THE ISRAELI LOBBY CRACKS THE WHIP

by Jeremy Lee
Behind the pretended objectivity of the great majority of politicians lies a mortal fear of offending the most powerful political lobby in the land – the Israeli Lobby. This was apparent when a Labor backbencher, Julia Irwin, moved a private member's bill in the Parliament, which was debated on Remembrance Day, November 11th. The Bill dealt with crucial issues related to the confrontation between Western and Arab nations, between Christianity and Islam.

The motion read: "That this House (1) notes the continued occupation by the state of Israel of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in contravention of UN Resolution 242 passed on November 22, 1967; (2) supports the right of Israel to exist within secure borders; (3) Calls on the UN to insert a peacekeeping force into the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza and the unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces; (4) Calls for the recognition of the state of Palestine based on the pre-1967 borders of the West Bank and Gaza; and (5) calls on the international community to encourage and support the resolution of outstanding differences between Israel and Palestine based on the Oslo and Camp David agreements"

At a time when Islamic nations round the world cite the Israeli/Palestinian issue as their biggest concern; and at a time when Australia is on tenterhooks about possible terrorist attacks in the next two months, one might have thought that such a motion deserved the most careful debate and attention. Even President Bush has stated his belief in a future Palestinian State. But the big guns of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry came out firing.

Glen Milne (The Australian, 11/11/02) wrote: " ....The Jewish community is a substantial lobby, well-organised, financially powerful and politically influential. Due principally to Hawke's passionate defence of Israel and friendship with the likes of Peter Abeles and Frank Lowry, and despite constant courtship by Howard, it has generally supported Labor .... The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the elected representative organization of Australia's Jewish community, is outraged at Crean's failure to quash Irwin's motion, so outraged it has now written privately to every member of the federal parliament in the following terms:
"The elected representatives of the Australian Jewish community do not believe the motion will have any positive impact on the Middle East peace process and if anything is counter-productive" .... The letter was signed "Yours faithfully" by Jeremy Jones, president of the council. But increasingly it appears the Australian Jewish community has little faith in the ALP ...."

All of which must be balm to Mr. Howard and his Coalition, but bad news for Mr. Crean, and any prospects of peace in the Middle East. And it won't diminish Islamic hostility towards Australia. It's a sad day when our elected representatives have their agenda decided for them by outside lobbies – particularly by one that puts large sums into party coffers and carries big influence in the media.

REPUBLICANS RISING FROM THE ASHES

WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT

The world's armament industry works full-time on discovering new methods of killing, maiming and destroying. The Pentagon can't wait to try out a new range of weapons, and would appear to be licking its lips for stepping up the war against Iraq. Although seldom reported, there are continual air raids on that unfortunate country, with expressed American outrage that invading planes are fired upon. The Iraqis, apparently, are simply there for target practice and have no right to defend themselves.

The Australian (18/11/02) told us: " ....Weapons ready for battlefield deployment include a microwave bomb that emits powerful pulses of energy to destroy enemy electronics, disable communications and even block vehicle ignitions without hurting bystanders.
Defence researchers also have successfully tested a radical thermobaric warhead – previously described as a 'vacuum bomb' – to be aimed at suspected chemical and biological stockpiles. The warheads are designed to produce heat so intense that any contaminants released into the atmosphere are neutralized instantly ...."

I wouldn't put my money on the safety of bystanders in the case of the second. The complacent self-justification of those developing such inhuman weapons is hardly believable. Heat-intense bombs create fireballs which suck all the oxygen out of the atmosphere, as well as possible contaminants. Anyone in the vicinity – which covers large areas – is choked to death in agony.

PRIVATE SECTOR DEBT CONTINUES TO ESCALATE

The latest report by the Financial Counsellors' Association of New South Wales tries to have a bet each way. More and more Australians are locked into debt, living day-to-day on their credit cards, with no way out. Their problem, the report says, is that most don't know how to use debt properly, and should be educated:
"... Overall indebtedness is increasing and everyday living expenses - particularly telephone bills - figure prominently. This is an issue for social policy as much as it is for the financial system. It is inappropriate use of debt that is the problem – although that doesn't imply those who do so have any other choice ...." (emphasis added, Australian Financial Review, 18/11/02)

This is a classic example of dealing with the symptom while avoiding the underlying cause. All Western economies run their money systems in a way which increases debt faster than the means to repay it. Those with the muscle to keep up with the system grow stronger, at the expense of a growing number who slip into poverty and can survive no other way that further borrowing with all the penalties involved. Until debt is turned into real credit by the issuing of Australia's new money requirements as a financial credit to the people, there is no solution beyond ever-increasing casualties and bankruptcies. Education on how to survive the rapids is no overall solution.

SHIFTING JOBS TO CUT-PRICE COUNTRIES

A British financial company, Prudential, is caught in a strike because of its intention to cut 1,000 British jobs and 'outsource' to India. How Alexander 'Eiderdown' would applaud! There are about 10,000 workers in India who are servicing companies in other parts of the world. By 2005, it is estimated, 50,000 Indians will be servicing call-centre businesses in England from their home soil. Australian institutions are moving the same way.

The reason? According to The Weekend Financial Review (9-10/11/02) ".... A move to India cuts labour costs by about 80 percent, and call centers are a labour-intensive business .... There's something revolutionary about the global labour market being created by Prudential and others in moving call centers to Bombay. They're moving the job to the low-wage economy, rather than the other way round. This eliminates government migration restrictions and gives the market the potential to be genuinely free...."

We have seen the same trend in Australia, where foreign crews, who earn lower wages and pay no tax in Australia, are being imported to replace Australians in the maritime service. As we've said before, why don't we use Indians in Bombay to do the job of our high-wage politicians? They could vote electronically in Parliament, could they not? And think of all the travel costs, superannuation and other benefits that could be saved! As far as my existing federal member is concerned, an Indian in Calcutta or Delhi couldn't do any worse!

LAW, LAW, LAW

The following is from the recently published article Taxing Times, Is Self-Assessment Working? by Michael Ingles, in Policy, the journal of the Centre for Independent Studies (AFR, 20/11/02):

"To collect an income tax, a government must wage a continual war on its own people. This metaphor bears elaboration in contemporary Australia. By far the bulk of income tax is collected by the Australian Government from occupied territories: the lands of the employers who have been press-ganged into deducting income tax at source from the earnings of millions of Australian employees, and their like. The rest of the income is raised from hostile territory, from lands where war is literally waged. How has the Australian government waged war on its own people in the field of income tax? The approach of the past 20 years has been law, law, law. This has failed consistently and yet the government and its agencies have not deviated from this approach of ever more income tax law. When challenged to do something new in the face of long, proven failure of familiar methods, a common human response is to continue to adopt those same discredited methods, only harder. Nothing could sum up more aptly the route taken by those responsible for the decline of the Australian tax system."

The ridiculous thing is that the introduction of something like the Debit Tax, extracted daily from the total bank turnover at a rate much lower than one percent, would raise more than all the revenue the government currently needs, while abolishing every other tax in the land. The day of the tax return would be over. The GST and Sales Tax would quietly disappear. Fuel prices would drop drastically. The massive army in the Australian Tax Department would be released into much more creative pastimes. And a national celebration, complete with fireworks, could be held as the Tax Act with its 8,000 pages was consigned to ashes. Oh, for an Oz version of Bilbo Baggins!

RATTING ON THE ROYALS

Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun, 14/11/02) summed up the despicable characters involved in the latest republican attack on the Queen and the Royal Family in their push for an Australian 'republic'.
"Britain's royal butler affair is not an argument for an Australian republic, it's a depressing insight into the scum who betray for cash."

We know the butler sold his loyalty for a big sum of money, one wonders how a Minister of the Crown rationalises the breaking of her Oath of Loyalty to the Queen. At a recent Australian Constitutional Futures conference held in Brisbane (Herald Sun, 18/11/02) Senator Amanda Vanstone, the Family and Community Services Minister (of the Crown) publicly lamented the failed campaigns of the republican movement. There was a time when a man's (and a woman's) word was their bond.

DEAR FELLOW-AUSTRALIAN GERHARDT PEARSON

by Betty Luks
Further to last week's letter, I was interested in the Australian Story's report of the early results of a fledgling Indigenous Enterprise Partnerships, and truly pleased to hear "small industries and training programs are thriving, people are saving money for the first time, and, in the pilot area, juvenile recidivism has been drastically reduced."

I should think most Australians would be pleased for you and your people. But my question is: just how is the programme set up? Viewers were told, "Over the last two years, a group of high powered corporate backers, philanthropists and politicians have been rallying behind Noel Pearson, his brother Gerhardt and other indigenous leaders and invested millions of dollars in cash and resources in a revolutionary attempt to reverse Aboriginal fortunes".

I have to say Gerhardt, my warning antennae went 'ping'!!! Let me explain: Your brother Noel is on record as having criticised Carmen Lawrence and the Labor Left for lack of any genuine response to the community's problems whilst at the same time he praised Liberal politician Tony Abbott for putting "commitment and money into helping us in Cape York Peninsula to develop a family income management scheme that is aimed at attacking the destructive force inherent in passive welfare and transforming the passive welfare resource into something constructive".

Please don't get me wrong Gerhardt, as a fellow Australian, I don't begrudge you and your people one cent of the money, in fact, I think all Australians should be receiving a "National Dividend" – as a birthright. But what interests me is how the scheme is set up and who benefits the most? Is the scheme anything like the schemes now being set up within other Charitable and Non-Profit Organizations? The structure set up for your community is listed as a 'charitable organisation', am I right in thinking that one of the reasons for this is because it cannot be set up as a business venture? If no one person owns the land outright and freehold, no one person is responsible before the law?

The Set-up of Charitable and Non-Profit Organisations
Under the rules, Charities and Non-Profit Organisations cannot distribute any profits, in the sense that a privately owned business does. After all overheads are accounted for, including incomes for such persons as full-time managers, the 'profits' are distributed to "the widow, the orphan and the stranger in our midst" – or for whatever reason the Charity was set up in the first place. Historically, charities were supported by free-will offerings by those who could afford to do so, for the benefit of the less fortunates. Often, the administrators were wealthy enough to give of their time and energy to the cause, while most of the work, the physical running of the charity (such as Meals on Wheels today) was done by volunteers who received no recompense other than a sense of satisfaction for helping the poor and the needy.

New South Wales Service Clubs
A good example of a Non-Profit Organisation is the New South Wales Service Clubs (with their poker machines). Under the Constitutions of the Clubs, all profits are ploughed back into the Clubs for the benefit of the members. Compare the good example of the NSW Clubs with the outrageous South Australian set up for Pokies. The profits from the pokies go into the pockets of the Hotel Owners, who are raking in $millions, with NO BENEFITS to the Patrons – other than cheap meals, coffee and cheap biscuits 'on tap', and an environment designed to entice the 'suckers into their dens'. But, the charitable groups are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet, there is less and less of the wage earner's dollar left over to support them. While the very rich are getting richer, both the middle class and poor are getting poorer and poorer. At the same time, there are less and less people with either the time, or independent means, to work on a voluntary basis for the charities.

The 'Union' of Governments, Corporate World and Non-Profit Organisations
Enter the 'Experts' from Governments and the Corporate World. They have set up schemes to put the 'non-profits' on a more 'efficient' business footing. TAFE Colleges now run courses to train 'managers' to 'manage' the volunteers. The volunteers are trained to work 'more efficiently', whilst the 'managers', because they are the 'professionals', can claim more of a cut of the profits – as salaries of course!

Gerhardt, the Managerial Caste's purpose is to ensure the stabilisation of Monopoly-Capitalism's takeover – and sadly, I think you and your people are once more being used for purposes other than you understand or realise. In terms of "Animal Farm", we could say Mr. Whimper, is now gaining all control. What the Animals on the Farm didn't understand was that The Pigs (Socialism/Communism) were the weapon Mr. Whimper used to destabilise Farmer Brown's system (Private Property, Free Enterprise). Mr.Whimper is now setting up a Managerial Caste to further his purposes.

PS: For your interest Gerhardt, the Australian League of Rights was set up as a Non-Profit Organisation and has functioned that way ever since. I can assure you there are no 'managers' on Corporate-level salaries and after our very small overheads are covered, everything goes into the work of the League.
Last but not least, you might be interested to know, the League was set up as a permanent body to warn fellow Australians of what The Pigs – and Mr.Whimper – were doing to Farmer Brown's Farm.

SIR WALTER CROCKER DIES

It is with a note of sadness On Target reports the recent death of Sir Walter Crocker at the grand age of 100. Sir Walter worked for the League of Nations in the International Labour Organisation in Geneva, from 1934 to 1940 and from 1946 to 1949, in the UN's Secretariat in New York, where he worked with Sir Raphael Cilento, the first Patron of The Australian Heritage Society, a Division of the League. A highly respected former Lieutenant-Governor of South Australia, Sir Walter joined the Australian League of Rights' protest at the first War Crimes trials held in Australia.

Sir Walter said in a press release November 10th, 1991: "I am much concerned about the way the trial has been brought about... our Federal Government ... has agreed to the trial through giving into pressures of a lobby which represents very few Australians and no Australian interests, but which is buttressed with great wealth, with exceptional self-centred persistence, and with ruthless cleverness... This and related trials are not driven by justice but by hatred and revenge."
At the protest, Sir Walter's placard read: "Vengeance & hatred poison communities as well as persons". As we observe what is now happening in so many parts of the world, and in particular in Palestine, it can only be said, "Sir Walter you were correct."

Sir Walter was kind enough to write the foreword to the Australian Heritage Society's 1992 publication of a collection of major speeches by Prince Charles: "The People's Prince".

WAR – BENEFITS THE FEW AT EXPENSE OF THE MASSES

by Betty Luks
It is my sincerest wish that every mother with sons or daughters old enough to join the armed services will get to read the following revelation of the real purposes of modern warfare. Hopefully they will question and denounce the Ruling Elite's push for war when it is their sons and/or daughters who are to be sacrificed. Taken from the British On Target, October 5th & 19th, 2002, "Why a Major War is Needed" the full article is available on the League's website: www.alor.org/ Delivered by Major General Smedley Butler of the United States Marine Corps (often quoted of late) as long ago as 1933:

"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its 'finger men' to point out enemies, its 'muscle men' to destroy enemies, its 'brain men' to plan war preparations, and a 'Big Boss' Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil (now Exxon-Mobil), went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

BASIC FUND

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The letter writers are busy with their pens (computers?). Letters have been sent out on various subjects and issues and published in a wide range of newspapers: Tariff Cuts, Attracting Overseas Capital; the Middle East, Farm Appeal, Gun Control; Bloody Hands, etc., etc. Good on you letter-writers, you are doing a great job.

Although the following letter was published in September it is worth reprinting for our readers
To the Editor, "Sunshine Coast Daily": "What a sickening spectacle it was to see Prime Minister John Howard shaking hands with China's second-most-powerful man, during his recent visit to Australia. Did you check your hand Mr. Howard to see if it was red? I suggest that you should have, because this man certainly has blood on his hands. He is a 'top man' in a regime that is responsible for the deaths of 60 million people, which followed the 1949 Communist takeover in China... Let's have no more of these types visiting this country and more effort from the Federal Government in the direction of doing what needs to be done to get this country back to being the prosperous country it once was." – G. Patch, Toowoomba, Qld.
Now line that letter up with John Howard's statement about 'hating guns'

To Editor, "Ballarat Courier": "Predictably, the shooting at Monash University has elicited calls for tightening gun controls. The fact that the gunman concerned had his licence and had passed scrutiny illustrates that misfits can slip through the system. Legislation is not the answer. Steve Bracks said that Victoria has the tightest gun laws in Australia so an objective look at the whole situation, not a knee-jerk reaction is indicated. John Howard, who told the Channel Seven Sunrise program on June 13th that "We will find any means we can to further restrict them because I hate guns", has thrown his support behind further control as he did at Port Arthur. Anything that has a physical existence can be bought for money. There are people who make a living flouting the law. Make no mistake, "when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns." – Ron Fischer, Ballarat, Vic.

BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS

WAR ON IRAQ – What Bush Team Doesn't Want You To Know by Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector, and William Rivers Pitt. An Enlightening Book: The definitive debunking of the arguments for a war on Iraq by the former weapons inspector who is a major voice throughout the international media, and who knows from the inside what the risks really are – both of not going to war and going to war. Price: $14.00 Posted.

TERRORISM AND WAR by Howard Zinn: Following Noam Chomsky's recent bestseller September 11, Howard Zinn confirms that truth has been the first casualty of war. But war, he argues has many other casualties too, including civil liberties on the home front, and human rights abroad. In Terrorism And War, Zinn explores the growth of the American empire as well as the long tradition of resistance in the United States to US militarism, from the Socialist Party in World War 1 to the opponents of US military intervention in Afghanistan today. This is the most up-to-date thinking on war, terrorism and the new global order by one of America's most articulate historians. Price: $24.00 Posted.

Order the above from The Australian Heritage Society, PO Box 163, Chidlow, WA, 6556. Tel/Fax (08) 9574 6042.

SEPTEMBER 11 by Noam Chomsky. Price: $23.00 posted from all League Book Services.