GUSH AND BORE

by Jeremy Lee
If ever there was an argument for the retention of the Monarchy, it is going on in the US right now. Whoever finally becomes the President - and those who have studied global politics know it makes little difference- will have received less than half the less-than-fifty-percent of the votes cast. Bankers and stockbrokers, led by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, will make far more significant decisions than the President who announces them.

Extravagant claims are being made that the democratic process in the US is under threat. While it may be true that the nation may go through a short period without a head of state and chief executive officer, the truth is that true democracy, which is being able to make a judgment on issues and policies one at a time, had virtually no place in the $5US billion campaign which has engaged the American people since the beginning of the year. Both major contenders are from the same establishment stable. They gained nomination because of their suitability for obeying orders from the real policy-makers.

More and more one can see the virtue in having a head of state who does not have to spend vast sums seeking votes, or having a stake in the politics of division.

THE PLIGHT OF THE UNREPRESENTED

Following last week's figures on the ever increasing number of destitute seeking help from Australia's hard pressed welfare agencies comes this pitiful summary from Queensland's Rural Weekly (10/11/2000):
"Australian farm incomes will drop to zero within two decades if the current rural decline continues, a business academic has warned.
Queensland University of Technology international business lecturer Dr. Mark McGovern said the net farm income in Australia had been shrinking since the 1950s.
If it keeps shrinking at this rate, and research suggests the situation is only getting worse, the average income for Australian farmers will be zero by 2017,' Dr. McGovern said. This could produce an underclass surviving on very low incomes.
Dr. McGovern said it was 'folly' for the Government to hope that the problems would be solved by farmers exiting agriculture, or through market forces ...."

With thousands being forced out of the dairying and grain sectors, and a crisis looming in the cane industry, it doesn't take much acumen to acknowledge that Dr. McGovern is right. The plight of farmers is made worse by the fact they have no political voice. The National Party has long since abandoned the rural community. The word "shame" should attend all National Party members, who still occasionally claim to speak for rural Australia, as they accumulate their generous salaries and pensions by doing no more than refusing to rock the boat.

BANKS DO IT AGAIN

There is more cheering news from Australia's trading banks. The first two to announce their annual profits - NAB and ANZ - have between them netted over $5 billion. By the time the remaining two in the "gang-of-four" publish their figures, it won't be far short of $10 billion, about $550 for every living Australian. But they cannot, apparently, afford to keep their smaller branches open. They are too busy launching 'buy-back' programmes to divest their shareholders of any stake in the banking bonanza.

A revealing article in The Bulletin (31/10/2000) pointed out that banks' non-interest income for 2000 is forecast at $12.5 billion. What it must be when they have had their pound of flesh in the form of interest is anyone's guess. Alan Kohler (Australian Financial Review, 7/11/2000) said of the banks:
"There has been a sixty percent increase in the combined profits of the big four in five years They are now making an average profit margin of 25 percent and a 20 percent return on equity. Returns on funds invested specifically in the retail businesses are undisclosed, but are commonly thought to be above 30 percent...."

Meanwhile, consumer debt in Australia as a percentage of disposable income has reached unprecedented heights. In 1990 it was less than 60 percent. By 1999 it had topped the 100%. All of which, one assumes, constitutes Costello's "unprecedented wave of prosperity". And the worst is yet to come.

FINANCIAL TRADE IN MISERY

While on the subject of debt The Guardian Weekly (26/10-1/ 11/2000) gave the sordid story of the international trade in debt itself. What are called 'vulture funds' are making a killing buying Third World debt at a discount and then sending in the bailiffs for the full amount.

The article said: "Their nickname is the vultures - hedge funds that swoop on struggling economies in the developing world, buying up their debts at a discount then suing the governments for the full face value. "One New York-based fund, Elliott Associates, has made more than $130 million out of the practice over the past year, according to Jubilee 2000, the lobby group campaigning for the cancellation of third world debt Elliott ... forced Peru to pay it $65 million this month, by threatening to seize money the Lima government had transferred to Wall Street banks to pay other bondholders. The company had bought up the Peruvian debt for $20 million The vultures travel in flocks, and are already lining up their next victim ...."

So what can the poor Peruvians do? Cut down some more forests, sell remaining assets, and reduce the rations of malnourished children to pay the moneychangers in the temple?

SELLING ARMS FOR A 'DISARMED' WORLD

SENDING OUT THE BACON

"One man's meat is another man's poison" is the old saying. There has been an amazing turnaround in the position of Australia's pork producers - due to the Nipah virus, which struck producers in Malaysia. The result was an unexpected export market into Singapore, now taking over $100 million in Australian pork exports annually. The biggest exporter is a multinational, Bunge Meat Industries. Exports of pork have risen from $663 million in 1998/99 to $901 million this financial year - over $340,000 for the average pork producer. But imports of pork have also increased, from Canada and Denmark!

When will the greenies wake up to the senseless expenditure of greenhouse gases involved in importing pork from the northern hemisphere, while our home-grown produce is exported overseas. The 'free market' is the greatest polluter of all!

IRAQ PERSECUTION CONTINUES

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

The one-worlders are pushing their agenda for all its worth. The Michael Journal, Canada reports on the document 'The Charter for Global Democracy" which calls for the following proposals:
· Consolidation of all international agencies such as: Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Office of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) under the direct authority of the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Not one of these institutions has ever been under direct control of the UN.
· Regulation by the UN of all transnational corporations and financial institutions. After implementation, there will be no more 'safe havens' offshore. Every international financial institution will be regulated and controlled by the UN.
· A demand for an independent source of revenue for the UN, * such as taxes on Internet transactions. aircraft and shipping fuels. Does this also mean the UN will also have the power to raise rates without going back to the nations for approval?
*USA Federal Bill No. 602P calling for tax on Internet transactions.
· Eliminate the veto power and permanent status of the Security Councils. The complaint by Americans is that this will make the USA hostage to UN law without ever having to amend the Constitution. The fact is this has been happening to many countries for many years.
· The UN wants a UN standing army in place.
· Requires the UN registration of all arms and the reduction of all national armies "as part of a multilateral global security system" under the authority of the UN.
· Requires individual and national compliance, with all 'human rights' treaties and declarations. This nothing short of a 'social rights' agenda to mandate socialist redistribution policies, worldwide health programmes, and ensure abortions and contraceptives on demand. A culture of death!
· Will activate the International Criminal Court, making the International Court of justice compulsory for all nations. Individuals will have the right to petition the courts to remedy 'social justice'. The 'right to petition' will mean the 'right to sue' any other person or group. Read Mr. Nigel Jackson's letter to the PM on the push for Mr. Konrad Kalejs to be tried for 'war crimes' back in Latvia.
· There is a huge environmental agenda.
· And calls for the cancellation of all debt owed by the poorest nations, global poverty reductions and an "equitable sharing of global resources" as allocated by the United Nations.

Source "World Affairs Brief' published in "Michael" Journal. Canada, Oct-Dec. 2000

KALEJS EXTRADITION PROPOSAL - ANOTHER GOVERNMENT SCANDAL

The following is an abridged version of a letter sent to Prime Minister John Howard by the Melbourne poet, Nigel Jackson.

"In its handling of the proposals to extradite Mr. Konrads Kalejs, Mr. Antanas Gudelis and others to Latvia and Lithuania to face "Nazi war crimes trials", is the Australian Government jeopardising the civil liberties of all Australians in the future, in order to placate Jewish pressure groups wielding enormous financial power?"

To the Prime Minister, Rt.Hon. John Howard.
Dear Mr. Howard, "... I again write to urge you not to allow extraditions of these men in their late eighties to face such dubious proceedings in what many believe can only be kangaroo courts orchestrating show trials for ideological purposes. New information supporting my position, and, on the face of it, inconsistent with that of your government, is now available. I shall also address certain points made, in response to my earlier letters, by Mr. Steven Marshall, assistant secretary in the international branch of the criminal law division of the Attorney General's Department, in his letters of 10th August and 12th October.

Statements by the presidents of Latvia and Lithuania
In recent weeks statements by these two presidents have been published in the Australian press welcoming the idea of Baltic prosecutions of Mr. Kalejs, Mr. Gudelis and others. These statements have had an ideological ring about them; and that of the Latvian president was apparently made during attendance at an official Holocaust function. There is a strong presumption that these countries do not have a, "criminal justice system" which guarantees the accused a fair trial with the appropriate safeguards (to use the terms of Mr. Marshall in his letter of 10th August). It seems likely that the two presidents spoke as they did as the result of powerful pressure applied to their nations by outside interests, especially American. This accords with information published in Melbourne by The Herald Sun and The Sunday Age during the last year intimating that the Baltic nations have been under pressure to find guilty some "Nazi war criminals" as the price for entry into the European Union and for other favours.

Senator Vanstone's Position
An important article about the Government's handling of this whole matter appeared in The Australian recently... ("'Idiot' MPs could save Kalejs" 9/10). Mr. Milne, reporting conflict between the Minister for Justice and Customs and coalition MP's on the Senate Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, wrote as follows: "Vanstone is not worried about civil liberties niceties. She simply wants Kalejs extradited for political reasons."

Mr. Milne also wrote: "Vanstone has warned her fellow Coalition MP's that if they fail to allow Kalejs to be extradited the Government will face an electoral backlash from Australia's powerful Jewish lobby.

Further Mr. Milne reported that Ivan Shearer, professor of law at Sydney University, has warned, "that power in matters of extradition had swung too far towards executive government and away from the judiciary."

I have seen no attempt by the Minister herself or by you to publicly deny the extremely serious allegations made by Mr. Milne. A strong presumption now exists that, for purposes of electoral advantage, your Government may be prepared to jeopardise civil liberties for all Australians by setting a dangerous precedent.

In his letter of 12th October Mr. Marshall claimed, "the Government will not be swayed by political pressure in these matters". I believe that contrary evidence is so great that his assurance cannot be accepted.

The American Pressure
Herald Sun journalist John Masanauskas has reported a high-ranking American diplomatic representative as stating that Latvia would not be able to resist American pressure to seek the extradition of Mr. Kalejs. Mr. Masanauskas has also reported that the main pressure on Baltic nations in this context has come from America. This raises the issue of just what agencies in America are exerting the pressure.

Remembering the Demjanjuk case in Israel, I suggest that the Office of Special Investigations in the US State Department is probably responsible... The OSI is a thoroughly suspect body. Californian attorney Andrew E. Allen has pointed out that it was established on 4th September 1979 by means of legislative proceedings "not in accordance with long-standing American traditions".
The OSI provisions of 95-519 "were tacked on to a Vietnamese immigration bill, on the last day of Congress, on a voice vote, without discussion. The authors of the OSI clause were Joshua Eilberg, who afterward pleaded guilty to corruption charges, and Elizabeth Holtzman, whose political career ended two years later, mostly on account of her ultra-left policies."

Mr. Allen has provided substantial evidence to suggest that the OSI has acted unjustly on many occasions in order to satisfy the ideological imperatives of the Jewish lobby in America. It appears that in 1988 almost all, if not all, the top administrators of the OSI were Jewish. Their names were: Neal Sher, Michael Bernstein, Ronnie Edelman, Bruce Einhorn, Alan Held, Joseph Lynch, Eli Rosenbaum, Betty-Ellen Shave, Philip Sunshine, Mon Goldberg, George Gilinsky and Elliott Rockier.

What is the position in 2000?
Under these circumstances, a strong presumption exists that the American pressure on Latvia and Lithuania to try Messrs Kalejs, Gudelis and others (and on Australia to co-operate in the campaign) is in fact, really, Jewish pressure. If such is not the case, then your Government needs to clarify the matter beyond reasonable doubt.

Would it not be fairer to ensure that no extradition occur unless (a) the accused have had an opportunity in an Australian court to defend themselves against any charges made, and (b) the country seeking extradition has established a likelihood of conviction within a judicial context analogous to Australia's justice system?... Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic., 22nd October 2000

*BILL NO 602P:E-MAIL TAX

One of our supporters sent the following information

If passed, Bill No.602P will permit the (USA) Federal Government to put a 5-cents charge on every delivered E-mail. The Government of the United States is attempting to quietly push through legislation that will affect use of the Internet. Under the proposed legislation, the US Postal Service will bill email users out of "alternative postage fees". The Bill 602P will permit the Federal Government to charge a 5-cent surcharge on every e-Mail delivered, by billing the Internet Service Providers. The consumer would then be billed in turn by the Internet Service Provider.

Washington DC lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay to prevent this legislation from becoming law. The US Postal Service is claiming lost revenue of nearly $230,000,000 per year, due to the proliferation of e-mail. In 1998, the average person received about 10 pieces of e-mail per day; on those figures, the e-mail tax would take costs to an additional 50 cents a day - or over $180 per year - above and beyond the regular internet costs.

Note that this would be money paid directly to the US Postal Service for a service they do not even provide!

The whole point of the internet is democracy and non-interference. We are already paying an exorbitant price for snail mail because of bureaucratic inefficiency.