Interview with Swiss banker reveals Bilderberg 2011 plans for internet censorship are coming

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Bilderberg 2011

In an interview with a prominent Swiss banker by WeAreChange on the 30th of May 2011, the deeply interconnected relations between high level management of Swiss banks and the Bilderberg club are exposed. It becomes clear that Bilderberg uses Swiss banks for money laundering activities, funding of government overthrows, killings and bankrupting countries.

Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank and member of the Bilderberg steering committee, is named as one of the important figures with plans to censor the internet and shut down one of the last places where free speech interferes with their plans for complete control.
Find the full interview below:

Q: Can you tell us something about your involvement in the Swiss banking business?
A: I have worked for Swiss banks for many years. I was designated as one of the top directors of one of the biggest Swiss banks. During my work I was involved in the payment, in the direct payment in cash to a person who killed the president of a foreign country. I was in the meeting where it was decided to give this cash money to the killer. This gave me dramatic headaches and troubled my conscience. It was not the only case that was really bad but it was the worst.
It was a payment instruction on order of a foreign secret service written by hand giving the order to pay a certain amount to a person who killed the top leader of a foreign country. And it was not the only case. We received several such hand written letters coming from foreign secret services giving the order to payout cash from secret accounts to fund revolutions or for the killing of people. I can confirm what John Perkins has written in his book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”. There really exists just a system and Swiss banks are involved in such cases.

Q: Perkins book is also translated and available in Russian. Can you tell us which bank it is and who was responsible?
A: It was one of the top three Swiss banks at that time and it was the president of a country in the third world. But I don’t want to give out to many details because they will find me very easily if I say the name of the president and the name of the bank. I will risk my life.

Q: You can’t name any person in the bank either?
A: No I can’t, but I can assure you this happened. We were several persons in the meeting room. The person in charge of the physical payment of the cash came to us and asked us if he is allowed to payout such a big amount in cash to that person and one of the directors explained the case and all others said ok you can do it.

Q: Did this happened often? Was this kind of a slush fund?
A: Yes. This was a special fund managed in a special place in the bank were all the coded letters came in from abroad. The most important letters were hand written. We had to decipher them and in them was the order to pay a certain amount of cash from accounts for the assassination of people, funding revolutions, funding strikes, funding all sorts of parties. I know that certain people who are Bilderbergers were involved in such orders. I mean they gave the orders to kill.

Q: Can you tell us in what year or decade this happened?
A: I prefer not to give you the precise year but it was in the 80’s.

Q: Did you have a problem with this work?
A: Yes, a very big problem. I could not sleep for many days and after a while I left the bank. If I give you too many details they will trace me. Several secret services from abroad, mostly English speaking, gave orders to fund illegal acts, even the killing of people thru Swiss banks. We had to pay on the instructions of foreign powers for the killing of persons who did not follow the orders of Bilderberg or the IMF or the World Bank for example.

Q: This is a very startling revelation that you are making. Why do you feel the urge to say this now?
A: Because Bilderberg is meeting in Switzerland. Because the world situation is getting worse and worse. And because the biggest banks in Switzerland are involved  in unethical activities. Most of these operations are outside the balance sheet. It is a multiple of what is officially declared. Its not audited and happening without any taxes. The figures involved have a lot of zeros. Its huge amounts.

Q: So its billions?
A: Its much more, its trillions, completely unaudited, illegal and besides the tax system. Basically it’s a robbery of everybody. I mean most normal people are paying taxes and abiding by the laws. What is happening here is complete against our Swiss values, like neutrality, honesty and good faith. In the meetings I was involved in, the discussions where completely against our democratic principles. You see, most of the directors of Swiss banks are not locals anymore, they are foreigners, mostly Anglo-Saxon, either American or British, they don’t respect our neutrality, they don’t respect our values, they are against our direct democracy, they just use the Swiss banks for their illegal means.

They use huge amounts of money created out of nothing and they destroy our society and destroy the people world wide just for greed. They seek power and destroy whole countries, like Greece, Spain, Portugal or Ireland and Switzerland will be one of the last in line. And they use China as working slaves. And a person like Josef Ackermann, who is a Swiss citizen, is the top man at a German bank and he uses his power for greed and does not respect the common people. He has quite a few legal cases in Germany and also now in the States. He is a Bilderberger and does not care about Switzerland or any other country.

Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank

Q: Are you saying, some of these people that you mention will be at the up-coming Bilderberg meeting in June in St. Moritz?
A: Yes.

Q: So they are currently in a position of power?
A: Yes. They have huge amounts of money available and use it to destroy whole countries. They destroy our industry and build it up in China. On the other hand they opened up the gates in Europe for all Chinese products. The working population of Europe is earning less and less. The real aim is to destroy Europe.

Q: Do you think that the Bilderberg meeting in St. Moritz has symbolic value? Because in 2009 they where in Greece, 2010 in Spain and look what happened to them. Does this mean Switzerland can expect something bad?
A: Yes. Switzerland is one of the most important countries for them, because there is so much capital here. They are meeting there because apart from other things they want to destroy all values that Switzerland stands for. You see it’s an obstacle for them, not being in the EU or Euro, not totally controlled by Brussels and so on. Regarding values I am not talking about the big Swiss banks, because they are not Swiss anymore, most of them are lead by Americans. I am talking about the real Swiss spirit that the common people cherish and hold up.

Sure it has symbolic value, as you said, regarding Greece and Spain. Their aim is to be a kind of exclusive elite club that has all the power and everybody else is impoverished and down.

Q: Do you think that the aim of Bilderberg is to create a kind of global dictatorship, controlled by the big global corporations, were there are no sovereign states anymore?
A: Yes and Switzerland is the only place left with direct democracy and its in their way.  They use the blackmail of “too big to fail” as in the case of UBS to put our country in big debt, just like they did with many other countries. In the end maybe they want to do with Switzerland what they did with Iceland, with all the banks and the country bankrupt.

Q: And also bring it in to the EU?
A: Of course. The EU is under the iron grip of Bilderberg.

Q: What do you think could stop this plan?
A: Well that’s the reason I speak to you. Its truth. Truth is the only way. Put a light on this situation, expose them. They don’t like to be in the spotlight. We have to create transparency in the banking industry and in all levels of society.

Q: What you are saying is, there is a correct side to the Swiss banking business and there are a few big banks that are misusing the financial system for their illegal activities.
A: Yes. The big banks are training their staff with Anglo-Saxon values. They are training them to be greedy and ruthless. And greed is destroying Switzerland and everybody else. As a country we have a majority of the most correct operating banks in the world, if you look at the small and midsize banks. Its just the big ones who operate globally that are a problem. They are  not Swiss anymore and don’t consider themselves as such.

Q: Do you think it is a good thing that people are exposing Bilderberg and showing who they really are?
A: I think the Strauss-Kahn case is a good chance for us, because it shows these people are corrupt, sick in their minds, so sick they are full of vices and those vices are kept under wraps on their orders. Some of them like Strauss-Kahn rape women, others are sado maso, or pedophile and many are into Satanism. When you go in some banks you see these Satanist symbols, like in the Rothschild Bank in Zurich. These people are controlled by black-mail because of the weaknesses they have. They have to follow orders or they will be exposed, they will be destroyed or even killed. The reputation of Strauss-Kahn is not only killed in the mass media, he could be killed also literally.

Q: Since Ackermann is in the steering committee of Bilderberg, do you think he is a big decision maker there?
A: Yes. But there are many others, like Lagarde, wo will probably be the next IMF head, also a member of Bilderberg, then Sarkozy and Obama.  They have a new plan to censor the internet, because the internet is still free. They want to control it and use terrorism or what ever as a reason. They could even plan something horrible so that they have an excuse.

Internet censorship is coming

Q: So that is your fear?
A: Its not only a fear, I am certain of it. As I said, they gave orders to kill, so they are capable of terrible things. If they have the feeling they are losing control, like the uprising now in Greece and Spain and maybe Italy will be next, then they can do another Gladio. I was close to the Gladio network. As you know they instigated terrorism paid by American money to control the political system in Italy and other European countries. Regarding the murder of Aldo Moro, the payment was done thru the same system as I told you about.

Q: Was Ackermann part of this payment system at a Swiss bank?
A:  (S m i l e) … you are the journalist. Look at his career and how fast he made it to the top.

Q: What do you think can be done to hinder them?
A: Well there are many good books out there that explain the background and connect the dots, like the one I mentioned by Perkins. These people really have hit men that get paid to kill. Some of them get their money thru Swiss banks. But not only, they have a system set up all over the world. And to expose to the public these people that are prepared to do anything to keep control. And I mean anything.

Q: Thru exposure we could stop them?
A: Yes, telling the truth. We are confronted with really ruthless criminals, also big war criminals. Its worse then genocide. They are ready and able to kill millions of people just to stay in power and in control.

Q: Can you explain from your view, why the mass media in the west is more or less completely silent regarding Bilderberg?
A: Because there is an agreement between them and the owners of the media. You don’t talk about it. They buy them. Also some of the top media figures are invited to the meetings but are told not to report anything they see and hear.

Q: In the structure of Bilderberg, is there an inner circle that knows the plans and then there is the majority who just follow orders?
A: Yes. You have the inner circle who are into Satanism and then there are the naive or less informed people. Some people even think they are doing something good, the outer circle.

Q: According to exposed documents and own statements, Bilderberg decided back in 1955 to create the EU and the Euro, so they made important and far reaching decisions.
A: Yes and you know that Bilderberg was founded by Prince Bernard, a former member of the SS and Nazi party and he also worked for IG Farben, who’s subsidiary produced Cyclone B. The other guy was the head of Occidental Petroleum who had close relations to the communists in the Sowjetunion. They worked both sides but really these people are fascists who want to control everything and everybody and who gets in their way is removed.

Q: Is the payment system you explained outside of normal operations, compartmentalized and in secret?
A: In those Swiss banks the normal employees don’t know this is happening. Its like an own secret department in the bank. As I said these operations are outside of the balance sheet, with no supervision. Some are situated in the same building, others are outside. They have their own security and special area where only authorized people can enter.

Q: How do they keep these transactions out of the international Swift system?
A: Well some of the Clearstream listings where true in the beginning. They just included fake names to make people believe the whole list is fake. You see they also make mistakes. The first list was true and you can trace a lot of things. You see, there are people around that discover irregularities and the truth and they tell it. Afterwards of course there are law suits and these people are forced to shut up.
The best way to stop them is to tell the truth, put the spot light on them. If we don’t stop them we will end up as their slaves.

Q: Thanks you for this interview.

Full Credits go to WeAreChange

Tagged as: bankrupt countries, Bilderberg 2011 plans, black-mail, censor, censorship, CHF, currency, Deutsche Bank, EUR, Euro, Europe, federal reserve bank, Geneva, IMF, intel, International monetary fund, internet, internet censorship, Josef Ackermann, Kahn, Lagarde, murder, pedophiles, rape, Rotschild, Rotschild Bank, Satan, Satanist, St. Moritz, Strauss, Strauss-Kahn, Swiss banker, web, world bank, Zurich

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Bilderberg 2011: Background, Preview and Predictions

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The annual meeting of royalty, politicians, business moguls and academics known as the Bilderberg Conference is set to take place later this week. This year’s confab will run from June 9th to the 12th at the Grand Hotel Kempinski in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

The conference is a yearly get-together of 130 of the who’s who of Europe and North America, from David Rockefeller to Josef Ackermann to Queen Beatrix. The group, which takes its name from the name of the hotel where the first meeting was held, has traditionally convened under a media blackout, with those members of the press and media moguls in attendance agreeing to forego reporting on the proceedings.

Since the group’s founding in 1954, a handful of researchers and independent journalists have worked to expose the group and its activities, but it is only with the rise of the online alternative media that Bilderberg has come to mainstream attention.

The organization has had to become more open in recent years, and now operates an official website, BilderbergMeetings.org, which lists the group’s steering committee membership, agenda of past meetings, and press releases repeating the official justification for the group’s secrecy:

“Bilderberg is a small, flexible, informal and off-the-record international forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual understanding enhanced,” notes the official press release from the 2010 press conference, before adding “At the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued…all participants attend Bilderberg in a private and not an official capacity.”

The description is not merely a reflection of the group’s modesty. As the annual meeting brings together heads of state, finance and defence ministers, state governors and other elected representatives with private business moguls, attendees are generally breaking the laws of their respective countries in engaging in the conference. Under the Logan Act, for instance, it is a crime for any US citizen to negotiate with a foreign nation on the USA’s behalf.

As a gathering of some of the richest and most influential people on the planet, the conference is a lightning rod for criticism and speculation about the group’s true purpose. This speculation is not unfounded, as investigative journalists like Jim Tucker and Daniel Estulin have been able to predict numerous world events from discussions that their sources were able to smuggle out of past conferences. Such instances include:

Jim Tucker’s successful 2002 prediction based on Bilderberg intel that the Iraq War would be launched in March of 2003.

Daniel Estulin’s on-camera revelation from the 2006 conference that the Bilderberg members were planning to pop the housing bubble later that year to precipitate a general banking crisis
And Jim Tucker’s 2009 prediction that Bilderberg were going to use the financial crisis to work behind the scenes on the construction of a closer North American governmental integration, something that was once again confirmed by newly-revealed Canadian diplomatic cables detailing how lawmakers have been quietly working on just such an integration for years.

In 1991, a then-unknown governor of Arkansas was invited to attend Bilderberg, the year before becoming President of the United States.

In 1993, Tony Blair attended the Bilderberg meeting in Athens, Greece. The next year, he was appointed leader of the Labour party.

On the campaign trail in 2008, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama disappeared for a secret meeting near Washington. Their private limos were seen entering the Chantilly, Virginia hotel where the Bilderberg meeting was taking place that same day.

Earlier this week I talked to Andrew Marshall, a research associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization, about this year’s conference, and the significance of the Bilderberg meetings.
In recent years, mainstream news outlets that have been forced to address the increasingly infamous meetings have resorted to downplaying the meeting’s significance, stressing that no decisions are made at the conference and policy is not set there.

This year, the Swedish news outlet TheLocal.se has been the first major outlet to address the meeting. In a piece entitled “Debunking the mystique of the Bilderberg Group,” the website quotes a Sweden-based academic who has written a new book on the subject attempting to dismiss the idea that anything of importance is actually discussed behind closed doors.

“To suggest that they [the Bilderbergers] are consciously coming together to agree on objectives to change the world is wrong,” Dr. Ian Richardson is quotes as saying in the article.
This claim is particularly puzzling given the repeated admissions and revelations that the group has demonstrably been working toward consciously shaping international policy and using their members’ influence to implement their policy objectives.

Leaked documents (password: “dynbase”) from the second-ever Bilderberg conference in 1955 reveal that even at that time Bilderberg was devoted to the creation of a European Union and a single European currency. Two years later the Treaty of Rome, now officially regarded as the birth of the European Union, was signed into existence by, among others, Bilderberg attendee Paul-Henri Spaak.
In March of 2009, former EU commissioner and current Bilderberg Steering Committee Chairman Etienne Davignon admitted to the EU Observer that Bilderberg had been instrumental in creating the Euro currency in the 1990s.

Just last year, former NATO Secretary-General and two-time Bilderberg attendee Willy Claes admitted that Bilderberg attendees are expected to use reports from Bilderberg meetings to set policies in their respective countries.

Despite all of this evidence to the contrary, look for more mainstream news reports in the coming days dismissing all talk of the importance of the Bilderberg conference as conspiracy theory.

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Spirit of Independence William Lloyd-George Takes a Journey through West Papua

A TPN rebel at base camp in the jungle of West Papua. © KC Ortiz

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William Lloyd-George

As I stand next to a lively fruit market on my first day in West Papua’s biggest city, Jayapura, a local rushes across the road to greet me. He’s smartly dressed, as is his son whose hand he holds. “Hello, where are you from?” he says, wiping sweat from his forehead. Before I can answer he moves closer and whispers in perfect English. “I have no job and no future. The Indonesians have taken everything from us. I hope you can tell the world.” Without any further conversation, he thanks me for my time and disappears into the crowd. It’s a sentiment echoed throughout resource-rich West Papua, the last frontier of Indonesia – from the highland rainforests to the vast white coast and shabby streets of Jayapura.

To show their discontent with the status quo nearly 2000 students and activists have gathered down the road to protest outside the local parliament building. The mostly young protestors chant freedom songs and give speeches detailing human rights abuses and injustices committed by Indonesian security forces.

It’s too dangerous to meet them now. On all sides of the protest, riot police stand guard, flanked by water-cannon tanks. Foreign journalists are not allowed in West Papua – neither are diplomats unless they have special permission – so talking to any protestor would mean trouble for both parties. I watch for a few minutes, before my worried local contact hurries me on. The next day the student group that organised the protest agrees to meet me on the outskirts of dense jungle to avoid detection by Indonesian intelligence. The students all come from different parts of West Papua and have formed a coalition. They are part of a new generation of activists savvy with mobile phones and online social media.

An older, bearded spokesman, Sylebus Bobby, takes the lead. “We are protesting against Indonesian rule over our land,” he says, twiddling a wooden cross dangling from his neck. “Under Indonesian rule there has been no development of the education or health sectors, and they have committed countless human rights abuses against our people.” They have all been watching the protests across the Middle East. “We are inspired by their bravery, and hope we can topple the neo-colonials who control our land like they have,” says a younger student while tapping away on his phone. “It’s difficult for us though,” another student jumps in. “Every time we try to protest they put pressure on us to stop, using any force they can.” Sylebus Bobby nods his head, exaggerating his neck motion. When he was a young theology student he led a protest, just outside his university. Standing in front of thousands of students, and a heavily armed anti-riot police unit, he raised the Morning Star flag, which has come to symbolise West Papua’s independence movement. He was quickly bundled in the back of a truck and taken off to detention. Charged under a draconian treason act left over from colonial times, it was five years before he was released from prison. “We will never stop fighting until we get independence for our land, even if we have to die for it,” he declares.

Although Indonesia gained independence in 1949, the Dutch government kept control over West Papua until 1961. Keen to get his hands on the western half of New Guinea, Indonesia’s first president, Kusno Sosrodihardjo (more commonly known as President Sukarno), made repeated attempts through the United Nations to gain ownership. As these failed, Indonesia followed with military campaigns, aiming to take the island by force using tens of thousands of heavily armed troops.

At the time of the Kennedy administration, Australia and other nations were keen to avoid confrontation with Indonesia, fearing it would lose another Asian nation to communism. The United States coordinated talks between the Dutch and Jakarta to broker the New York Agreement in 1962. The agreement transferred control of the colony to Indonesia on the condition it committed to a referendum – the Act of Free Choice – no later than 1969, intended to allow indigenous Papuans to vote for independence.

While the Papuan people waited for the Act of Free Choice, the Indonesian government had already begun to extend rule into West Papua. The Papuan government was dismantled and, at one point, Indonesia’s new president, General Suharto, indicated there would be no Act of Free Choice. He later U-turned and allowed for 1025 handpicked Papuans – out of a population of over 1 million – to vote in 1969. These ‘representatives’ unanimously voted for West Papua to remain within Indonesian sovereignty amid allegations Indonesian authorities had threatened voters, leaving them with little choice.

In a 1968 cable from the US, an American diplomat had warned that Washington “should not become directly involved in this issue” and put forward that the UN and other countries should accept Indonesia’s plans to control West Papua. Just over a decade before, Australia had supported the reunification of the two halves of New Guinea, the east of which was under its control. However, by the time the New York Agreement had come around, Australia was also keen to stay on side with Indonesia.

In an incident well known by the students in West Papua today, Australian police went out of their way to stop two West Papuan activists meeting the UN in New York in 1969. The activists were obstructed as they were boarding a plane in New Guinea, en route to the US, and were threatened with arrest if they did not leave voluntarily. “If they had made it to the UN and argued our case for independence, things could be a lot of different now,” says one of the students. “It might have stopped the killing of thousands of our people.”

It is now beyond doubt that Australia and the international community were aware of what the Indonesians were doing. An Australian diplomatic cable at the time said that “West Papua had to carry out [the referendum] in months what experts said should have taken five years.” Another stated that “Papuans had inadequate information about the act [of Free Choice]” and “rights of free speech and freedom of movement were not fully implemented amid tight political control”.

A British Foreign and Commonwealth Office briefing that year found “the process of consultation did not allow a genuinely free choice to be made”, while the US Ambassador to Indonesia said “95% of indigenous Papuans wanted to have freedom.” West Papuans across the country saw the Act of Free Choice as a complete sham, fuelling protests and inspiring men to take up arms. The Indonesian military launched brutal campaigns across the island to quell dissent. Thousands of refugees fled to Papua New Guinea and members of the resistance built up armed groups deep in the jungle – where they remain today still fighting for independence.

To meet the rebels we leave just before sunset and to avoid the Indonesian army we take a lengthy boat trip along Papua’s pristine coastline. Late that night we see three lanterns flickering in the sea. “It’s the rebel port,” a soldier in the boat tells me. We’re greeted by a group of young men dressed in camouflage shorts and vests. They sit down and chew betel, adding colour to their already red-stained mouths, and laugh among themselves. The oldest of the group, wearing just a loincloth, walks down past a couple of bamboo huts to a river. Under a sky full of stars, the fisherman uses a burning lantern and spear to catch dinner. A short while later, the satisfied soldiers sit around on the floor of their hut telling traditional stories. Through the rest of the night, the sounds of intermittent bursts of laughter and song can be heard.

The next day we wake up at dawn. Following a gruelling trek through jungle swamp and over steep mountains we arrive at one of the rebels’ strongholds. All the soldiers have come together to greet me. A few wear military uniform, the rest are dressed traditionally, which consists of feathered headpieces and white clay smeared on their faces. Around their necks many have monkey-paw necklaces; foliage is tucked into bamboo armbands to symbolise protection. They all salute, and a gunshot is fired.

These soldiers are members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN), the military wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM). Since Indonesia took control of West Papua, the ragtag tribal army has been engaged in a low-intensity conflict with the ‘foreign’ military forces. Poorly armed, the TPN is severely disadvantaged in the face of its well-funded enemy. A few have old machine guns, the rest carry traditional spears or bows and arrows. The geographical vastness and lack of communication infrastructure, mixed with Melanesian tribal spirit, has also created divisions in the rebel ranks. In the past a number of self-titled ‘supreme commanders’ have run their own somewhat autonomous armed groups.

Seeing these divisions as a major hindrance to efforts at gaining international support, exiled leadership in Vanuatu has attempted, in recent years to unite the groups. After a series of unification meetings, one commander, Richard Yoweni, was voted in to head up the rebel army. “We have been trying to unite all independence forces under one umbrella,” says General Yoweni, surrounded by his commanders in the camp’s bamboo meeting room. “Only when we are united can we seek international support and mediation for dialogue with Jakarta.” The general, now aged 69, maintains an intense glare, fitting for the longest-running commander in the movement. He was a young engineering student when the Act of Free Choice took place. Hearing about the oppression by Indonesia of West Papuan people at the time, he came back to join the rebels’ ranks, where he has since remained.

General Yoweni says the TPN has repeatedly asked for negotiations with the Indonesian government without any progress. “We have demanded talks with Jakarta with an international mediator but they said they won’t allow it,” he says, suggesting the Indonesian government is worried they will lose West Papua if the issue is internationalised. “Many times Papuans have gone to Jakarta but the Indonesians bribe them with money and they return with nothing. We’re not prepared to let that happen anymore.”

Despite the TPN’s hopes, Indonesia has repeatedly stated the formation of an independent West Papua is completely out of the question. In 2001, however, following widespread protests and public pressure, Jakarta formed the Special Autonomy scheme, which stated it would transfer power to the Papuan people to self-govern. The move was approved by the Howard government, which publicly supported self-determination for West Papua but ruled out independence. Commenting on Special Autonomy, General says, “I will not even consider it. Under the New York Agreement we were promised ‘one man, one vote’ and the power to vote for independence.” For the students and urban activists I spoke with, Special Autonomy is seen to have completely failed. During the recent student protest the group handed a letter to the governor’s secretary declaring that it deemed the law to be “a complete failure and we’re giving it back”.

An Indonesian government spokesperson, Herry Sudradjat, told me that “separatists have long played up the failure of autonomy to gain political points”. The government sees the autonomy scheme to be “a win–win solution, enabling our brothers and sisters in Papua to govern their own house and to manage their own affairs”. Sudradjat believes the alternative – “separatism” – is a “dangerous idea” that would lead to “unnecessary conflict benefiting no one”. While supporting the autonomy scheme, the government “accepts that the current implementation of the autonomy is by no means perfect or without flaws”. Admitting there are “weaknesses that have to be addressed and improvements to be sought”, Sudradjat says Indonesia is willing to work for “constructive dialogue … as long as it is still within the corridor of the Unitary State of Indonesia”.

One group has been trying to achieve just that. Spearheaded by Neles Tebay, a Papuan academic, and Dr Muridan Widjojo, an Indonesian civil servant, the Papuan Peace Network has been pushing for Papua–Jakarta dialogue to end the deadlock. “The calls for dialogue have made some progress but a lack of solid interest by the Indonesian government has prevented us from making any substantial ground,” Dr Widjojo tells me.

Student activists are getting increasingly frustrated with the stalemate. “While no progress is being made we continue to suffer under their occupation of our land,” says one young geography student. “Special Autonomy is not a win–win situation, it is a complete failure. Still we are discriminated against by the Indonesian authorities, and all the jobs go to non-Papuans.”

It is reported that, in the 1960s, the Indonesian government provided benefits to non-Papuan migrants wishing to settle in West Papua. Statistics suggest that in 1940 99% of the region’s population were native Papuans; now more than half of the region’s residents are non-Papuan. In the future this imbalance is expected to worsen as more foreign investors arrive.

According to Jago Wadley, senior forest campaigner for the Environmental Investigation Agency, if the fast rate of resource extraction continues, Papua will “lose millions of hectares of forests [and] be stripped of valuable resources without the benefits of value-adding industries to create wealth and jobs locally”. Instead, only foreign companies, Jakarta and a small group of Papuan elites will benefit. Wadley adds that the rising interest in Papua’s resources “will see an influx of millions of migrants from other parts of Indonesia, likely limiting indigenous Papuans to a tiny minority in their own land”. Some commentators, he notes, see the rapid development as “politically ideological in its aims” and an “effective foil to calls for independence”.

Commenting on this, David Arkins, secretary of the Australia West Papua Association, says what is happening in West Papua could be called a “slow genocide” and that there is a real danger of the native people becoming a minority in their own country. “The Australian government has a moral obligation, after our own record with the Aboriginal people, to intervene and stop the situation from deteriorating,” he says. “The Australian government has to put trade interests aside and lead an international campaign to liberate the Papuan people from Indonesia before it’s too late.”

Not all Papuans support independence. Nicholas Messet, a Papuan native and vice-chairman of the Independent Group Supporting the Autonomous Region of Papua, advocates for Special Autonomy. “Papuan people need to stop dreaming of independence; it will never happen. We have been given Special Autonomy so we need to make the most of it,” Messet tells me from his office in Indonesia. “Look at all the other Melanesian countries: they can’t deal with democracy, it just creates more problems and turmoil.”

Messet, a former freedom-fighter leader, gave up his gun and now advocates for Special Autonomy. His support for Indonesian rule is echoed by a group of Papuan elites who have benefited from Indonesian investment. Around town they can be seen in flashy cars going to and from business deals, and their villas overlook the Pacific Ocean. “They are traitors, paid by the Indonesian government – it’s part of their policy of ‘divide and rule’,” says one of the students, holding a woven bag imprinted with the Morning Star. “The rest of the country is suffering in poverty.”

The United Nations Development Programme says about 35% of West Papua’s population lives below the poverty line, contrasting with a Indonesian national average of about 13%. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, secondary school enrolment in Papua is only 60% compared with a national average of 91%. While most of the native West Papuan population lives in abject poverty, the Indonesian government and foreign companies make vast profits from Papuan resources.

A major grievance and source of conflict over the years has been the Grasberg Mine – the largest copper–gold mine in the world. Owned by American mining giant Freeport-McMoRan, the mine generates US$4 billion of the company’s $6.5 billion annual revenue. British–Australian mining company Rio Tinto has a joint venture, entitling it to a 40% stake, and in the past it has injected cash into the operation to expand production. The company relies on Australia for supplies, coming by ship from storage facilities in Cairns.

The Grasberg Mine has been criticised by environmental groups worldwide – and by Indonesia’s own environment ministers – for the severe damage caused by its waste deposits. The Norwegian government went as far as divesting around $1 billion of shares in Rio Tinto, citing concern over environmental damages from the mine. Other concerns lie in Freeport-McMoRan–Rio Tinto paying the Indonesian military millions of dollars every year to protect the mine.

According to Andreas Harsono, an Indonesian consultant for Human Rights Watch, these companies’ use of Indonesian military for security has increased human rights abuses in the highlands: “There has been land grabbing and direct abuses on civilians suspected of supporting the OPM.”

Last year a leaked video, shown on news channels across the world, showed Indonesian soldiers pinning down a West Papuan civilian and burning his genitals while demanding to know where the TPN keeps their weapons and accusing him of being a rebel.

On my last day in West Papua I met with pastor Panus Jikwa who has lived in the highlands near the Grasberg Mine all his life. The pastor breaks down in tears as he recalls the horrors that have occurred in his community. “The [Indonesian] military just comes in to our villages and oppresses our people, accusing everyone of being a rebel,” he says. “I have stood up time and time again to the soldiers, I have had guns waved in my face, but I will always stand up for my people.”

West Papuans are not the military’s only victims. Various shootings of Freeport-McMoRan staff, including the murder of Australian project manager Drew Grant in 2009, are suspected to have been the work of military forces seeking to demonstrate to foreigners the necessity of their presence in the region. The need to show this increased after Freeport-McMoRan cut official ties with the military in 2007 and control was handed over to local police by Jakarta.

Despite the Indonesian military’s recorded human rights abuses in West Papua, the Australian government continues to maintain military ties, and trains and funds its forces – including the Kopassus Special Forces, involved in the invasion of East Timor in 1975. TPN spokesman Jonah Wenda calls on the Australian government to stop all military aid to Indonesia.

Sitting in a gloomy safe house on the outskirts of Jayapura, he begs Australia to lead the international community in intervening and setting up a dialogue, as occurred in East Timor, which would lead to their independence. Otherwise, he warns, West Papua could become a “regional humanitarian crisis”.

Sylebus Bobby shares Wenda’s concerns. He says his group will not stop organising protests until they have gained independence. Despite the dangers faced, the group already has several major demonstrations planned. Sylebus Bobby isn’t scared to go back to jail but begs the world for assistance. “Every Papuan person wants independence, this is not a problem that is going to go away, it’s only going to get worse,” he says. “If the international community doesn’t help us, West Papuan people will slowly perish while fighting for the independence we deserve.”

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What’s Right? Peter van Onselen on the Future of the Liberal Party

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Peter van Onselen

If members of the parliamentary Liberal Party are asked which faction they are aligned with, the moderates or conservatives, most will tell you with a straight face that there are no factions inside the liberal party. Some will insist ‘faction’ is the wrong terminology; tendencies, ideological clusters or personality groupings are better ways to identify how Liberal MPs choose to sub-group. One of the few parliamentary Liberals who seriously thinks about the philosophical direction of the party, the deputy leader in the Senate, George Brandis, claims: “It is now as commonplace to speak of the conservative and liberal (or moderate) wings of the Liberal Party as it is to speak of the socialist Left and Right factions of the ALP.” Speak of, perhaps. But in reality the conservative–moderate divide in the Liberal Party has become an antiquated notion. The modern Liberal Party no longer has such easily identifiable ideological groupings and it hasn’t for a long time.

A new way of clustering Liberal MPs has emerged since the Coalition was defeated at the 2007 election. An old-fashioned state-based divide is opening up between the Victorian and New South Wales divisions – and, perhaps more importantly in the short term, an age divide is fracturing the party as the remnants of the John Howard era cling to the hope of victory at the next election while the new generation of Liberal MPs put aside their ideological differences in a collective push for a greater say in the direction the party takes. These divides will determine whether the intellectual heart of the Liberal Party stays in NSW, where it has been for most of the past 25 years, or returns to Victoria, the home of Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies. They will also determine whether the conservatism of the Howard era is extended into a new Tony Abbott era, in which the party is ruled out of NSW, or whether generational change gives the Liberal Party’s more progressive tendencies an injection of ideological life.

A range of factors complicate this relatively simple construct. Joe Hockey is the notional leader of Generation Next within the Liberal Party, yet he is a New South Welshman and a long-serving minister from the Howard government. Abbott is the spiritual leader of the conservative wing of the party as well as the parliamentary leader, yet he advocated the softening of Liberal’s industrial relations agenda, embraced ‘direct action’ on climate change (albeit only after his infamous “absolute crap” remarks) and dragged some of his colleagues kicking and screaming towards a generous paid maternity leave scheme funded by big business. Nevertheless, the conflation of youth and state pride within the Victorian division of the Liberal Party has the potential to challenge the long-held dynamic of NSW – and conservatism – being the key ingredients in determining the shape of the party. Still unclear is whether the state push out of Victoria by the younger MPs will see a more progressive agenda develop, or a continuation of the slide towards pragmatism over ideology amongst our elected representatives – a scourge that afflicts both sides of the major party divide and entrenches traditional conservatism (by that I mean resistance to change).

In his 1967 memoir, Afternoon Light, Robert Menzies wrote: “We took the name ‘Liberal’ because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary but believing in the individual, his rights and his enterprise, and rejecting the Socialist panacea.” This commentary has been used by the progressive wing of the party ever since to justify why Liberals should not allow conservatism to dominate policy and personnel. Conservatives reject the argument, pointing out that for Menzies – himself a conservative on many issues – the rejection of the socialist panacea was the more important part of the descriptor.

For decades non-Labor political parties have been united as much by what they oppose as what issues bind them together. Opposing socialism brought together the Free Traders and the Protectionists in 1909, because the emerging Labor Party was seen as the greater of evils. A large part of the success of Menzies in founding the Liberal Party in 1944 prior to the end of World War II was to re-direct that focus, to proactively appeal to the so-called forgotten people. Menzies’ book used similar rhetoric to re-focus the Liberal Party’s ideology after he retired. However, in office Menzies was the beneficiary of what Liberals opposed far more so than what they collectively represented. Liberals rejected communism and, with that, Labor’s brand of socialism. It was an easy political kill for Menzies during the heady days of the Cold War.

In 1972, after 23 years in opposition, Gough Whitlam tried to do too much in too little time as prime minister, shortening the life of his Labor government in the process. Three years later and Labor was out of power, suffering the largest defeat in federal political history. But the re-elected Liberal Party was back without having thought sufficiently about what its core values were. Opposition to socialism (and interventionist government) only got the party so far. Members were calling for a positive agenda to reflect the times. With Malcolm Fraser and much of his inner circle largely void of political ideas, a new agenda was proffered by the dries – a collection of radical free-market thinkers who wanted to reform the economy and in particular the industrial relations system. Although he was treasurer under Fraser, and therefore bound by cabinet solidarity, John Howard had sympathy for the philosophical thinking of the dries. He proceeded to argue their case, at first quietly, then publicly during the Liberal Party’s most turbulent times in the 1980s and early 1990s, once the Fraser years were over and a deep political wilderness set in as Bob Hawke and Paul Keating pursed the micro-economic reforms that Fraser’s cabinet should have.

While the economic philosophy of the dries wasn’t electorally popular, and support for it within the Liberal Party was spotty at best, it gave Howard the foundations for reforms he would go on to enact in government. It gave the Howard prime ministership policy and ideological ballast, something the Fraser years didn’t have because the remnants of the Menzies era – dominant in the upper echelons of the ministry – were catapulted back into office before the party had learnt the lessons of defeat.

Tony Abbott’s Liberal Party risks emulating Fraser’s unimpressive record as a do-nothing government if elected, rather than that of his political hero, Howard, who reformed in a broad range of areas, from tax to gun laws. Abbott enjoys telling his colleagues: “You can’t govern from the Opposition benches.” The worry, so the argument goes, is that if Oppositions try to lead, they either make themselves the issue or they provide valuable advice that helps poor governments to lift their game.

Attaining power is the first priority for the Abbott Opposition, retaining it comes a close second. Knowing what to do with it is another matter. The patronage of power has become the primary goal for many players from both major parties. The trappings of office – the cars, the travel, the extra staff and the salaries – matter as much, if not more so, than do the opportunities for reform that incumbency affords. Indeed the pursuit of reform becomes something functionaries who feel strongly about retaining power are cautious about because “doing stuff”, as one shadow minister put it to me, entails risks.

Conservatism fits rather neatly with this abiding philosophical approach. Keeping radicals away from power and incompetent Labor ministers away from the levers of Treasury are worthy goals for traditional conservatives. But what does this offer progressives or liberal economic reformers? Or indeed social liberals? Even Howard, who was unashamedly socially conservative, would not have tolerated governing for its own sake (as was clearly apparent from his final-term push for further industrial relations reform in the shape of WorkChoices). While the conservatives undoubtedly entrenched their power base within the Liberal Party during the dominant and strong leadership of Howard, conservatism has become a common ideological choice amongst Liberals today because it fits with the pragmatic goal of winning elections, rather than because that ideological wing of the party is over-represented in the parliament. It is especially evident amongst the leftovers from the Howard era as they face up to the reality that the next election, for many of them, is their last shot at a return to power. Failure likely will end many of their political careers. No point, therefore, risking an agenda built around anything other than reminding voters about Labor failures.

But pragmatic caution is not the only reason for the lack of robust policy discussion: policy debates have been largely settled on the Right of politics. The divisions over industrial relations aren’t what they were when Howard and the dries were pushing for what seemed like radical change at the time. Modern politicians are less defined by their belief structures than they were in previous decades. The functionaries who often gravitate towards political staffing are increasingly moving on to a political career. Also, within the Liberal Party today, ideological differences are in large part limited to issues of conscience, not party political positioning. The parliamentary Liberal Party almost universally agrees on a tough border protection policy, an industrial relations system defined by greater flexibility, reactive action on climate change rather than proactive pricing of carbon, and a construct whereby marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Exceptions to this prove the rule.

Management of the economy based on balancing the books, reducing government debt and stimulating investment are the functional goals of new administrations on the Right of politics. These simple goals are made easier to sell ahead of genuine reform or ideas when Labor governments either put, or appear to put, the goal in jeopardy. While the Abbott Opposition isn’t endowed with the personnel from the Howard era who managed the key economic portfolios, the last Coalition government was recent enough to allow him to use that track record as a tool for his own election. The irony of this is that Abbott in Howard’s cabinet was viewed by his colleagues as one of the less fiscally sound ministers.

Where disagreements emerge between differing Liberal Party ideological tendencies, they are more defined by what approach best suits the political situation of the day than any guiding principles of philosophy. It has been quickly forgotten that this was the case even when Malcolm Turnbull was arguing for putting a price on carbon. The approach was based on a belief that if the conservatives didn’t do this they would suffer severe electoral repercussions at the hands of Kevin Rudd and his advocacy for action to address the “greatest moral and economic challenge of our generation”. Turnbull wasn’t initially standing on pure principle: slowness to act on climate change had been one of the factors that harmed Howard in his quest to win a fifth straight election. Turnbull lost the support of his party when the small number of strong opponents to the emissions trading scheme was joined by a larger number of Liberals who started to question the strategic electoral value in backing Rudd’s plan.

Howard used to say that the Liberal Party was best served when the conservatives ran the show and the moderates were (on occasion) listened to. But after years of conservative dominance of the Liberal Party, there really aren’t moderates who know what issues set them apart. Julie Bishop, Joe Hockey, Christopher Pyne, Scott Morrison, Greg Hunt, George Brandis and Malcolm Turnbull are all variously described as Liberal moderates. Some of them dine out on the tag, even define themselves by it. But it is hard to find issues that seriously set any of this group apart from the conservatives.

Bishop hasn’t taken a moderate approach to asylum seekers since she was slapped down by Howard’s principal private secretary, Tony Nutt, ahead of the 2001 election, when she expressed concerns about children in detention. Morrison, the current shadow immigration spokesman, uses strong rhetoric to defend the Coalition’s tough line on boat people. Pyne is often labelled the leader of the moderates, along with Hockey, yet both men’s strong religious convictions put them at odds with a raft of progressive policy positions. Hunt continues to work in the role of shadow climate change minister (with a title change to ‘climate action’) even though Abbott has moved the party away from pricing carbon – a position Hunt passionately advocated under Turnbull’s leadership. Brandis is currently championing pursuing David Hicks for any profits he might make from his autobiography, even though Hicks’s guilty plea was before a kangaroo court after years of incarceration without charge. Turnbull, while progressive on some social issues when religion doesn’t get in the way, defines himself more as an economic reformer – a policy script that no longer divides progressive and conservative Liberals. About the only issue in recent times that might have split the Liberal Party was the decision to cut into foreign aid spending to fund the flood reconstruction in Queensland. But even on that score the names mentioned fractured in all directions when shadow cabinet debated the issue. Self-describing moderates within the parliamentary Liberal Party like to claim that the era of Howard conservatism is over, replaced by a numerical reality that they are now the dominant force at the top of the party. So far as strict social conservatism goes that might be true. But no more so than it is true that the era of Howard economic liberalism has been lost. Both have fallen victim to pragmatism (of varying descriptions) rather than any sort of moderate ideological resurgence.

The new state-based and age groupings within the Liberal Party are not defined by philosophy; nor are they defined by personality clusters, as they often were when factional grouping masqueraded as ideologically based. Today’s party is divided according to a pragmatic set of circumstances – a state division that wants to reclaim the prize of being the heart and soul of the Liberal Party (Victoria), and a younger group of MPs eyeing rapid advancement, some of whom can see the value in using their statehood to help attain personal political goals.

Since 1985 a New South Welshman has led the Liberal Party for all but two of 26 years (the exceptions being Andrew Peacock from 1989–90, and Alexander Downer for eight months during 1994–95). Prior to that time Billy McMahon was the only leader to have come out of NSW. The 1990 election was the last time the Victorian division returned more MPs than Labor did. Since then Victoria’s powerbase inside the party has diminished, only propped up by the constant allure of a Peter Costello stint as leader, until his retirement towards the end of 2009.

Victorians haven’t even been able to marshal enough support to win the deputy leader’s position since the 2007 defeat. Queensland and Western Australia have emerged as the new secondary powerhouses of state-based authority inside the Liberal party room. A resurgent vote in Queensland for the conservatives at the last federal election and a long-term growth in the WA vote for Liberals and Nationals (such that they now hold 12 of 15 seats in the west) has entrenched the party’s appeal to pioneering mining interests to the detriment of southern state (and sometimes) progressive tendencies.

However, despite its weakened state in terms of numbers in the party room, Victoria is the home of many of the so-called rising stars now in parliament for the Liberals. New Liberal parliamentarians such as Kelly O’Dwyer, Josh Frydenberg, Scott Ryan, Dan Tehan and Alan Tudge are all likely to become ministers before their parliamentary careers are over. A number of them were staffers during the second half of Howard’s leadership, which leaves open the risk that their approach to politics is too narrow for strong reforming zeal. They are joined by a younger generation spread across the country, still waiting for shadow ministerial advancement. Jamie Briggs, Paul Fletcher, Michaelia Cash and Simon Birmingham are such examples. And there are other MPs from Generation Next who have worked their way into junior portfolios but perhaps should have been promoted further already. Mathias Cormann, Marise Payne and Mitch Fifield fit into this category. These groupings of Liberals (with the possible exception of those already in the outer shadow ministry) are united by their pragmatic concern that, if the Coalition wins the next election, they will be shut out from advancement because of the continuation of the Howard second XI or, if the party falls short of victory, it will have been because Abbott refused to renew the party at the executive end when he had the chance.

Younger MPs are always more prepared to pursue risky reform and fight for party reform they believe is necessary for the long-term betterment of the party than are longer-serving MPs because time is on their side. They can risk periods out of power in the short term if the reforms sought (and achieved) place the party in a better situation once elected further down the track. For all the difficulties the Coalition went through in the ’80s and early ’90s, its years in office were undoubtedly improved by what it learnt during that time. The current Liberal Party hasn’t had the chance in the short time it has been out of office to move from acting like a de facto government to an alternative government. De facto governments act as if they have a right to rule; alternative governments develop a set of reasons why they should.

The Victorian division of the Liberal Party felt more pessimistic about Abbott’s leadership ahead of the last election than did other states. A sense of disillusionment continues today, albeit suppressed by the allure of office. When Abbott’s personal ratings fall, it is always the Victorian division quick to raise concerns (usually in conjunction with some of the younger MPs). Several preliminary attempts have been made by Victorians to move Victorian Andrew Robb into the deputy leadership over West Australian MP Julie Bishop, without success. Several younger Victorian MPs believe that they should be on the frontbench but are not.

The question that therefore remains is what impact a generational or state-based shift might have on the current parliamentary Liberal Party. A more powerful Victorian presence could have electoral benefits for Abbott in a state he didn’t poll well in at the last election. But that is a narrow political calculation and Liberal strategists aren’t focused on winning extra seats in Victoria anyway. They are looking to retain their current configuration across the country with the expectation of gains in NSW as the path to majority government. A revival of the authority of the Victorian division is more likely to occur, at least initially, as a consequence of the rise of new talent on the frontbench rather than a swelling of the Victorian numbers in the Liberal party room. If that happens, it could be expected that the younger MPs start to push for more reform of and discussion about political ideas, rather than using the current pitch of a return to the steady hand of the Howard era. But the risk for Liberal Party renewal is that Generation Next is no more ideas-focused than the frontbenchers they will replace, some of whom they worked for as political apparatchiki.

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Wanted for Loitering, Janette Turner Hospital on Central Park, New York

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Janette Turner ...

From the NASA space shuttle, Central Park is visible to the naked eye as a bright emerald bar on the fat knuckle of Manhattan – index finger of New York, principal of the five boroughs that make up the city, indisputably the dominant digit as it pokes the soft underbelly of the Bronx while giving the finger casually, insouciantly, to everything west of the Hudson. If an astronaut were to plunge by re-entry capsule into the heart of the park, she could never be more than around 400 metres from the urban roar of a city of more than 8 million people densely packed. And yet, wandering the labyrinthine paths of the Ramble, surrounded by thick woodland, rocky headlands, rivulets and little stone bridges that cross ravines, she would neither hear nor see the metropolis. This is a miracle.

The wizard behind the miracle was Frederick Law Olmsted, dedicated loiterer and dilettante without formal education who coined the term and invented the profession of ‘landscape architect’. The world’s first ‘earthwork artist’, he himself credited the innovative sanctuaries he designed to the “loitering journeys” of his childhood in the Connecticut countryside, weekend family rambles “in search of the picturesque”, mandated by his father.

Olmsted was born in 1822 in Hartford, Connecticut, into an eighth-generation family whose first immigrant forebear arrived in 1636. Because of illness, Olmsted never attended college. In 1850, he spent six months travelling in Europe, where the parks that had once been royal hunting preserves and the great English estates designed by ‘Capability’ Brown were an illumination to him. The possibility of “arranging Nature” excited him as much as the democratic possibilities of bringing the joys of the countryside to the poor and huddled masses. An ardent abolitionist and social reformer, he believed that beauty had a social and moral purpose. He joined other New Yorkers in lobbying for an urban park that would symbolise everything America stood for: rugged wilderness, a sense of unlimited space, equal opportunity for all.

In July 1853, after much wrangling, the New York State Legislature set aside 700 acres, later expanded to 843 acres, in the heart of Manhattan for a “central park” that would be open to rich and poor, to horsedrawn carriages and pedestrians alike. The wealthy industrial barons in mansions along Fifth Avenue were less than thrilled. “Rather the park should never be made at all,” noted one newspaper, “if it is to become the resort of rapscalians.”

Nevertheless, in 1857, a competition for the design was announced. There were certain restrictions. The designated land was an unpromising stretch of swamp and granite outcrops (which was why it had not been built on) but it surrounded a vital resource: the Croton Reservoir – fed by aqueduct from the Croton River – which supplied the metropolis with pure drinking water. Population growth had outstripped the water supply and so competition guidelines required enlargement of the great holding tank. Four transverse roads across the park were also stipulated. The winner was to receive a $2000 prize.

There were 33 entries. Thirty-two of these proposed the swamps be drained and the reservoir (as per the guidelines) doubled in size. They treated the designated tract between 59th Street and 110th Street much like a rectangular tablecloth on which they embroidered a geometry of lawns and flowerbeds. The four transverse roads lay across the park like guillotine blades, chopping it into segments, though the slashes were to be mitigated with flanking hedges.

The remaining entry, submitted last and late, was called by its designers – Olmsted and architect Calvert Vaux – ‘the Greensward Plan’. This plan must have initially struck the park commissioners like a meteor from the outer galaxies of fantasy. The Greensward Plan did not drain water but added eight new bodies of it, channelling the swamps into lakes and lochs and waterfalls in one intricate flow system interconnected with the reservoir and the kitchen sinks of Manhattan. Olmsted and Vaux were not only moving mountains but making them. They proposed the carting in of thousands of tons of soil, the blasting of rocks and the artful rearrangement of them as naturalistic tumbled boulders on artificial lake shores. Perhaps most significant of all was Olmsted’s brilliant solution for the transverse roads: he proposed the first “sub way” in the US, the roads to be sunk below the park surface in tunnels with trees and meadows above. He also proposed an egalitarian amendment to the custom of the fashionable promenade: there were to be parallel loops of footpaths, bridle paths, and carriage roads, “so that pedestrians may have ample opportunity to look at the equipages and their inmates”.

The Greensward Plan won first prize and became the lifelong – though intermittent – work of Olmsted and Vaux. Both resigned often, exasperated by the stinginess of legislators, the greed of developers, the corrupt city councils. Both kept signing on again and their legacy is gloriously vibrant. Most tourists, and indeed many New Yorkers, think Central Park is the last remaining tract of virgin land in Manhattan. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the official history of the Central Park Conservancy notes, the park is a perfect marriage of aesthetics and engineering, a “glorious paradox”, which “copies nature so closely that it disguises its own fabrication”.

Olmsted’s experiment is a living, evolving artefact. The carriage roads are now used by cyclists, marathon runners and horsedrawn rides for tourists. The bridle paths are for dog walkers, for mothers pushing strollers and for the thousands of daily joggers. The footpaths are for loitering journeys in a parallel world of tranquillity. Tourists tend to stick around the 72nd Street transverse road, marking the spot on Central Park West where John Lennon was shot, wandering along the southern shore of the lake, stopping for drinks at the Boathouse, pausing to watch the remote-controlled miniature yachts skimming Conservatory Water, and emerging through the Fifth Avenue gate close to the Frick Museum of Art. But this, to my mind, is the least interesting section of the park.

From September to December last year, we lived on West 106th, three minutes from the north-west corner of the park, close to the Great Hill, the North Woods, the waterfall, the loch and the Harlem Meer – the most beautiful body of water in the park. I developed an addiction to Central Park. Our daily walks kept extending themselves, from 40 minutes, to 90 minutes, to two hours. With a laminated strip map tucked into a pocket, we dedicated ourselves to discovery. Four months were not enough to explore the intimate nooks and crannies, the grottos, the sheep meadow, the great lawn, the Belvedere overlooking Turtle Pond. We became cordially acquainted with hundreds of people, though we rarely got to know names. Day after day, we would wave or exchange greetings with fellow loiterers. Before 9 am each day, the off-leash rule for dogs pertains and there are certain gathering places where owners stand in a huddle sipping lattes while 50 or more dogs gambol and chase each other and wrestle and roll about in canine heaven. We figured every dog must have been a graduate of obedience school because only once did we hear angry barking and the possible beginning of a fight. It was quickly silenced by stern commands from the owners, who are also well trained and adept at pooper-scooper manoeuvres.

We loved the evening pastoral of dads playing frisbee with young children, of toddlers feeding ducks, of families spreading picnic cloths, of elderly groups engaged in the slow ballet of Tai Chi. Just 20 years ago, most of Olmsted’s paradise had become overgrown and unkempt and, except for the sections close to 59th Street and 72nd Street, a dangerous area of drug traffickers and muggers. The city had no money for upkeep (and still does not) so a group of donors established the Central Park Conservancy, which pays for horticulturists and some maintenance staff – not nearly enough. What keeps Olmsted’s legacy alive are the thousands of volunteers who plant and water and prune and mow. We stopped to watch the complicated removal of a tree by a crew whom we assumed to be professional staff. Not so. There was one paid supervisor; the others were volunteers: a student, a couple of housewives, a couple of retirees, a computer consultant on his break. This is truly a park that belongs to the people of New York, as Olmsted intended. They use it and nurture it and love it.

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ALP must reform or die, warns Faulkner

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Read the full transcript of John Faulkner's speech

THE Labor elder John Faulkner says the party faces a bleak future if it fails to undertake radical reform and enable members and MPs to embrace the activism that was once the party's great strength.

Delivering the annual Neville Wran Lecture at the NSW Parliament last night, the NSW senator likened the ALP to a ship being steered towards an iceberg by those who opposed reform - members of the Right.

''Labor cannot thrive as an association of political professionals focused on the machinery of electoral victory and forming, at best, contingent alliances with Australians motivated by and committed to ideals and policies,'' he said.

Top-down control and focus group-driven politics had pushed away people who wanted to make a difference towards activist groups such as GetUp. ''We have lost a generation of activists from Labor and, if we do not face the challenges and opportunities of reform in both structure and culture, we will risk losing a generation of voters as well,'' he said.

He said the party was still too driven by focus groups rather than conviction. ''There is … something deeply wrong when we use polling to determine our party's policies, and even our values. Labor must never forget that you do not earn the right to lead by perfecting the art of following.

''In our desperation to avoid bad headlines, we have closed off the avenues for debate that are the lifeblood of our party.''

Dissent was kept behind closed doors. Some saw this as a triumph of party management but Senator Faulkner said it was ''a symptom of the anaemia that is draining the life from the ALP - an apparent aversion to the unpredictability of democracy''.

His comments were not aimed at the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, or any one leader. He implicitly warned against more change, saying recent leadership changes at state and federal levels to redress plunging support had proved futile.

''It is time for the party to realise that there is more amiss here than any one individual can be asked to shoulder the blame for,'' he said.

''It is time for us to realise that we have significant problems as an organisation and we must resolve them.''

Senator Faulkner and fellow ALP elders, Steve Bracks and Bob Carr, conducted an election review that concluded fundamental change was needed to the party's rules and structures not only to increase an ageing and declining membership, but to empower that membership through inclusion.

The reforms are facing resistance from the Right faction.

Last night Senator Faulkner said such was the strength of the resistance that he was ''very pessimistic'' about any meaningful change being adopted.

''As is the case in any institution, those with the power to effect or prevent change are always those most advantaged by the existing structures,'' he said.

But unless change was made, the party's long-term survival was uncertain.

Inclusion meant members and supporters must have a real say in preselections, electing party officials and policy debates. MPs and senators should also be allowed to speak freely rather than be forced to ''stay on message''.

He said that when he entered politics, the party had enormous rows over policy and ideas and was stronger as a result.

Rudd backs Faulkner's Labor overhaul

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Ten Years Of Media Lens - Operation Rheinübung Or: Our Problem With Mainstream Dissidents

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Working on Media Lens has given us ten years of first-hand experience of just how tightly discussion can be controlled in an ostensibly democratic society. No matter how carefully we have formulated our questions, no matter how politely we have delivered them, we have been branded angry, irrational, unworthy of attention.

Journalists really believe it, too. Often the reaction is based on a kind of trick of the mind: if we ask a question someone is unable to answer (not least for fear of incurring the wrath of their employers), they feel ridiculous, pained, much as if they had been insulted. Quite often, they come to believe that they really have been insulted.

But of course one of the reasons we try so hard to avoid insulting journalists is because we know it hands them a 'Get out of jail free' card. If we politely ask them whether they think their newspaper's hosting of fossil fuel advertising clashes with its demand for action on climate change, they are in a tight spot. They can disagree and look foolish. They can agree and risk contravening the number one rule understood by all corporate employees: Thou shalt not disrespect the product! Or they can ignore us, which at least has the virtue of ambiguity (maybe they were just too busy). But if we're rude, they can reply: 'Sorry, I don't respond to abusive emails.'

We may like to believe we live in a free society, but mainstream journalists do not come close to telling the truth about the media system that hosts them. Over the last ten years, we have come face-to-face with Corporate Man (or 'Guardian man' as Nick Davies has it) – people who self-censor in a thousand and one ways to protect their job, their career, their financial security.

Consider the mainstream dissidents the public admires most – the writers who rail against Third World debt, climate change, the arms trade, and so on. Ask them about the media, particularly the media they work for, and they fall silent. No matter how outspoken, how salt of the earth straight up they might normally be, they simply do not reply – we receive nothing back, silence. Or, occasionally, we receive puzzled, irate responses insinuating that the lack of due decorum and respect of a presumptive ally have been noted. The most concise of these was sent by Seumas Milne shortly after he helped us publish our one and only article in the Guardian:

'!!' (Email to Media Lens, January 13, 2005)

The hidden 'gentleman's agreement' operating within the media goes like this: 'If I help you, we're friends. If we're friends, you don't criticise me. If you do criticise me, we will no longer be friends and I won't help you.'

This is a key factor stifling honest discussion, particularly among non-corporate dissidents who are typically in short supply of mainstream friends (traditionally, journalism has not been a highly profitable enterprise – dissident journalism, deprived of corporate advertising and other support, is barely able to scrape a living).

Even friends and allies, even people who write material specifically for our website, may make no mention of our work in their articles, books and films about exactly the issues we are discussing. Of course this feels to us like we are deemed unworthy of mention, but the real reason is that we are 'radioactive' – it is damaging to be too closely associated with us.

As ever, we are not necessarily suggesting people are wrong to behave this way (there is a case for strategic caution, for playing the game). We are making the point to anyone who believes we enjoy freedom of speech that this is the reality. Free speech is tied down by a thousand Lilliputian threads.

Our Deeper Problem With Johann Hari, Version 2.0

The term 'media' is itself misleading: it seems to refer to just another profession like medicine and law. But the media is much more than that; it is how we come to know what we know about the world. To suggest that something so fundamental to human existence can be reduced to a mere profession, to imply that truth-telling is compatible with a concern for financial reward, is already a distortion.
So the media is not just another issue. It is the issue that determines our freedom to know about all other issues. If the human condition is imagined as a kind of prison – if we assume we are not completely free (we are certainly not free from suffering) - then the media can show us, or not show us, the door, the key, the way out. Worse, the media can portray the prison as an open expanse, as freedom.

Because the media is not just another profession, journalism is not just another job. Our basic view of the media, confirmed endlessly over the last ten years, is that it is a system that subordinates people and planet to profit. With crude efficiency – really just by psychological weathering through endless bias – the unthinkable is normalised. Genocidal sanctions in Iraq? No great issue. Saddam's fault. Safely ignored. Climate change threatening the ability of our planet to sustain life? Just another health scare, we can continue consuming 'normally'. Endless wars against countries that are always defenceless and almost always resource-rich? No-one even perceives that we are at war! On and on we can go – the training of children to perceive themselves as skills packages to be sold in the market place, where they swap their school uniform for a suit? What could be wrong with that? The industrialised torture of global factory farming – why even talk about it?

Everything is smothered in a pink froth of high-tech consumer products and entertainment. From inside the froth, the world looks rosy: it is progressing, becoming more high-tech, clean, sterilised. But we have no way of knowing if this is true because anything that dissipates the froth is disallowed as a threat to profits.

Given all of this, journalists who claim to be great defenders of Truth and Justice while holding high-paid corporate media jobs – and particularly while not discussing the problem of the media – have, as it were, more front than Harrods.

Thus, we took issue with US lawyer turned independent political analyst Glenn Greenwald, when he Tweeted on the maddening, ego-suckling Twitter:

'The always excellent Johann Hari has a new podcast feature in The Independent that'll undoubtedly be worth subscribing: http://is.gd/HyqA4S (3:32 PM Mar 11th via web)'

Somewhat unkindly, or so it must surely have seemed to Hari, we replied:

'Hari is not always excellent'

We linked to a January 2003 article by Hari with the title: 'Liberate Iraq now, with or without the UN.'
We also sent Greenwald a link to this paragraph from Hari:

'Mr Blair is plainly sincere when he talks about this as "a moral war" – and, even without the caveats, the war would probably still, on balance, be better than leaving Saddam to butcher his own people and develop horrifying weapons.'

And we sent Hari's claim on Kosovo, that Blair had 'a naive, noble desire to stop Serbian [nationalism] in its bloody tracks.'

A fellow Twitterer, punkscience, registered his/her disapproval:

'Come on guys, Johann Hari publicly recanted and apologised for his support for Iraq war' (12 March 2011 06:27:10 via web in reply to medialens)

Punkscience had a point. Hari has done some excellent work in recent years. He has recanted his highly destructive support for the Iraq war. He has expressed support for Noam Chomsky, of whom he was once a fierce critic. He has also written a powerful article challenging the latest war on Libya.
So what is our problem? It lies in the simple fact that Hari continues to be employed by a corporate newspaper that is causing incalculable harm.

By way of an analogy, consider Operation Rheinübung, launched in May 1941 at the height of the Second World War. Then, two German warships, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, set out on a mission to attack allied merchant shipping. The Bismarck was one of the most powerful and feared battleships of its time. But Prinz Eugen was also a serious menace. Together, the two ships sank a British warship, HMS Hood, with massive loss of life.

Even our best mainstream dissident journalists are like sailors broadcasting from a corporate media Prinz Eugen about the crimes of the state-corporate Bismarck, even as both wreak untold havoc on the weak and the poor, and the environment. There is a rich career-vein to be mined from pontificating in a corporate newspaper about what the government should do to respond to climate change, what people must do to force the government to respond, how we should lobby for a 'just war' that doesn't do needless harm. But this journalism contains a huge self-contradiction because it fails to draw attention to the immense power of the very media publishing these 'solutions' to render them impotent.

The media slams down a giant fistful of smear-drenched newsprint on any and all voices, ideas, political movements and spiritual ideals that challenge the status quo. Or it smothers them in silence. But the system needs a show of dissent – loud, noisy, impassioned, useless proof that dissent is allowed, that thought roams freely across the Fourth Estate. This is the role played by the mainstream dissident.

In buying their journalism, we are rearming and refuelling the state-corporate Operation Rheinübung. We are supporting a system that places very real constraints on the depth and range of dissident reporting. The rules are in place, they do have to be observed, and because they are invisible, undiscussed, most of us are unaware of them.

Curiously, making this kind of point draws flak from just about every quarter – even leftists take real exception to us challenging mainstream dissidents. Despite, from our perspective, the obvious reasonableness of our argument, people imagine we are embittered, carping malcontents targeting the wrong guys: Hari, George Monbiot, Seumas Milne, Piers Robinson, Nick Davies, Larry Elliott, John Kampfner et al - when they are doing their best to do good.

By the way, we mention Kampfner, former editor of the New Statesman, because we also Tweeted him. He had written in the Independent of BBC journalism:

'There remain many examples of best practice. The big names – Nick Robinson, Robert Peston, Stephanie Flanders, John Simpson – call it as they see it, with few ifs and buts.'

Aghast, we responded:

'Robinson, Simpson, et al "examples of best practice"! Are you serious? What did you like about their coverage of Iraq for eg?' (10:04 AM Mar 10th via web in reply to johnkampfner)

Kampfner, who has sometimes sent us supportive emails (although only after he left the New Statesman), ignored our question. Again, our challenge might be considered peevish. After all, his article noted:

'The more embattled the BBC has become, the more frightened it has become. Risk aversion is embedded into the DNA of managers and by extension programme-makers. It is particularly prevalent in the news output... for every example of risk and courage, there are dozens of examples of feebleness borne of fear.'

As usual with this kind of journalism, delicately phrased criticism was offset by unwarranted praise signalling to the media powers that be that the critic is not 'irresponsible', not about to discuss the really embarrassing issues – that we are in thrall to a state-corporate media system that is unwilling or unable to report the truth of a world dominated by state-corporate power. Nothing appeared that would prevent Kampfner from being invited back to the Independent, or the Guardian, or the BBC. This is a further unwritten rule everyone understands on some level: inclusion requires 'nuanced' and 'measured' arguments.

But this is not what bothers us – as discussed, compromise can be defended. What gets our goats (we have two of them) is that it is considered repugnant to mention that the unwritten rule exists. For then, as the Soviet poet Yevgeney Yevtushenko noted, 'The truth is replaced by silence, and the silence is a lie.' (Quoted, Daniel Goleman, Vital Lies, Simple Truths - The Psychology of Self-Deception, Bloomsbury, 1997, p.230)

No-Response Naomi

Despite taking his own media to task with fierce integrity, Glenn Greenwald has repeatedly praised UK newspapers like the Guardian and the Independent, which are quite as bad as the US papers he criticises (Noam Chomsky has commented that, if he could choose only one newspaper, it would be the New York Times).

Alas, US writers, including dissidents, tend to have a US-centric view of the world – other countries often appear to exist to them almost incidentally. The UK media seem to be viewed as a rather quaint backwater, as more genteel and innocent (the much-loved American cliché). US dissidents are happy to use supposed UK media virtues as a club with which to beat their own media. A newspaper needs to be read carefully over many years, but US dissidents tend to read an occasional article by a Monbiot, Fisk or Pilger and then sing the praises of the media hosting them. In an article published on ZNet, US media analyst Danny Schechter wrote:

'The BBC boasts, often with legitimacy, of the impartiality it brings to the coverage of the news.' (Schechter, 'Behind Blair vs The Beeb The BBC's Next War - Why The Knives Are Out for Aunty,' www.zmag.org, July 23, 2003)

This could hardly have been more misguided. ZNet's Michael Albert has repeatedly rejected our media alerts on grounds that they have been overly critical of the Guardian's George Monbiot and, recently, the Independent's Patrick Cockburn. Albert refused to publish Part 1 of our March 23, 2011 media alert on Libya after we quoted Cockburn as commenting:

'Western nations will soon be engaged in a war in Libya with the noble aim of protecting civilians.'

Albert argued that someone – we, or even he – should first check with Cockburn to see if he had really meant what he had written, whether he had made a slip or perhaps been poorly edited. Perhaps he didn't support the war at all – hard to believe he would. We refused. It was clear to us that the article was a powerful endorsement of the need for war. But anyway, the point of our alert was not to blame Cockburn. What mattered was that those words and that article appeared under a left-leaning journalist's name in an ostensibly liberal newspaper – that merited attention. Cockburn later expressed his dismay as 'Justifiable action against impending massacre [in Libya] turns into imperial intervention.' A war that 'turns into imperial intervention' must, for Cockburn, have begun as something more benevolent. Clearly he had initially supported action that he considered 'justifiable'.
Criticism from the likes of ZNet is a good example of how one of the most powerful disincentives for anyone criticising mainstream dissent is the reaction of the left!

But the fact is that leftists like Mark Thomas, Naomi Klein, Marc Weisbrot, George Monbiot and Johann Hari typically have nothing to say about the propaganda role of the UK liberal media. When we asked Weisbrot for his opinion of the Guardian he said he couldn't speak publicly. Even dissidents like Mark Curtis, David Miller and Richard Seymour (of Lenin's Tomb) tend not to criticise the liberal media when they write for the Guardian and Independent. John Pilger is the exception, generating liberal snarls that lie behind his exclusion from the major newspapers.

His recent documentary broadside against the US-UK media, 'The War You Don't See', was so exotic, so alien, that most journalists were unable to respond with anything more than '!!'.

On September 15, 2007, we wrote to Naomi Klein, a regular Guardian commentator:

Dear Naomi

Hope you're well. I'm co-editor of a UK-based media watchdog, Media Lens. In your latest posting on the Guardian Unlimited website, you praise a number of regular Guardian journalists, including Madeleine Bunting, Seumas Milne and Gary Younge. I notice you also have a Guardian advert and link on your website. What is your view of the Guardian's performance in relation to the issues you discuss? Specifically, for example, what is your opinion of the Guardian's coverage of the Iraq war?

Best wishes

David Edwards

We received this response two weeks later (September 29):

Dear David,

I apologize for the delayed response. Yes, I have passed along both messages to Naomi Klein. She is travelling in a different city every day for the next few months, so she is not able to stay on top of her emails right now. It's likely she won't have a chance to respond, however, rest assured that both emails have been sent to Naomi.

Best wishes,

Debra Levy

Klein Lewis Productions

On June 1, 2011, Klein Tweeted:

'MSM [mainstream media] discovering that climate change is happening even though they have been ignoring it.'

We Tweeted back:

'Not just ignoring it, Naomi. Their hosting of fossil fuel advertising is a key factor in making climate madness mainstream.'

And:

'By appearing in corporate media like the Guardian without exposing their climate killing role, you're contributing to that.'

Inevitably, we received no reply.

In a live online chat in 2002 with activist comedian and journalist Mark Thomas, one of us wrote that we had enjoyed his Mark Thomas Comedy Product on Channel 4. Why not do something to challenge the media, perhaps in reference to Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's superb propaganda model of media control? Thomas replied that it sounded a bit too academic and complex - that was that.
On Twitter, mainstream dissidents are often to be found praising each other, their colleagues, their bosses, their ostensible rivals on other liberal newspapers.

On June 8, Johann Hari Tweeted:

'Yaaaaay! The brilliant @Jemima_Khan has joined the Independent as an Associate Editor. Woop-woop!'

On April 6, leftist Guardian writer Gary Younge Tweeted:

'Guardian wins newspaper of the year. Can I get a whoop whoop? http://bit.ly/ho2q1R'

Guardian reporter Jason Burke Tweeted:

'GDN [Guardian] wins UK press awards Newspaper of Year; hooray! generallissimos: @arusbridger @iankatz1000 top prize winning'

The message was sent to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and managing editor, Ian Katz. Readers might respond that this is just the standard deferential behaviour displayed by people working in business. We agree - our point is that corporate media do function in much the same way as other businesses.

Burke is another example of a mainstream journalist who has been praised by US leftists, including Noam Chomsky, who endorsed Burke's book, 'Al-Qaeda'. Burke claims to be nonplussed by the support. He Tweeted on May 10:

'hitchens on chomsky in slate - http://slate.me/lF47te Totally unasked, chomsky oddly endorsed my book, but Hitchens on fine form here ..'

No surprise to find Burke praising Hitchens. Ten days before the launch of the invasion of Iraq, Burke wrote an article in the Observer under the title, 'Why I believe this war is right - Jason Burke, who has reported from many world conflict zones, argues that the Iraqi people deserve to be saved.' Burke wrote:

'It is a war that is being fought for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time and has been sold in the wrong way. But this war is right.'

Like his 'generallissimo', Rusbridger, Burke has blocked us even from following his Tweets.
Mainstream dissidents, although small in number, constitute a highly influential group of respected writers who are willing to be honest about almost everything except the media system that employs them. The rationale is hardly in doubt: consciously or unconsciously, they are protecting their mainstream media careers. If even people spilling the beans on government malfeasance, the arms trade and so on are not willing to speak honestly about the corporate media, who does that leave? The answer is almost no-one.

Conclusion

The best comedy explores the tragi-comedy of minds hopelessly biased in their own favour. It is hilarious when Olly stares at the camera in disbelief at Stan's foolishness because it reveals that Olly is completely blind to the role his own idiocy plays in their disasters. We have always seen Media Lens as a kind of comedy in this sense - we expose the fine mess journalists get themselves into when they try to justify work that is clearly biased in favour of the self, in favour of the media corporations, governments, militaries and nations that reward the self.

We started Media Lens as a kind of experiment or practical joke. We asked: what happens when someone doesn't care about the consequences for their careers and reputations and just exposes the bias? We have been chuckling ever since. But our intent is serious and not malign. Journalists irked by our challenges should take a step back, a step out of their self-concern, and recognise that it matters enormously when whole media systems, whole nations, are blinkered by self-interest. There is always someone who pays the price - both 'them' and 'us'. For ten years, that is really all we have been saying.


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