COLLAPSE OF A GLOBAL GIANT

by Jeremy Lee
Just after last week's article on the WTO was written, the conference in Seattle collapsed. Delegates from 135 nations, with 5,000 bureaucrats (not to mention the bevy of reporters that had flown in) flew home with nothing achieved at huge expense. TV news and a mass of conflicting articles indicated the underlying mood, generally frustrated and woebegone, because the global media lets very few arguments through that are not in line with the global programme. Only one newspaper - The Australian Financial Review - included one short article by an opponent of the WTO. Among the host of others there was weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Herewith a selection:

"TALKS COLLAPSE; WTO IN DISARRAY" and "AMERICA LOSES ITS WILL TO LEAD ON FREE TRADE" were the two front-page headlines in The AFR (6/12/99). There followed in both that paper and The Australian a mass of comment: "The disastrous Seattle meeting has badly wounded the World Trade Organisation, the five-year-old agency dedicated to resolving trade disputes and making new trade rules for its 135-member countries.... It is clear from the developing country revolt at the meeting that the days of backroom deals by the rich country members of the WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, are over.

Instead of leading the rest of the world in the direction of more open trade, Clinton tried to use the WTO, which has 135 members, to chase union votes to shore up his would-be successor, Vice-President Al Gore, in the presidential elections next November.... One European diplomat said US Trade Representative Charlene Barshevsky, who chaired the meeting, 'behaved just like she was running out of the restaurant without paying the bill'....

The four leading presidential candidates - Gore, former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, Texas Governor George W Bush and Senator John McCain - favour open trade but none seems willing to draw attention to those views. 'Labour is a big factor in all these campaigns and now labour smells blood,' said one Congressman in the 90-strong delegation that observed the talks. 'Congressmen have watched what happened and they will be running scared. You can say goodbye to any more free trade negotiations for the next 10 years'...." Reported Joanne Gray from Seattle (Australian Financial Review, 6/12/99).
(Isn't this typical? Four presidential candidates who don't want to talk about the policies they are standing for because they are known to be unpopular! The only presidential candidate against free trade and globalism is Pat Buchanan of the Reform Party. The odds are stacked against him, with big business and the media hostile. But by next November he is going to have a huge effect on the debate going on in America)

"PROTESTERS CLAIM DING DONG VICTORY" said another headline, adding: "When Mike Moore, the head of the World Trade Organisation, closed down the trade talks circus on Friday night, a cheer went up at the back of the convention centre. "Hundreds of members of conservation, human rights, labour and health groups were hugging each other, happy not only to dance on the grave of capitalism, but also to take credit for blocking talks on a fresh wave of trade liberalisation.
"'Ding Dong the Round is Dead', said the flier from one consumer group that claimed victory as the WTO talks 'collapsed under the weight of public opposition and internal dissension"' ...." (AER, 6/12/99)

Robert Garran (The Australian, 6/12/99) was not sanguine: ".... The Seattle meeting was an organisational debacle that requires a radical reappraisal of the WTO's structure and processes.... The message was that wooing the US labour movement - a vitally important constituency for Vice President Al Gore's presidential hopes next year - was more important than achieving a result in the trade talks. "Europe was equally guilty, however. One important goal of the talks was to push the European Union faster on farm reform. Europe's farm subsidies of $US142 billion ($213 billion) greatly exceed Washington's $97 billion ($146 billion). Europe has been far more transient that the US in scaling back its farm support, and is the key to opening up agricultural markets worldwide. Its agenda for the talks seemed designed to frustrate substantial reform of the farm sector, a tactic that had much to do with the meeting's failure...."
Perhaps Europe understands what free trade has done to unprotected farmers like those in Australia, and does not want to repeat that disaster.

Florence Chong had a different slant (The Australian, 6/12/99): ".... Why the chair of the WTO, US Trade Representative Charlene Barshevsky, finally decided to suspend the meeting is a matter of speculation. "But one thing is clear: Barshevsky averted certain failure to reach an agreement on the agenda for the new round because of growing anger among developing countries that were not in the negotiation loop...."

The Australian Financial Review - to its credit - presented two opposing views side-by-side. The first was a woeful attempt by Labor's live-in globalist, Gary Johns, to argue that only elected governments should express views at such conferences: ".... How is it that some interest groups claim a moral superiority over the democratically elected government representatives with whom they compete for public attention and approbation? How can they be right all the time and governments wrong? The fact is that they seek to undermine the legitimacy of democracy by suggesting an inherent bias against the dispossessed...."
Johns cannot admit to the truth that "democratically-elected-governments" are representing people less and less. Opinion polls - for what they're worth - show the big majority of Australians heavily in favour of protecting local industries. Which "democratically-elected-government" has ever represented that point of view?

An article by William Mansfield, assistant secretary of the ACTU, was reasoned and moderate: ".... Not surprisingly, the global economy works well for the multinationals. Under the WTO they created, global corporations now control about a third of all export trade. But the global economy does not work to the benefit of working people; the 200 richest people in the world have a greater combined income that 2 billion of our poorest brothers and sisters.... Every day, some 250 million children across the world go to work rather than to school, making goods that flow freely across national borders.
Every day, tens of thousands of workers do slave labour in forced labour and prison camps. Every day, millions of workers work for less than a living wage, making products they cannot afford to buy.
When working people across the world try to join together to gain decent wages and safe working conditions, what happens? Last year more than a thousand workers trying to organise in their workplaces were killed. Thousands were arrested and imprisoned. Tens of thousands were fired, losing their livelihoods, devastating their families.
Public opinion round the world is fuelling a growing protest movement that has begun to make itself heard in the political process and win real change to the way that the WTO operates. When an international movement of workers, consumers and environmentalists challenged the acceleration of financial deregulation by the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, they brought its closed negotiations to a halt...."
(Both articles, AFR, 6/12/99)

The most interesting contrast was between the Editorials of Murdoch's Australian and The Australian Financial Review - both on December 6th: The Australian said: ".... Since WTO director-general Michael Moore prematurely closed the talks, there has been a flurry of finger pointing. While the protesters undeniably affected the mood of the talks, they failed to stop the meeting. More critical was the Clinton administration's call for developing nations to improve their labour standards. As US President Bill Clinton no doubt hoped, this played well with his trade union constituency - but it only further alienated those developing nations which are WTO members but which know that their low labour rates are one of the few competitive advantages in trading with the West. Long-standing tension between the EU and US over agriculture subsidies has also been blamed for the breakdown in talks...."
To paraphrase - the poverty of Third World workers is a "competitive advantage in trading with the West"? And shouldn't be challenged?

The AFR's Editorial, on the other hand, made the most lasting and significant admission: ".... When historians look back at how a free trade meeting could collapse in a country, which has been an advocate of open trade for half a century and is experiencing its longest peacetime period of growth, the motif should not be the black-clad Seattle riot policeman. It should be the mobile phone equipped anti-globalisation activist contributing to the diverse web of anti-WTO Internet sites around the world. It is this use of the twin levers of the global economy - technology and telecommunications - by those who oppose the WTO that highlights the conflict at the heart of the proceedings…"

There is no doubt the pressure for centralised control of world trade will continue. Seattle was a momentary breathing space. It is also true that the fast-developing network round the world, cutting through the "divide-and-rule" of party politics, is going to gather cohesion and strength. Every effort will be made to disrupt the Internet or at least that part of it producing political unity and will, in the period ahead.

INDECENT PROPOSAL

by Alfred King
Martin Krigier, Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales, made the point in delivering the 1999 Boyer Lectures that one of the minimum requirements of any society is decency, and that the opposite of this is a society which humiliates individuals or groups.

My generation has never experienced a decent society. Though my parents fought a war against Germany and Japan, against totalitarianism, and for freedom of thought and expression: the aftermath of that war has produced the opposite result. Their slogan was "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". Today, each of us must be so careful in what we say and believe.

The tyrant of political correctness, under its many names and guises, reigns supreme in Australia ruthlessly humiliating and crushing any individual or group who does not follow its rules to the letter. Words are the means by which ideas and knowledge are passed from one individual to another. Over time, a censorship by political correctness on what we are allowed to say about, for example, the holocaust, is also a control on how much we know and believe about it.

The ultimate destination in this line of thinking is perhaps the General legislation, which has been used to punish Fredrick Toben for the heinous crime of speaking his mind. This legislation enshrines in law that the holocaust did happen in occupied Europe between 1939-45, and it is illegal to even question this. This development is certainly a change in our legal system, but is it progress?
(Progress being the value-laden word used to justify the ever-increasing destruction being wrought on our culture.)

The German legislation does not address other holocausts that have taken place, and for which there is a lot more real evidence. For example, the current war in Chechnya has highlighted the fact that Stalin executed many, and then deported most of the remaining Chechnyans to central Asia in 1945 because he had an idea that some of them had collaborated with the German forces during the previous years. No western government is keen to take the Russians to task over this example, one of many crimes against humanity.
Again we see the double standards of liberalism in practice.

When considering political correctness, the question must be asked: "who sets the agenda, who decides what is, and what is not politically correct?" This might be the first step in the return to a decent society.

MAKING MONEY FROM NOTHING

Although readers will be aware that notes and coins form less than 10% of the total money in circulation (the rest being 'credit' which is produced by central banks at the touch of a keypad), an interesting article appeared this week on where Australia's currency is made. Our notes are made by a Reserve Bank subsidiary, Note Printing Australia, at Craigieburn in Melbourne's outer northeast. The Royal Australian Mint in Canberra makes the $2, $1, 50c, 20c, 10c and 5c coins, from blanks made in Korea!
In 1998-99, 292 million coins and 189 million notes were made.

At the start of each calendar year, the Reserve Bank sets out the requirements for the following year. Production is kept steady all year round. Demand varies according to economic conditions. The Reserve has printed extra notes in the lead-up to 2000, as people are expected to hoard more cash for fear of the Y2K bug. The Reserve doesn't keep track of money lost or damaged in the community, but the introduction of polymer notes in 1992 has meant less printing, because they last longer than paper notes. Thus, the production of money is costless, and it could be issued debt-free if desired. Note also the contradiction of C.H. Douglas' rule that money should be issued as goods are produced and destroyed when the same goods are consumed.

JANE FONDA ONE OF THE 100 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY?

by Betty Luks
There is a report circulating on the internet that actress and political activist Jane Fonda will be recognised as one of the "100 women of the century". It must be asked for what reason would she receive such recognition? Many have forgotten (and countless others have never known) that Jane Fonda betrayed not only the idea of 'country' but her fellow countrymen, who served and sacrificed during the Vietnam conflict. This was not a matter of conscientious objection to the war; it was active collaboration with the enemy. A number of servicemen have fought to expose her traitorous politics.

Jerry Driscoll an F-4E pilot and in 1978 the Commandant of the USAF Survival School, was a former POW in Ho Lo Prison - known as the 'Hanoi Hilton'. Dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed and dressed in clean PJs he was ordered to describe to a visiting American peace activist the 'lenient and humane treatment he'd received at the hands of his captors'. He spat at Ms. Fonda, was clubbed and dragged away. He was subsequently beaten.

From 1983-85 Colonel Larry Carrigan was the 3447FW/DO (F-4Es), he spent six years in the 'Hanoi Hilton' - the first three of which he was reported as 'missing in action'. His group also got the cleaned/ fed/clothed routine in preparation for a 'peace delegation' visit. They, however, had time to devise a plan to get word to the outside world that they still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper with his SSN on it, in the palm of his hand. When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man's hand and asking encouraging snippets such as, "Aren't you sorry you bombarded babies?" and "Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?" Believing this had to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper and she took them all without missing a beat. At the end of the line and once the cameraman had stopped rolling the film, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge - and handed him the little pile! Three men died as a result of the subsequent beatings. For years after their release, a group of determined former POWs, including Col. Harrigan, tried to bring Ms. Fonda and others up on charges of treason. However, to date, Jane Fonda has never been formally charged with anything and continues to enjoy the privileged life of the rich and famous.

ANTONY SUTTON AND VIETNAM

Dr. Sutton was a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution for Revolution, War & Peace from 1968-1973. Whilst attached to the Hoover Institution, his task was to investigate western technology in relation to growth of the former Soviet Union's industrial and military might. He reported his findings in a monumental three-volume series, but summed up his report in National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union. He found that Western financiers and Western big business, with the connivance of Western politicians had created the Soviet Union's entire industrial and military might.

At the very time when American (and Australian) soldiers were being killed - and captured - in their thousands in Vietnam, American companies were shipping to the USSR technology and equipment that produced the weapons and ammunition that was used against their own young countrymen. The Soviet Union was the main supplier of war material to the Communist Vietcong. Jane Fonda is not the only one who should be tried for treason.

Further reading: National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union by Antony Sutton. $18.00 posted.

ARE MEMORIES IMPORTANT?

by Tom Fielder
My first memory of Sydney was as a young and enthusiastic Aircrew Trainee on leave not long after Pearl Harbour. What a wonderful place for a holiday thought I. By the grace of God, Australia survived the Asian onslaught and I survived the European holocaust to return briefly to Sydney a few years later for that holiday, which was in fact my honeymoon. Then in the next 30-40 years Sydney grew up, became cosmopolitan, modern, multicultural and some people made a lot of money. But other people had memories and second thoughts about what was happening.

Though such as those expressed in song - country and western style: "They stopped the Imperial forces And for their country, bled, Now someone's buying from us What they could not take with lead..." Someone remembered a war criminal, who, on his way to the gallows boasted, "We will own Australia in 100 years..." Now in my 'sunset years' I recently returned for a sentimental journey without my life-long partner, friend and wife, to stay with a 'digger' who was on military service at the time of the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney. I commented to my friend on the many coaches of Asian students assembled in Hyde Park opposite St. Mary's Cathedral that I had observed during my morning walk. "Yes," said he. "Every third face in Sydney is Asian..."

It was we generous Aussies who built the schools they occupy and the coaches they ride in. We built the roads, the transport system, provided the power, water, gas and an abundant food supply. Plus the infrastructure represented by law and order and stable government. We established a Parliament of which the Crown is a part. A Parliament over which the Queen represented by the Governor General reflects the Coronation Oath of love, mercy and justice. And the Oath itself is a product of the influence of 1,000 years of the Christian revelation on the British Crown - a heritage that is totally alien to the Asian mind.

At this time of year, our thoughts go back 2,000 years to the birth of the divine child, the baby Jesus, the expected one born in a stable. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." So, in Christ, God was made flesh (real) for our better understanding. In His life and death and resurrection we were given the victory over evil. The role of the Social Crediter is to consummate the victory with correct action and to help others to a better understanding of the meaning of correct action.

Unless there is a body of Christians willing to take up the challenge a Christian Society will be but a distant memory and Christian philosophy merely an interesting set of ideas in a few isolated minds. I will not return to Sydney - am I paranoid? Or is my memory of the "harbour city" symbolic of the prophecy of the war criminal? What did I see that made me think so? I saw a fair-haired Australian girl in the kneeling position of my cousin Des B... who was decapitated in New Guinea - and what was she doing? Nothing really. She was the shoe-shine-girl merely cleaning the boots of a Japanese businessman in the now restored Queen Victoria Building... Lest we forget.

WE GIVE, THE GST TAKES

WHAT OF OUR FARMERS?

Needlessly, but because of the myopic vision of farm leaders and the National Party, the dimming hopes of primary producers have been fixed on the successful outcome of agricultural talks at the WTO. At the very least these are another year away.
The Chronicle (Toowoomba, 6/12/99) in blazing front-page headlines told us what we already know:
"FARMERS LEAVE LAND IN DROVES"

It went on: "Hundreds of Queensland farmers would be forced off their land in the next 12 months as rural conditions deteriorated, a rural aid organisation warned yesterday. "The coordinator of the Toowoomba based Bush Connection, Ms. Mary Louise North, said that on average she received four phone calls a week from families forced off their properties…Factors like deregulation, commodity prices, economic rationalism and not to mention bank policy have seen people leaving. 'It's looking very grim for the next 12 months."'

The very things cited as the reason for the continuing exodus are the policy of the National Party. Unless the one-eyed globalists who have temporarily seen "free trade" snatched from their grasp can come up with something else, the disaster will be an irreversible catastrophe.