Dear Mr Kenny
Acting Parliamentary Secretary
Department of Parliamentary Services

I live in far north Queensland, a long distance from the major political hubs of Australia, so when I contact Federal politicians it’s almost always via the internet. Occasionally I link to pages on my website which saves me the trouble of repeating already published material in my correspondence.

Today, for the second time, I’ve been informed that my website isn’t visible via a Parliament House computer. When this was first mentioned some time ago I assumed it must be a temporary glitch. However, having received the same advice I decided to call the Parliamentary Webmanager.

She was helpful, although rather surprised by my inquiry. She assured me that while Parliament staff use “filtered” computers, there’s no such block/filter on the computers of Parliamentarians, who should therefore be able to view any website. I then provided her with the URL of my site – www.sydwalker.info. This seemed to trigger her memory and she informed me that ALL websites with a .info suffix are blocked. She thought it was a spam prevention measure.

She was unable to answer further questions and referred me to you. Could you please let me know:

1/ Is there indeed a block within the Parliament House computer system on all domains with a .info suffix?

2/ If so…
(a) how long has it been in place?
(b) what is its rationale?
(c) Have Parliamentarians and/or the public been nformed about the block?
(d) are there steps underway to ensure that bona fide sites such as my own are removed from the block? (my own website content is mainly poltical; the site contains no pornography and I do not use the domain to send spam emails)
(e) when can I anticipate the block will be removed?

3/ If not, what is the explanation for my website being blocked and can I in any event be assured the block will be lifted promptly?

4/ Apart from .info suffix websites, are there blocks on other websites, or classes of website, that limit Australia’s Federal Parliamentarians’ ability to view material via the internet?

Incidentally, while I appreciate filtering of websites elsewhere is not within your purview, I’ve been told in the past that my website isn’t available from within the offices of at least one state bureaucracy in Australia. Are government IT managers in this country filter-happy?

I’m copying this email to a few internet-savvy Parliamentarians in the major parties represented in Parliament House, in case they are currently unaware of the existence of a Parliament House block and wish to take up the matter with you directly

Regards

Syd Walker

2/ David Kenny to Syd Walker

Syd

Generally, access to .info sites from the parliamentary computing network (PCN) is blocked.  This is done for security reasons.  Access to a specific .info site is enabled upon request, on a case by case basis.

Access to your sydwalker site from the PCN has now been enabled.

David Kenny

3/ Syd Walker to David Kenny

Dear Mr Kenny

Many thanks for your prompt respnse and for re-enabling access to my website from within Parliament House.

I take it that other .INFO websites shall remain blocked? How long has this block been in place? Have all MPs/Senators been informed?

It seems to me a very clumsy way of reducing spam – rather like blocking all telephone calls to and from the UK because some of them are of a criminal nature.

Do you block Parliamentarians’ access to other broad categories of websites in similar fashion?

I do think Parlimantarians should be informed if they are denied access to large numbers of websites (or any websites, for that matter). Does that happen? Or is it left to a chance discovery such as this before black-listed websites are unblocked?

As these topics are of some public and Parliamentary interest I look forward to a more complete response.

Regards

Syd Walker

4/ David Kenny to Syd Walker (2)

Syd

IT sites are blocked for security reasons – including related to threats other than spam.

Requests for access are responded to on a case by case basis.

I do not propose to go into further details about operational IT security matters.

David Kenny

_____________________________________

So there we have it. I may be thick-skinned, but I can tell when a bureaucrat is (politely) telling me to piss off and mind my own business.

It’s true concerns have been expressed over the years about the amount of spam generated from some .INFO websites. Tech guru Chris Pirillo opined years ago that .INFO domains are “dead” – although as you’ll see from comments below his article, that view isn’t shared by many. Spain.info, for example, is used by the Spanish Tourist Board. Then there’s Sieve.info – used to promote a computer language used for filtering e-mail messages…

But no – in Australia’s Parliament House – Big Brother knows best. He filters – and if a pesky little nation like Spain wants to complain, it can apply (as I did) for a special exemption…

Is anything else (apart from .INFO websites) being filtered in Parliament House? Who knows? That information, apparently, is an “operational security matter”. Start telling the riff-raff what’s currently blocked and who knows – we might find a way of smuggling nano-terrorists into the portals of power, disguised as innocent electrons.

I advise everyone who has a website to email Mr Kenny and ask if your site is currently blocked in Parliament House. You’ll never know until you ask. His email address is david.kenny@aph.gov.au (but PLEASE – don’t send him SPAM!)

Oh – and if you want a busy desk job in Australia’s public service, I suggest applying to the Department of Parliamentary Services. Something tells me they’ll be taking on plenty of new staff – rather soon

_____________________________

UPDATE: 2nd Feb 2012

Since publishing this article a few hours ago, a couple of relevant pieces of information have been brought to my attention.

First, according to a IT expert whom I respect, there is absolutely no need to block viewing access to a website in order to block emails sent from that domain. The blocking process is separate. Hence for IT managers to block viewing access to websites. claiming it’s done for spam prevention. suggests they’re grossly incompetent – not telling the truth – or both.

Second, the article above may not make it clear that – as far as I can tell – most MPs and Senators are simply unaware their web access in Parliament House is “filtered”. There’s no evidence know of that any of them are told that some websites are blocked – or informed which sites are blocked and why. I’d thought that was implicit in what I’d written, but perhaps it needs to be spelled out more clearly.

I urge Australians to write to their own MPs/Senators and bring this subject to their attention. Please feel free to post comments to this article so we can share information about who knows what – and what, if anything, our Parliamentarians are doing to restore their own civil liberties!

Speculations on a Sustainable Political Economy from a Human Ecology Perspective

I wrote a short (20,000 word) thesis to complete a B Litt degree in Human Ecology (in the Dept of Geography) at the Australian National University in the early 1990s. After many delays it was written and submitted, as best I can recall, in 1992.

The title of the thesis is Speculations on a Sustainable Political Economy from a Human Ecology Perspective

One of the examiners at the time suggested it could be re-worked for more general publication – but my life moved rapidly in a different direction and I never attempted to do so.

To be suitable for publication now it would need considerable editing and updating. Nevertheless I believe the basic ideas I articulated then have stood the test of time. I haven’t substantially changed my mind about them. The document may be of some interest to others so I’m now making it available online.

It was the product of a younger man trying to understand – and change – the world.

The Abstract, written at the time, summarises the basic argument of my 1992 thesis:

This generation is confronted by a social and ecological crisis of unprecedented dimensions. Modem humanity’s chronically unsustainable way of life jeopardises the future well-being – possibly the survival - of our species, and the health of our planetary environment. Unprecedented changes are needed to resolve this crisis, including active management of humanity’s global economy to facilitate maximization of human welfare constrained by ecological guidelines designed to maximise prospects for long-term sustainability. This in tum necessitates conscious transformation of the political framework within which we manage our affairs, including the formation of a supreme, democratic global polity.

I now appreciate much better forces that might resist such changes and the extent to which they go to pursue an alternative agenda.

In the early 1990s, I thought it likely the main opposition to instituting democratic globalism would come from nationalists determined to cling onto the past – as well, perhaps, as transnational companies seeking to continue to perpetuate the unfair advantages they gain from trading within the anarchic conditions of inadequately administered inter-national relations.

I now believe there’s a greater threat of which at the time I was largely unaware. I refer to the (hypothesised) attempt by a cryptocratic plutocracy to impose its own, autocratic and highly undemocratic form of globalism on the world.

In Anglo-Australian culture two decades ago “globalism” was regarded mainly as an idealistic curiosity. Today the view then held by only a few – that globalism is actually an evil plot – now seems much more common and plausible.

There’s a reason it seems more plausible. Some form of malevolent cryprocracy clearly exists – and has been pushing with ever-increasing tempo, over the last two decades, to re-fashion western civilisation into a rapacious, militarised and duplicitous enforcer of its own partisan agenda.

After 9/11, this has been ever more impossible for honest, courageous and engaged intellects to deny. There truly IS a powerful push to develop a global polity – but from what we can glean, the intentions and modus operandi of those behind it are malevolent, immoral and utterly unacceptable to humanity as a whole.

Should we conclude that establishing global political union has become undesirable – as well as not feasible or premature (the common refrains 20 years ago)?

I think not. The need to establish a global political movement that can bring to fruition what Phillip Allott describes as ‘Eunomia’ is ever-more pressing.

What’s very exciting and offers grounds for optimism is the extraordinarily rapid progress made over the last two decades in information technology and telecommunications. We now have the technology to complement the ideal. We can make our human world more intelligent – quickly and in an ecologically affordable way.

The key goal now is to also make it healthy (whole) and wise.

_________________

Note: The document (my old thesis) has recently been digitized from printed copy prepared at the time.

I haven’t tidied up the PDF document generated automatically via the use of optical character recognition software (OCR) – so it does contain typos over and above any perfections in the original.

To make it easier for readers to find what may interest them in the document, I’ve reproduced below the List of Contents page with original page numbers:

LIST OF CONTENTS

LIST OF DIAGRAMS – p.6
ABSTRACT – p.7
INTRODUCTION – p.8
CHAPTER 1 …… THE MODERN CRISIS FROM A HUMAN ECOLOGY PERSPECTIVE – p.11
Cultural Adaptation to the ‘Modem Crisis’ – p.12
The New Environmentalism – p.14
CHAPTER 2 …… THE IDEA OF SUSTAINABILITY – p.19
Sustainability – p.19
From Stockholm to WCED – p.21
Eco!ogy’s Radica! Currents – p.23
CHAPTER 3 …… RE-UNITING ECOS – p.28
The Growth of Environmental Economics -p.28
Towards Eco-Development… – p.33
CHAPTER 4 …… SPECULATIONS ON A SUSTAINABLE POLITICAL ECONOMY – p.39
The Implications of the WCED – p.40
Economic Globalisation – p.41
Building a Global Community – p.45
CONCLUSION – p.51
APPENDIX A The ‘BiohistoricaI’ Conceptual Framework – p.52
APPENDIX B The Terms ‘Polity’, ‘Economy’ and ‘Political Economy’ – p.58
BIBLIOGRAPHY – p.60