SUMMITS FOR SUCKERS

"President Ronald Reagan is managing to convert his minimal achievement at the Geneva summit meeting into a major domestic political victory." from Geoffrey Barker's column in The Age (Melb.) November 25th.

No doubt Mr. Gorbachev is riding high at home in the U.S.S.R., also, as a result of the summit meeting with the Leader of the World's capitalist nations. But there is, after all, a piercing difference. Summits have been going on for a generation, at least, but the West is still going backwards. We can rely on the Kremlin to "agree" to a summit meeting with Western leaders when there is some sort of a stalemate in the economic propaganda ideological psychological warfare between the "two diametrically opposing conceptions of human existence" (see "Thought for the Week", last issue of On Target).

We recall the Cuban missile "crisis" of the early 60s that one had to be thrashed out, Fidel Castro is still there in Cuba, at the head of a Communist system of government, and whose troops are now fighting, by proxy, the Kremlin's wars in the Third World. What good did that Summit do? Would there have been a world war then? The Kremlin backed off: but that was a generation ago. Things have changed now.

President Eisenhower attended to Summit earlier in Europe in the mid-fifties; before the Cuban missile crisis. So what? What good was that? Now in 1985 the "Star Wars" military/technological advantage possessed by the U.S.A. is worrying the Kremlin power men; so guess what? Why, a Summit. This suits President Reagan as the Yankee hype whips up "peace fantasies". There will be no peace. Conferences and Summits are part of the Communist political "medication" to put the West to sleep. Communists never sit down to a conference unless they are in the position to extract concessions from their ideological enemies "Comrade Enemy!" And Communists don't sit down at Conferences unless they know what concessions are to be extracted, and why. They do their homework properly.

So there will be more conferences and still more summits as the West continues to retreat to the abyss. When there is a stalemate, and/or the West appears to have some advantage; then where will be a Summit, and the "peacemakers" will jump up and down, like a marionette on a string. Let us recall the words of Dimitri Manuilski uttered at the Lenin School of Political Warfare in Moscow in 1930:
"War to the hilt between Communist and Capitalism is inevitable. Today, of course, we are not strong enough to attack. Our time will come in 20 or 30 years. To win, we shall need the element of surprise. The Bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movement on record. There will be electrifying overtures and unheard of concessions. The Capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to co-operate in their own destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends. As soon as their guard is down, we will smash them with our clenched fist."

Mr. Gorbachev knows all this, and is in full agreement with all this. Kremlin power men are choking with contemptuous laughter as they see the "Western bunnies" rubbing their eyes and noses and swallowing the carefully prepared propaganda and disinformation from the appropriate sectors of the K.G.B. (staffed by brilliant men and women) Nothing, nothing has changed; so "Come in suckers, here's another Summit for you!"

KERIN CONTEMPTUOUS OF THE N.F.F.

from Chas. Pinwill
"It is now quite obvious that, the Federal Government does not intend to shift its policy as a result of anything that the National Farmers' Federation can threaten at the moment. "At this Conference the N.F.F. President, Mr. Ian McLachlan, said "high interest rates are the most serious short term problem for farmers ... we can't tolerate for long a situation where Australia runs a prime interest rate of 18% and inflation at 8%." "However, the Minister for Primary Industry, Mr. Kerin, who also addressed the Conference, made the position clear. He said "The Government recognises the disadvantages to borrowers ... high interest rates pose a severe problem for some farmers, but they would have to solve it themselves ... there is no solution to the dilemma."

Clearly the Government approach is to insist that high interest rates are part of some inexorable law which all must accept. This will remain the approach if farmers are prepared to accept it, and until an effective threat to Government can be organised. Every effort should be made to ensure that desperate rural communities do not accept high interest rates as inevitable, but as deliberate policy which must be challenged. If no candidates can or will offer policies which allow rural industry to survive, farmers should not vote for their own demise in the next Federal election. They should not be voting at all unless some basic demands are met. One of their essential survival needs is tolerable interest rates. The N.F.F. is going to have to conduct itself with the utmost care to ensure that it does not become another apologist for the Government (and itself) because it accepts that interest rates are, however sadly, unchallengeable.

WHITHER THE U.S. "RECOVERY"?

Chas Pinwill continues
"By all accounts it should be here, the U.S. led world recovery. However, 3 articles in The Australian Oct. 29th, paint a different picture. "Bailey Morris, of The Times (Washington) contributed this:
"The United States became a debtor nation this year for the first time since World War I. "This startling statistic says more about the condition of the mighty U.S. financial system than anything else. "It means that for the first time in 67 years, foreign ownership of U.S. factories, real estate, stocks and bonds exceeded U.S. ownership of foreign assets. The net gain to foreign ownership last year was (U.S.) $36.3 million.

Morris quotes U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volcker, as saying that, 'we spend our days issuing debt in record volume, and then we spend our evenings raising each others' eyebrows with gossip about stress in the financial system...'

The next article is headlined, 'Banks meet on plea for $29millon loan to debtors.'
"Bankers from around the world were meeting last night to discuss United States Treasury Secretary, Mr. James Baker's plea that they lend $(U.S.) 20 billion to heavily indebted nations the banks consider poor risks. "Representatives from about 60 banks in Britain, West Germany, Japan, Canada, and other countries, as well as the U.S., are expected to discuss the proposal to ease the international debt crisis."
Of course, 'the proposal to ease the international debt crisis' is not novel ... increase it by $(Aust.) 29 billion.

The third article to be referred to was headed, 'U.S. industry fights for its life.' "What they will point to is the dramatic $U.S. 92 billion reversal which swung the U.S. trade balance from a surplus of $U.S. 11 billion in 1981 to a deficit of $U.S. 81 billion last year.'

The retiring U.S. Under Secretary for International Trade, Mr. Lionel Olmer, has been briefing top U.S. industrialists on the future of the U.S. Dollar devaluation. It amounts to a massive devaluation. Either a gradual fall, starting now; the so-called 'soft-landing' approach; or a sharp fall in 6 months time; or an almighty crash in 2 years. With 'recoveries' like this who needs relapses?

RED LIGHTS FLASHING MADLY

FROM DR. DAVID PHILLIPS, CHAIRMAN, FESTIVAL OF LIGHT (S.A.)

The following letter was sent to us by Dr. David Phillips;

"Reading the Australian Bill of Rights Bill, 1985, which the House of Representatives has recently passed, is like experiencing a nightmare. "How I wish it were only a dream - of George Orwell's 1984, or life in the Soviet Union - but it isn't. Before your very eyes, the Australian Parliament is setting up legal machinery for central control of our lives that many tota1itarian regimes would envy. "The Bill gives the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission the functions of an Australian 'Big Brother'. "Its propaganda function is expressed by the euphemism 'to promote an understanding and acceptance .. (Clause 25). Goebbels would be proud of it. "Its power to conscript secret agents is defined in Clauses 31 and 29. Failure to comply with an order to be a secret informant could result in a penalty of $1,000 (Clause 35). "In conducting an inquisition, the Commission is 'not bound by the rules of evidence' (Clause 29). By simultaneously exercising the roles of prosecutor, jury, and judge, the Commission also breaches the principles of natural justice.

"Australia is fortunate to be one of the few countries of the world to enjoy real freedoms - not the paper freedoms of countries like Libya and the Soviet bloc. Our real freedoms are secured by our Common Law heritage, which the Bill of Rights would overturn, and by our institutions of elected parliaments, independent judiciary and free press. As the Chief Justice of the High Court, Sir Harry Gibbs, has said: 'If society is tolerant and rational, it does not need a Bill of Rights. If it is not, no Bill of Rights will preserve it.' Readers wanting more information are invited to write to me. I would be glad to supply a careful analysis of some serious implications of the proposed Australian Bill of Rights prepared by a Melbourne barrister." David Phillips, 8 Twin St. ADELAIDE S.A. 5000

MORE ON THE BILL OF RIGHTS

This extract from an article which appeared in The Chronicle (Toowoomba) on November 16th, 1985, by journalist, Richard Standley:

"…. No matter how benign and lenient a government may appear to be, the fact remains that because the government legislates on rights and defines or limits them the government takes to itself the power to alter the rights of the individual. While governments today may say, 'We will never do that', the Bill of Rights gives it the power to do so under section 13. Where the Government gives, the government can take away.

The Bill undermines the Constitution. Because of the Franklin Dam decision, the Commonwealth Government, under Section 51 of the Constitution, has the power to circumvent any other section of the Constitution. The Bill of Rights is based on an International Covenant, and the High Court has given it the power to over ride any section of any part of the Constitution it feels it needs to in pursuit of its legislative goals.

Governments of all persuasions are linked to the Bill of Rights. The Fraser Coalition adopted the United Nations Covenant, which has laid the groundwork for the Bill, and has left it to the Labor Government to put through Parliament. "In effect, the Bill of Rights merely outlines rights and freedoms which have already existed as a matter of course in Australia. At the same time, it allows the Government to delineate what are, or are not rights; by-pass the legal system; take to itself powers under the Constitution which it legally is not allowed to take; and provide the way to determine in the future what freedoms we may or may not enjoy.

The question all Australians should be asking is: 'are we prepared to give the Government power which in the past we have refused to give when it has asked? These are not political matters. They are not matters, which are limited to partisan politics. They cross over all party boundaries and touch fundamental rights, which we have always had. History records that where governments have fiddled with human rights without popular approval, denial of human rights has followed. Are Australia's political parties opening a Pandora's Box, which one-day may lead to revolution or civil unrest? While now that may seem far fetched, historians will tell you that it can happen because it has happened before."