HAS JOHN HOWARD LEFT HIS RUN TOO LATE?

by Jeremy Lee
There seems little doubt that Australia will be inflicted with a rise in interest rates - probably to coincide with Christmas. This increase is expected to coincide with an end to the housing boom and a fall in property values over the next year. The result? Obviously a big increase in debt-defaults, and added pressure on another big sector of the $400 billion mortgage sector to scrimp and save to keep up with payments.

The current apparent rise in the value of the Australian dollar is more exactly a fall in the $US. Notice carefully that the Australian dollar is not rising against the other major currencies. The American dollar is in freefall, as nations such as Japan, China and others begin selling US bonds and investments, leaving behind a gaping hole, as the State Department has no foreign "fill" left to plug the gaping Trade and Budget deficits.

The pressure to find other currencies to finance oil sales from OPEC countries grows daily. Although not a member of OPEC, Vladimir Putin in Russia is now canvassing selling Russian oil in Euros - which would complete the rout of the American dollar. The rise in the Australian dollar from 63 cents to almost 70 cents in the last four months, an increase of about 12 per cent, should have resulted in an equivalent drop in petrol prices. But where is it?

Australia has now moved back into the "bad old days" of strikes and industrial stoppages. Brendan Nelson - he of the diamond ear-stud - is not so popular with our tertiary institutions as he might have hoped. A national strike of academics, supported by students, is almost unheard of, but has just occurred.
Tony Abbott has been sent in to pacify doctors who are threatening to bring public hospitals to a standstill by mass resignations. In every area of service, professionals are up in arms by deteriorating facilities and work conditions. A public inquiry into child abuse in foster care in Queensland has so far produced the same old symptoms - staff shortages through lack of money. Yet we are collecting more taxes than ever before in Australia! So what do we do? Try to sell our few remaining assets, and stave off the day of reckoning.

A PARTY BY ANY OTHER NAME

The National Party of Australia has changed its name for the second time in 30 years. In the early 70s it was "The Country Party". Then, as the country was being decimated, it became "The National Party". Now it is "The Nationals". (It is perilously close to the National Bank, which changed its name to "The National" - which did nothing to make it more popular. The National Bank is now losing heavily on the drop in value of the $US)

It's not a name-change that can or will make any difference to the motley group on the National's benches in Canberra. It is doing nothing to change the disastrous state of affairs in rural Australia. Already, the Nationals have jumped back onto Howard's coat tails in endorsing the sale of the remaining 51 per cent of Telstra. Why? Despite a disastrous foray into the Hong Kong communications market, Telstra at the moment makes a healthy profit which delivers a significant dividend to Canberra every year. Why forfeit such an advantage, potentially lasting for generations, for a short-term spending spree to hide our debts? The Nationals are either too lazy, ignorant or fearful to look at alternative ideas to finance development in Australia.

Having just completed the Alice-to-Darwin railway, which will be foreign-owned and operated for 50 years, who don't they look at Australia's transcontinental railway, which we financed ourselves? Telstra has been built through decades of investment by taxpayers. Its infrastructure in lines and technology is enormous. Virtually every Australian home, from the busiest city to the remotest outback area, has phone facilities of some sort or another. Every poll on the issue shows a big majority of Australians opposed to the sale of the remaining 51 per cent of Telstra. They suspect, with good reason, that it will end up foreign owned.

De-Anne Kelly, National Party member for Dawson, has confirmed that the big majority in her electorate oppose the sale. If "The Nationals" would like to be seen as representative, why don't they run their own polls on the issue? And promise to "represent" the result in Parliament? It would do more to enhance their image than any name change! Incidentally, the test for De-Anne Kelly will not be in the defiant statements she makes for public consumption. It will be in the way she votes when the proposal is placed before Parliament.

CASHING IN ON DEBT

One of the beneficiaries of a worsening debt crisis is the debt factoring industry. In Australia it has now become an industry exceeding $20 billion a year, and should, according to the pundits, do even better if there is a housing downturn in Australia. The Australian, (10/10/03) described it thus:

"….Debtor financing is the practice of lending a business cash secured against its outstanding invoices. It allows the business to get a proportion of the money immediately, without waiting for it to be collected from customers. The main banks do all the debtor financing and there are dozens of smaller providers.
"These figures show an industry which is really gaining momentum," the managing director of national provider Benchmark Debtor Finance, Peter Langham, said. Small Business Association of Australia spokesman Jonathan Fowler said the growth in factoring and discounting was a sign of financial stress in the small and medium enterprise sector."

In the old days we called them "the bailiffs" - the hardened thugs who collected debt by entering your premises and seizing your goods. Now we have turned it into an art form business of its own, turning over $20 billion a year.

MAKING TELSTRA A TEST CASE

A privately-produced newspaper, National Interest, has included the following (partial) list of Australian assets sold by Labor and Coalition governments:

SALES PENDING: Australian Submarine Corp. Health Services Australia; National Rail Corp; and, coming up if Howard, Anderson and Costello can manage it - the 51% remainder of Telstra'

(The list above is by no means exhaustive. We haven't listed electricity generation, water, ports and harbours. It is only a partial list; but it shows the disturbing and dangerous trend.)
THE NATIONAL INTEREST, 79 Ferry St. Maryborough, Qld. 4650

A PEOPLE THAT SHALL 'DWELL ALONE'

by Betty Luks
We are increasingly being fed the idea that the political/religious state of Israel is the "permanent ally in the Middle East of the world's 'lawful and free countries'." Peter Hitchens, The American Conservative 6/10/03, would have us believe,
"This alliance" with the western world "is based on cultural and political kinship".

Another of his claims is, "Despite its socialist appearance - kibbutzes, female soldiers, and the rest - Zionism is a profoundly conservative idea, based on the re-creation of an ancient nation and culture. It is also globally conservative, requiring a definite and uncompromising form of national sovereignty and an implicit rejection of multiculturalism. Israel stands - alone in its region - for placing the rule of law above the rule of power. Its destruction would be a disaster for what remains of the civilized world…"

Western nations grew out of Christendom
Mr. Hitchens, when referring to "the re-creation of an ancient nation and culture" couldn't possibly mean an ancient nation and culture in the modern sense. Western nations grew out of (for better or worse) two thousand years of the Christian Faith, and what is known today as 'the West' could not possibly have been imagined at the time in history to which he refers.

As for the claims of its ancient culture, Mr. Hitchens must be aware that, according to their own scribes, the tribe of Judah invaded, brutally murdered many of the inhabitants, and occupied a portion of a land that had been developed and settled for over a thousand years. Jerusalem, the seat of that civilisation, was known as a Royal City long before the tribe set foot in the place. Mr. Hitchens can read of Joshua's policies and plans 'to take and occupy the houses they had not built and reap the fields they had not sown'.

Viewed from a longer perspective, the time in which a loose federation of tribes, which included one named 'Israel', occupied that ancient land appear as but a moment in the great expanse of Palestinian history.

'Globally conservative' - read 'anti-nationalist'
Mr. Hitchens' claim that Israel is globally conservative is also hard to swallow. He would do well to research the role Jewish organisations and Jewish intellectuals have played as 'agents of change and transformations' in Western societies over the last fifty years. He will find it is one rule for them, as a clearly identifiable group within a host nation-state, and another for the majority ethnic-cultural group of that nation-state - that's us!
What Mr. Hitchens depicts as global conservatism (read Jewish 'internationalism') is anti-nationalist - everywhere, except for them!

What a sad fate awaits the Jewish people if they continue on this path. Their ideology is essentially group-nomadic; they are eternally destined to dwell alone; a people much too separated to become a part of another nation-state and who will resent and resist any claims on the part of the people of a host nation that they must assimilate - or at least live in harmony with them.

Professor Kevin McDonald, Department of Psychology, California State University in The Culture of Critique has documented and listed the powerful and influential Jewish movements and individual 'agents of change and transformations' in America that were a necessary condition for bringing in these changes.

He writes: "In the case of the reversal in U.S. immigration policy, there simply were no other pressure groups that were pushing for liberalized, multi-racial immigration during the period under consideration… Nor were there any other groups or intellectual movements… developing images of the U.S. (and the western world generally…ed) as a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society rather than a European civilization."

But, the population mix in America (and elsewhere…ed) is now a worry to them and Prof. McDonald remarks,
"A revealing development regarding Jewish attitudes toward immigration" appeared in an article by Stephen Steinlight, (2001) former Director of National Affairs (domestic policy) and now a Senior Fellow at the American Jewish Committee.

An agent for change of policy
He recommended altering the traditional policy line of 'generous' immigration and open borders because that policy no longer serves Jewish interests! Why not? Because the new immigrants "are less likely to be sympathetic to Israel" and "more likely to view Jews as the wealthiest and most powerful group in the U.S. - and thus a potential enemy - rather than as victims of the Holocaust."

McDonald concluded that Mr. Steinlight "is exclusively concerned with Jewish interests - an example of moral particularism which is a general feature of Jewish culture…"
Indeed! In the past it was referred to as "the philosophy of the one-way street."
'Moral particularists' are not concerned with impartial justice… they want favoured treatment.

As for Hitchens' claim that "Despite its socialist appearance… Zionism is a profoundly conservative idea…" all I can say is, "Peter. You can't be serious!" Not only were Jewish-Zionist 'agents of change' busily engaged in influencing and shaping the western nations' policies, in opposition to the interests of the majority populations of European descent, there is irrefutable evidence of their philosophical roots and involvement in Communism.

No longer can journalists such as Peter Hitchens claim ignorance about the criminal nature of Communism and of the Jewish-Zionist role and influence in Communist regimes, as well as their power in the West.

IS VICTORIA STILL THE PLACE TO BE

by Don Auchterlonie
The Herald Sun 12/10/03 ran two articles which would raise a query. It lists in "Home Debt Squeeze" the home mortgage payments in Melbourne suburbs from those in Toorak at $2,857 per month, to those in Frankston North at $530 per week. These figures give a rough average of $425 per week in mortgage payments.

A Real Estate agent said: "I think the majority of people who are borrowing the big bucks are the younger generation in their 30s. They are too young to understand the pain of the 'recession we had to have' and they will have to learn the lesson the hard way - debt levels are getting a little out of hand."

The same paper caries an article "Welfare Crunch Looms" in which five larger welfare organizations warn that unless funding cuts are reversed they could be out of action within a few years.
Perhaps Mr. Bracks, Victoria's Premier, could profit from the example set in many locations by Community Banks. Local people have funded their local Community Bank and part of the profit is plowed back into the community. One small community in Gippsland has had $1,000,000 plowed back into community projects in the first five years of their Bank's operation. Would it be feasible for a State-wide Community Bank to be funded by Victorians and plow back its profits into Victorian projects?

OF PARIAHS AND PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKES

by William A. Cook
Even before the "victory" in Iraq had been declared, Administration officials began levelling accusations at Syria that sounded strangely familiar, something like a regurgitation of the lies that had propelled our forces into the "war that wasn't." Predictably, that series of accusations was followed by Sharon's demands of its mercenary forces, the US military, that they undertake five goals desired by Israel. These demands represent the next step in Israel's fulfillment of the Wolfowitz/ Perle design to achieve "The New Strategy for Securing the Realm," the report they prepared for the Israeli right wing Likud party in 1996.

Ha'aretz listed Sharon's demands in its April 16th edition, demands uttered only two days earlier by Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz:
1. "The removal and dismantling of Palestinian terrorist organizations operating out of Damascus - Hamas and Islamic Jihad;
2. The ouster of Iranian Revolutionary Guards from Lebanon's Bekaa Valley;
3. An end to Syrian cooperation with Iran, including attempts to transfer arms to the Palestinian Authority and incite Israeli Arabs;
4. The deployment of the Lebanese Army along Lebanon's border with Israel and the ouster of Hezbollah from the area; and
5. The dismantling of the surface-to-surface missile network that Israel charges Hezbollah has built in Southern Lebanon.

Sharon added that President Pashar Assad "is dangerous". His judgment is "impaired." Like Saddam, Israel and America are confronted once again with a dangerous threat in the form of a dictator.

Sharon says the Jews run America
Obviously, Sharon has no qualms about making such demands; he has already made it known to his Cabinet and to the Israeli public via radio that Jews run the US and we here in America know it. He does not fear the Israeli academics or peace groups in the homeland or the American Jews who recoil at his policies towards the Palestinians, groups like Jews for Peace in Palestine and the many who have affiliated with TIKKUN magazine in its efforts to bring a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

These actions are seen in the Arab world as portending mid-east domination by Israel. Kamal Kharrazi, Iranian Foreign Minister, stated that United States actions are done to allow Israel domination in the mid-east. A Syrian Cabinet report notes that US statements regarding Syria are a "stimulus and a service to Israel's goals and expansion greed."

In a similar vein, AIPAC's recent invitation to Intifad Qanbar of the Iraqi National Congress to attend its conference, one of the primary Iraqi figures expected to play a major role in the "new" Iraq, reflects Israel's links to pro-Israel Iraqi groups as a "democratic" Iraq emerges. AIPAC has had ongoing meetings with Ahmed Chalabi founder of that organization, personal friend of Rumsfeld, and self-proclaimed future leader of Iraq. Add to this Israeli/Iraq connection the imposition of General Garner as "pro-consul" of Iraq and sympathizer with the tribulations of Ariel Sharon, the off-hand dismissal of the UN as a participant in the reconstruction of the new Iraq, and the distribution of reconstruction contracts to corporations tied to the "pro-Israeli clique," and it is no wonder the Arab world fears the rising power of Israel in the mid-east.

The core clique in the Bush Administration
A recent article suggests that America's pre-emptive role in the mid-east can be linked to the influence of the Wolfowitz/Perle duo and their emergence into positions of prominence in the Bush administration. Michael Lind's article in "The New Statesman" focuses on a core clique of influential men in the Bush administration who have co-opted control of America's foreign policy. There can be no question that they are linked to the 1991/2 "Defense Policy Guidance Report" prepared for Dick Cheney and Daddy Bush. That document brought the concept of "preemptive" strikes into vogue as a premise for safeguarding America's superiority in military power. Subsequently that document became the basis for the 1996 report prepared for the Likud right wing.

The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies prepared the report, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." The main ideas for the report came from "prominent opinion makers" Richard Perle, James Colbert, and Douglas Feith among others. Of all the recommendations presented in that report, the most pertinent to this paper is this statement: "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right - as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions."

Immediate access to Iraqi oil
That strategic objective, removing Saddam from power, has now been achieved through the use of the US military. While Saddam may have appeared to be a threat to Israel some years ago, in recent years, since the first Gulf war, he was not perceived as such by Israel's military or the nations immediately surrounding Iraq, including Kuwait, although, for reasons unknown, he was a threat to America according to our President.

One wonders, therefore, why Perle would make this observation in the 1996 report. The answer is in the immediate access Israel has to Iraqi oil now that it is under US occupation; the pipeline through Jordan will be reopened providing cheaper oil to Israel. In addition, US troops present in Iraq and Kuwait offer strategic support to the continued existence of the Israeli state and rearrange the strategic balance in the Middle East in favor of Israel. Neither of these reasons could be declared publicly.

Having achieved one objective, Perle can now look to the second, "foiling Syria's regional ambitions." To bring focus to the threat Syria poses for the United States and its alleged desire to create democracies in the mid-east, Israel can turn to the "Securing the Realm" report for arguments: "It is dangerous for Israel to deal naively with a regime murderous of its own people, openly aggressive toward its neighbours, criminally involved with international drug traffickers and counterfeiters, and supportive of the most deadly terrorist organizations."

Substitute the United States for Israel in the above quote and you have the arguments being offered to America to take out Syria.
Once again, the United States becomes Israel's proxy army.

Since Perle and Wolfowitz have transferred their presence to the new administration, having been out of power during the Clinton years, they can now resurrect the essential points of their old 1991/2 report in the form of the September 2002 National Security Strategy Policy Report that calls upon the US to adopt "the principle of preemption" as outlined in their report and made a part of the Israeli 1996 study. Indeed, that principle served as the basis for attacking Iraq. Now it can serve to invade Syria. All that is needed is the threat as outlined above.

Congressmen friendly to Israel, including Rep. Eliot L. Engel, D-NY and Senators Rick Santorum (PA) and Barbara Boxer (CA) are already moving to force sanctions on Syria, a first step in the acceptance of the arguments that allow for a preemptive strike. The simple arrangement of an "unprovoked' attack by Syria against Israel or an Israeli interest will be stimulus enough to "justify" invasion.

In a letter to the President, dated April 3, 2002, five months before the National Security Strategy Policy Report was issued as the guiding document for the Bush administrations' foreign policy, Perle, Daniel Pipes, Norman Podhoretz, William Kristol, William Bennett and many others from the "New American Century Project", wrote:
"No one should doubt that the United States and Israel share a common enemy. We are both targets of what you have correctly called an 'Axis of Evil.' Israel is targeted in part because it is our friend, and in part because it is an island of liberal, democratic (sic) principles - American principles - in a sea of tyranny, intolerance, and hatred. As Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has pointed out, Iran, Iraq, and Syria are all engaged in 'inspiring and financing a culture of political murder and suicide bombing' against Israel, just as they have aided campaigns of terrorism against the United States over the past two decades. You have declared war on international terrorism, Mr. President, Israel is fighting the same war."

Even if we overlook the obsequious drivel in this letter and the omitted realities of Israeli behavior under Sharon, who has made a hallmark of state run terrorism, we can see that Israel's interests as promulgated by Perle and Wolfowitz have been transferred to America. Indeed, Israel is being targeted for terrorist actions precisely because it is a friend of the US, and, therefore, it follows that the US has a responsibility for defending Israel. To that end, Perle and company demanded that "the United States should lend its full support to Israel (and) we urge you to accelerate plans for removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."

Nowhere do these Israeli advocates mention that Israel alone in the mid-east has known weapons of mass destruction including Lithium-6 or nuclear capability in the neighbourhood of 200 bombs. Nowhere do they mention that the argument against Iraq for defying UN resolutions can be leveled as well at Israel, including the most recent resolution of this month, voted 50-1 with the US voting against the resolution, condemning Israel for "mass killing" of Palestinians and for its settlement policy.

Nowhere do they tell the truth about Israeli democracy that exists for Jews but not to the same extent for Arabs and certainly not for Palestinians. Nowhere do they explain that America's forces, its sons and daughters and American tax dollars, are being used to effect Israel's interests as laid out in the "Securing the Realm" report. Nowhere do they mention that it is Sharon's savage policies that have made America a pariah in the Arab world because of its unswerving support for his vengeful, retaliatory attacks against incarcerated Palestinians in refugee camps surrounded by tanks and barbed wire.

In brief, the Wolfowitz/Perle coalition have managed to have the United States achieve the first of their desired goals for Israel, the elimination of Saddam Hussein, and seem prepared to use US forces again to remove Syria and then Iran. For the US to become a mercenary force for Israel, because a few persistent neo-con fanatics have managed to corral America's foreign policy, threatens the very premise of our democracy, just as it threatens the security of our citizens who become the victims of those who decry the imperialist direction the current administration has designed for America."

William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU

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