INAPPROPRIATE 'OVERKILL'

by Jeremy Lee
Remembering the casualties of war and terrorism obviously has its place. But the welter of emotional sentimentalism that has sought to live every second of the tragedy has been made into a wake surpassing anything seen before. Contrast the media excesses we have seen over the past few days with the silence of the voluntary assembly at Gallipoli in the dawn of the Anzac service, which makes the pure notes of the "Last Post" penetrate so deeply.

Mark Day, writing in the "Media" section of The Australian (12-18/9/02) put the question that many have been asking: ".... In designing their anniversary coverage, I wonder if any of our newspaper or TV current affairs editors considered the possibility that what they were about to do would actually turn people away? The 'I will not watch' syndrome was building last week and being freely expressed by the weekend. Special newspaper sections, lavishly researched and presented at great cost, were put aside unopened. "And last night on television three channels went head-to-head, non-stop for 20-plus hours of programming on the same subject. This was on top of special previews building up all week, including one on CNN, centred on where-were-you-when-the-planes-went-in?, which gratuitously showed the moments of impact a dozen times in 15 minutes ..... "Why the overkill?...." All this, with an equally overplayed build-up to the immanent war against Iraq. Was one to prepare the emotional seed-bed for the other? So gross is the propaganda of the times that one can suspect anything.

PRESS CENSORSHIP ABOUNDING

Sally Jackson, in the same issue, described the government manipulation of the press concerning current wars in sundry places
" .... On Radio National's Media Report last week two very different media venerables, Walter Cronkite and Hunter S. Thompson, expressed identical frustrations over what they see as an unprecedented curtailment of press freedom by the Bush administration. Cronkite, whose 60-year career has spanned a battery of wars, described restrictions on the reporting of US military action overseas as "incredible censorship". "This is contrary to every war we have fought in this country," he said, adding: "The press itself has not been aggressive enough in fighting for these rights."

Gonzo journalism pioneer Thompson said the US was the most paranoid and insecure he had ever seen it. "Overall, American journalism has been cowed and intimidated by the patriotic orgy the White House keeps whipping up," he said. Although there was plenty of room for dissenting voices, "People just aren't taking the risk.

Locally, the ABC's Uechtritz expresses similar concerns, accusing the Howard Government of virtually blacking out media coverage of this country's contribution to the US-led military coalition. Specifically, he complains that we have seen only heavily-censored pictures of Australian troops in Afghanistan and heard nothing about their reported movements in Central Asia or about what RAAF pilots and planes are doing at the US airbase on the island of Diego Garcia.

"I think Australians and the Australian media have been too accommodating in allowing this to happen," he says .... To demonstrate the danger of accommodation, Uechtritz cites the destruction by US forces of a Red Cross building in Kabul last October. The Pentagon dismissed [the story] as lies and propaganda – until the pictures confirming this were satellited out by Al Jazeera [the Qatar-based Arabic TV channel] he says. Pentagon officials later confirmed a US warplane had mistakenly dropped 450kg bombs on the warehouse. In America particularly, but also in Australia, journalists sometimes get accused of being unpatriotic for daring to report objectively such stories."

The selective "management" of news is now an art-form. Some of the biggest stories of all never appear. The story of Mossad (Israeli Intelligence) involvement in events before and after the Twin-Tower bombing almost slipped out through Fox News last December – but was quickly bottled up. How many journalists are acquainted with the story, but have never dared to repeat it, is an interesting question. One result of this 'shut-down' of the mainstream media is an absolute frenzy of material on the websites. Zionists contend with Palestinians. Top journalists release the findings they can't get published in the normal manner. As people become more suspicious they turn from their papers and TV to "the net". And they're not disappointed.

WHY DO THEY HATE?

Missing out of almost all the columns in the big media is any honest appraisal of the reasons for the hate of the West so palpable in the Arab world. Only marginalized 'rebels' are allowed to ask the question.

Noam Chomsky (Weekend Australian, 7-8/9/02), the courageous Jewish dissident, pointed out:
"....We should also be aware that much of the world regards Washington as a terrorist regime. In recent years the US has taken or backed actions in Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan and Turkey, to name a few, that meet official US definitions of 'terrorism' – that is, when Americans apply the term to enemies.

In the most sober establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, (the CFR journal – ed.) Samuel Huntingdon wrote in 1999: 'While the United States regularly denounces various countries as 'rogue states', in the eyes of many countries it is becoming the rogue superpower .... The single greatest threat to their societies'.

The current 'campaign of hatred' in the Arab world is, of course, also fuelled by the US policies towards Israel-Palestine and Iraq. The US has provided the crucial support for Israel's harsh military occupation, now in its 35th year. One way for the US to lessen Israeli-Palestinian tensions would be to stop refusing to join the long-standing international consensus that calls for recognition of the right of all states in the region to live in peace and security, including a Palestinian state in the currently occupied territories .... In Iraq, a decade of harsh sanctions under US pressure has strengthened Saddam Hussein while leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis – perhaps more people 'than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history', military analysts John and Karl Mueller wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1999.

Twenty years ago, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, Yehoshaphat Harkabi, also a leading Arabist, made a point that still holds true. 'To offer an honourable solution to the Palestinians respecting their right to self-determination: That is the solution of the problem of terrorism,' he said. 'When the swamp disappears there will be no more mosquitoes .....' If we insist on creating more swamps, there will be more mosquitoes, with awesome capacity for destruction. If we devote our resources to draining the swamps, addressing the roots of the 'campaigns of hatred', we can not only reduce the threats we face but also live up to ideals that we profess and that are not beyond reach if we choose to take them seriously.

Mark Hertsgaard, in a new book The Eagle's Shadow, reviewed in The Australian Financial Review, 6/9/02, gives this picture of the US:
".... Our foreign policy is arrogant and cruel; our consumerist definition of prosperity is killing us and the planet. US democracy is an embarrassing den of corporate lobbyists, entrenched bureaucrats, egotistical multimillionaires and legal bribery. The US economy is aggregating wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Yet to top it all, our business and political elite are insisting that our model should also be the world's model ...."

Sadly Australia, slavishly following the globalist model, is merely a smaller version of the US.

THE DEFINITION OF A POLITICIAN

Federal Minister Amanda Vanstone, addressing the Sydney Institute on September 3rd, gave this unusually perceptive definition of a politician (The Australian Financial Review, 6/9/02)

"Every Member of Parliament has two personalities, that of a parliamentarian and that of a politician. Believe me, these are very different creatures. The parliamentarian is interested in all views, the politician simply wants to win. When the politician overtakes the parliamentarian, the desire to win overtakes the desire for rational, civil and reasoned argument. To some politicians, beating an opponent down is more important than getting their policy idea up. Every sporting nation loves a good contest. But even a boxing fan will turn off if at every match the loser is brain-dead. And so it is with politics. When messages are constantly overloaded with malice and hatred, politics has become a blood-sport rather than a battle of ideas. Everyone who has the luxury and pleasure of participating in public discourse should understand that when they participate as a gladiator in a battle, laden with hatred, malice and invective, they force everyone else to be just a spectator. They plunge another knife into the great conversation of our life, public discourse ...."

Amanda Vanstone couldn't be referring to the members of Australia's State and Federal Parliaments, could she? After all, our parliamentary sessions are models of good behaviour, high-quality speeches, generosity towards those of opposing views, and the exercise of conscience when it comes to voting – aren't they? The population regularly tunes into the high-quality debates, and makes its own contribution with letters and petitions, which every politician takes very seriously – doesn't it? And our children, when they are lucky enough to be taken to the public gallery to listen to the high quality of debate, cannot wait to gain their right to vote, so that they, too, can preserve our heritage and contribute to our future – don't they?

GLOBALISATION: STUFF THE LOCALS

by Antonia Feitz
A research paper by labour market consultant Bob Kinnaird has found that there's a "serious over-supply" of computer science graduates in Australia (Caitlin Fitzsimmons in The Australian, 3/9/02). A flood of fee-paying foreign students, many of whom remain in Australia after graduation, is adding to the unemployment rate. There are now over 8,000 unemployed computer professionals in Australia. So how in heaven's name can the federal government not only permit but encourage firms to import skilled labour?

The Indian software company Infosys has announced it will import 60 Indian professionals to work at its new Melbourne software development company. Just 40 employees will be Australian (Simon Hayes, Australian, 3/9/02). Infosys' chairman Narayana Murthy said, "Australia is a great country and Melbourne is a great city and I'm sure our Indian staff would look forward to working here."

I'm sure Australian professionals would like to work in Melbourne too. Mr. Murthy claimed Infosys wanted to employ local staff but would have difficulty attracting talented locals. With 8,000 unemployed IT professionals in Australia that excuse for importing labour rings very hollow indeed. According to Simon Hayes, the company's US development centre employs just 20 percent local residents. Mr. Kinnaird said the number of foreign students should be drastically cut back. It's going to provide yet another avenue for the universities to make money from full fee-paying students at the expense of local students [their mission in today's barbaric world – AF] and they'll all end up competing in the labour market. No they won't because the graduates, Australian and foreign, will be competing against imported foreigners. This is deeply wrong.

And what a goose Victoria's Information and Communications Technology Minister Marsha Thomson has proved to be. Hayes reported that at the opening of Infosys' Melbourne venture, Thomson bragged that the decision to locate in Melbourne was "a massive endorsement of Victoria's skills base and research capabilities" and "would provide long term jobs". For Indians. Go figure! If the situation wasn't so tragic for Australia's youth it'd be funny.

COURT'S RULING ON OLGA SCULLY

by Betty Luks
Many readers have been following the trials and tribulations of Tasmanian lady Mrs. Olga Scully and her battles with leaders of Australian Jewry. The case against her was brought by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry president, Jeremy Jones, who petitioned the Federal Court to uphold a 2000 ruling by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission banning Mrs. Scully from distributing 'anti-Semitic' material and ordering her to apologise publicly to the Jewish community. The Human Rights Commission lacked the 'teeth' to impose a penalty for breaking the order, and Olga had continued to distribute her material. In his ruling the judge had the following to say:

Apology and retraction
During the course of submissions I suggested to the applicant's counsel that, prima facie, the idea of ordering someone to make an apology is a contradiction in terms. Mr. Rothman (Council for the Applicant) accepted this. Although an apology has been ordered in proceedings of this type in the past (see, for example, Oberoi v HREOC [2001] FMCA 34), 1 do not think that an order that the respondent publish an apology is appropriate in these proceedings. Nor do I consider that ordering the publication of a retraction is appropriate. In my opinion, a retraction is only appropriate where it has been established by an applicant that what has been published or disseminated by a respondent is false. The present proceedings were not concerned with the truth or falsity of what was distributed by the respondent; rather, it was concerned with whether her leaflets were reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate Jews in Australia. Although I appreciate that the truth or falsity of what is contended in the respondent's leaflets is relevant to this question, as I have explained above at [104] the fact that false assertions are made in a leaflet does not of itself establish a contravention of s I8C. In addition, the applicant's case was that it was the imputations that arose from the leaflets that were said to cause the requisite offence rather than the leaflets themselves. In those circumstances, it has not been necessary for me to determine whether what is said in the respondent's leaflets is in fact true or false. In those circumstances, a retraction is not appropriate.

Damages
The applicant has not specified the loss that he is said to have suffered as a result of the publication and dissemination of the leaflets, nor has he provided me with a quantification of any such loss. I do not consider that damages would be either an adequate or an appropriate remedy in these proceedings.

Orders
I accordingly make the following orders: I. It be declared that the respondent has engaged in conduct rendered unlawful by Part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) by having distributed ...leaflets in letterboxes in Launceston, Tasmania and by selling or offering such leaflets at a public market in Launceston ..."

Justice Peter Hely ruled that Olga should pay Jeremy Jones's costs, but she has announced that she is bankrupt. She has a period of 28 days to appeal the ruling.

BASIC FUND

This year's Basic Fund has reached the final figure of $45,154.49. Thank you so very much to all who have contributed to the fund. It is important you know in what way and where your contributions are used. Below is a list of current publications, activities and completed projects. It is a list of what is achieved for the education and servicing of our readers and actionists – the unsung heroes of the movement.

• Journals: On Target, New Times Survey, Heritage Journal.
• Writers, editors, contributors, administrators and printers. Where would the League be without the solid backing from these stalwarts?
• Loyal 'Hub' workers and volunteers who ensure the journals go out week by week.
• Website.
• Those who use the League's website will know there is now a search engine facility for the serious researcher.
• The CD: The tedious task of scanning, proof reading and correcting over forty years of On Targets is nigh on completed. The project of the CD is 'in the home straight'.
• The League Book Services: Week in week out the folk from the book services carry out their tasks of educating and servicing the interested public.
• Major publishing project: Six new books will be launched at the National Weekend.
• Have I forgotten anyone or anything? Probably; but it is not intentional.
When I set out just what the League achieves, even I am amazed. (Betty Luks.)

DANGERS OF ASIO BILL – SENATOR'S REPLY

Senator Claire Moore (Qld.) replies to Geoff Muirden, Research Officer, Australian Civil Liberties Union.

"Labor believes that the amended ASIO Bill proposed by the Government is unacceptable. If the Bill is passed in its current form:
• Australians not suspected of any offence could be detained by ASIO for questioning – ASIO has never had powers of detention before;
• Those detained by ASIO would not have the right to legal advice; ASIO would be given the powers to detain children for questioning; and
• The Government's proposals will significantly change the role of ASIO by giving it powers of coercion and detention.
• Labor believes the Government's response to the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD is inadequate.

When the Bill is introduced into the Senate, Labor will move a referral to a Senate References Committee to examine alternative ways of enhancing the capacity of our law enforcement agencies to counter terrorism without compromising civil liberties. Labor proposes that the Senate committee examines:
• The development of an alternative regime in which questioning to obtain intelligence relating to terrorism is conducted not by ASIO but by the AFP, including appropriate arrangements for detention of terrorist suspects, and questioning of persons not suspected of any offence;
• The relationship between ASIO and the AFP in the investigation of terrorist activities or offences;
• The adequacy of Australia's current information and intelligence gathering methods to investigate potential terrorist activities or offences; and
• Recent overseas legislation dealing with the investigation of potential terrorist activities or offences and whether the Bill in its current or amended form is constitutionally sound.

Labor's position on the ASIO Bill will ensure that the investigation of potential terrorist activities or offences will not compromise our civil liberties. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me."

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The Editor: "Who is Head of State of Australia?" Republicans base their whole strategy on their chant: "We want an Australian Head of State" when we already have one in our Australian Governor-General. The Queen is the Sovereign NOT the Head of State. Space does not permit me to list the 40 odd references in conclusive support of this statement but it relies on references in a thoroughly researched paper we have produced called "Who is Australia's Head of State?" This paper relies on the statements of many respected and authoritative sources, eg The Queen's web site; The Constitution; The Royal Style and Titles Act 1953; Sir David Smith KCVO AO; Sir Harry Gibbs, the Commonwealth Government Directory; The UN – even committed republicans such as journalist Paul Kelly of The Australian; The (republican) Australian itself; The Hon. Richard McGarvie; Sir Zelman Cowen; Mr. Malcolm Turnbull; Mr. Greg Barns.

We encourage those interested in becoming properly informed about our Constitution and system of Government, and in particular about the fact that the Governor-General is our Australian Head of State, to buy a copy – or copies. AIDC regrets it is not yet of sufficient financial strength to be able to give them away but asks only a minimal donation which falls short of covering costs, viz. for (minimum) 3 copies please send a self addressed envelope enclosing just one 45c stamp to: AIDC, GPO Box 2221, Sydney, NSW 2001. AIDC hopes that the readers of On Target can make known its availability widely. Signed: S. MORGAN, Hon. Sec., AIDC.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA – CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

NOW'S THE TIME TO MAKE PLANS FOR THE NATIONAL WEEKEND

From Friday, October 11th (New Times Dinner) through to and including Sunday, October 13th, 2002. It promises to be an outstanding event... make every effort to be there!

"NEW TIMES" DINNER – "Celebrating the Year of Jubilee": Friday, October 11th, 2002. Dinner Guest Speaker is Mr. Phillip Benwell, MBE, and his address is entitled: "The Queen on her Jubilee". Venue is Main Function Room, The Hume Motor Inn, 406 Wodonga Place, Albury, NSW, 2640. Dinner price: $27.00 per person for a buffet style 3-course meal; bar facilities available. Dinner bookings no later than Friday, October 4th, 2002.

SEMINAR – "Heralding the Year of Jubilee": Registration from 12.30pm. Commences, 1.15pm, Saturday, October 12th. Admission to Seminar: $15.00 per person. Four excellent speakers have been invited for the weekend. Seminar speakers: Nigel Jackson, Melbourne writer, schoolteacher and author of "The Case for David Irving". Nigel will focus on, "The Queen's Justice and the International Criminal Court". Michael Lane, editor of American social credit publication "Triumph of the Past", "One Successful Experiment Would Do More Than $Millions in Advertising". Phillip Benwell, MBE, National Chairman, Australian Monarchist League. He observed "we have gone from despotic rule to an elective dictatorship!" The title of his paper is, "Our Developing Democracy". Jeremy Lee, authority on the New World Order, writer, author and lecturer will be speaking on "The Crunch and the Critical Moment". 2002 is also the fiftieth year since the death of C.H. Douglas, which we will also commemorate – another 'jubilee' event. Whilst the situation looks grim, Jeremy Lee reminds us of Douglas' observation, "Every aspect of evil appears to be in the ascendancy..." His implication is that when every hope of a breakthrough is lost, the momentum of evil exhausts even itself. At that moment a lever applied in the right place by an absurdly small number can help change things!

DIVINE SERVICE & ACTION CONFERENCE
Sunday, October 13th: It is planned the Sunday will be a full day for those who can stay on. Make every effort to do so. Plan to travel back home on the Monday. Michael Lane is making a special effort to be at the weekend – all the way from the USA! We will give him extra time on the Sunday to further develop the ideas he is keen to present. New books to be launched: Another League initiative! A number of 'hot off the press' books will be launched at the weekend, including two of Michael Lane's. Venue is the same as last year: The Hume Inn, 406 Wodonga Place, Albury, NSW. No more time-wasting and frustration trying to find parking spots in busy, hectic Melbourne. Good reports were received from those who attended last year. A wide choice of accommodation is available in Albury, plenty of service clubs for good meals, and the food, facilities and accommodation at the motel very satisfactory. We have 'block booked' a number of rooms for League people at the motel – The Hume Inn in Albury, NSW. Phone early and make your bookings: Phone (02) 6021 2733 or Fax (02) 6041 2239.

HELP YOURSELF TO GOOD HEALTH