And after all these years, all these wars, all these graves, I am still waiting for someone to answer that one simple question. WHY?. 26/26

And when the consequences arrive, don’t tell us nobody warned you. We did. Again and again and again. 25/26

History doesn’t repeat itself because humanity is incapable of learning. It repeats itself because those with the power to change its course so often find it more profitable not to. 24/26

We handed you the lessons of history, written in the blood of millions. You had the knowledge. You had the warnings. You had the opportunity to do better. And yet, here we are again. 23/26

We did not sacrifice our youth, our friends and our families so that future generations could squander the peace and repeat the very catastrophes we fought to prevent. 22/26

And I have lived long enough to recognise the warning signs. HISTORY DOESN’T HAVE TO REPEAT ITSELF. WE CHOOSE TO REPEAT IT. 21/26

I am tired of watching humanity march, eyes wide open, towards another entirely avoidable catastrophe. I have lived long enough to see what war does to ordinary people, to families, to generations yet unborn. 20/26

So, go for it. Repeat the mistakes. Revisit the catastrophes. Rediscover, at an appalling cost, the lessons that previous generations already paid for with their lives. 19/26

By history. By survivors. By veterans. By the dead themselves, whose graves stand as silent testimony to the consequences of human arrogance and stupidity. But those with the power to act weren’t listening. 18/26

And the most tragic part? YOU WERE WARNED. 17/26

And to those who possess the political, economic and military power to prevent catastrophe, yet choose ambition, profit or expediency instead: You have taken the foundations of a possible paradise and begun constructing yet another bloody hell. 16/26

To the generations now inheriting this world: you did not create all its problems. But you have inherited the responsibility to confront them, just as we inherited the responsibilities and consequences of those who came before us. 15/26

And what have you done with that inheritance? Allowed greed to triumph over compassion. Ignorance over knowledge. Division over cooperation. The pursuit of wealth and power over the preservation of humanity itself. 14/26

We bequeathed you the foundations upon which something approaching paradise might have been built. Not a perfect world, certainly, but one purchased at an unimaginable human cost, in the hope that those who followed might do better. 13/26

We old folk are disappearing now. One by one. Taking with us the memories of what humanity is capable of, both at its most courageous and at its most depraved. 12/26

And still we refuse to learn. The powerful make their calculations. The wealthy protect their fortunes. Politicians manufacture their justifications. And ordinary people, who neither wanted nor understood these wars, are left to pay the price. 11/26

The lessons of history were not written in ink. THEY WERE WRITTEN IN BLOOD. The blood of our fathers, brothers, friends and countless innocent people whose only misfortune was to be born into someone else’s war. 10/26

Or perhaps we simply lack the will. Perhaps greed, political ambition, the pursuit of power and the obscene concentration of wealth matter more than human lives. And that, to me, is the greatest indictment of all. 9/26

Humanity possesses the intelligence to explore the universe, split the atom, conquer diseases and create technological miracles. Yet apparently we lack the intelligence, courage or moral decency to stop slaughtering one another. 8/26

We have learned nothing. Absolutely bloody nothing. 7/26

Two world wars. Korea. Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq. Ukraine. An endless procession of human misery, suffering, destruction and death. Generation after generation pays the ultimate price while those who inherit the peace seem determined to squander it. 6/26

And I find myself asking one simple question. WHY? What, precisely, was it all for? 5/26

And today, young Russian conscripts are dying in Ukraine, sacrificed to political ambition, greed and the same monumental failures of humanity that have plagued civilisation for centuries. 4/26

My fellow veterans, almost without exception, have now passed into history. Their stories, their sacrifices, their suffering—slowly disappearing from living memory. I served in Vietnam. I have seen what war does to ordinary people and what it leaves behind. 3/26

That same uncle survived yet another maritime catastrophe in 1964, when HMAS Melbourne collided with HMAS Voyager, aboard which he served as a gunnery officer. He survived the wars and disasters, but not the demons they left behind. Alcohol eventually claimed his life. 2/26

The Lessons Written in Blood My uncle died from the consequences of chlorine gas poisoning suffered in the First World War. Another survived the bombing of London and being sunk twice during the Second World War. 1/26

So after all the Howard Govt's efforts in bugging the East Timor government to get Woodside an advantage in the Sunrise gas project, Woodside is selling out for not much. Little Timor now left with job of finding partners to finally develop the thing. www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jon...

Woodside Energy Selling Out of Greater Sunrise Project for Up to $200 Million

morningstar.com

Hey @albomp.bsky.social - you may have misinterpreted the demand to #RaiseTheRate. #inequality #auspol

Barbara Pocock@barbarapocock.bsky.social · last wk.

$2.2 million is an outrageous sum of money for one public servant to earn. What's more, 17 people in the Future Fund are now on more than a million - only one woman among them. Australians who can barely afford groceries right now, will share my outrage. tinyurl.com/mak89juh

OZ Vs US My Take on the Boyer Lectures www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/...

Australia_at_the_Crossroads

Shared with iCloud

icloud.com

The Bluesky app remains out of reach in Australia without a VPN. (for me, anyway)