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4 February 2005. Thought for the Week: False
Witness: It cannot have escaped notice that economic systems, and perhaps
even more economic reforms, are increasingly associated with questions
of, or criticisms in regard to, religion.
There are several suggested, derivations of the word "religion,"
but the most probable, and indeed the most generally accepted, is that
it is derived from the Latin word "religare," meaning "to
bind back" or otherwise "to relate" -- in the sense of
"establishing a relationship between." That is to say, religion
is truth, and I think all right-minded persons could agree with the
Theosophists in their fundamental postulate that there is no religion
higher than truth.
Now it is a very curious fact that almost every aspect of economics
and politics, as they are active in the world today, is a denial of
religion in this fundamental sense.
The financiers' continuous cry for "confidence" of the description
given by the small boy in regard to faith, as belief in "what you
know ain't so," is only one instance of it. The painting of such
things as war, in colours intended to dissociate it as far as possible
from its true description as mass murder and general lunacy, is another.
The constant insistence upon an unemployment problem as though the object
of life in the world was grinding and continuous work is a third. And
the instinctive identification of a better economic, political and social
system with the emergence of truth is an intuition of fundamental significance…"
Clifford Hugh Douglas in "The Fig Tree" September, 1937.
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BECOMING LIKE THE USA
by James Reed
Recently, Liberal MP and Member for the Gold Coast Steve Ciobo, unveiled
a plan at a Young Liberal and National Convention in Hobart to slash
welfare cash for the long-term unemployed and 'stay-at-home' mothers.
Ciobo seems to think that most unemployed people and stay-at-home mums
spend their cash on cigarettes, drugs and booze, for although he says
in one breath that he is not advocating welfare cuts, he is reported
to hold that "slashing welfare cash would encourage more people
into the workforce." (Advertiser, 19/1/05).
Instead of cash the unemployed will receive food
stamps. There will be an early phasing out of parenting payments to
stay-at-home mums. Thus, instead of providing the nurturing that our
lost and endangered youth sorely need, more mums will be thrown back
into the Monopoly-Capitalist's machine while kids are left to fend for
themselves.
Australia's fertility rate is now about 1.7 babies per woman, far below
replacement level.
An article in the Weekend Australian Financial Review, 15-16/1/05,
"We Just Need More Babies," traced the birth dearth across
the Western World and concluded: "All nations are facing their
own extinction but at different rates. As the world travels along this
path towards oblivion, the demographic clashes of countries in their
death throes will only get worse."
The proposal by Ciobo will only speed up Australia's demographic oblivion.
As for the cold hearted treatment of the unemployed:
yes, there are dole bludgers. However, most unemployed are victims of
the globalised financial-economic system which has eliminated many of
the jobs that these people once did. To add insult to injury Monopoly-Capitalists
are now pushing for a comprehensive guest labour system, where cheap
Asian labour is flown in to fill the jobs that Australians could do.
Thus the shortage of tradesmen is being met, not by training the unemployed
in skills such as welding, but by flying in Chinese welders ("Workers
flown in from China," The Age 21/12/04).
Fruit pickers are also seeking cheap Chinese labour ("Growers seek
Chinese Labour," Australian Financial Review, 29/12/04-3/1/05)
and our information technology industry out-sources to India ("50,000
Bank Jobs may go to India," The Australian 18/1/05).
To simply pull the welfare net out from under people without a radical
change of policy, ensuring them access to a share of the massive production
of this nation, will create massive social dislocation and crime --
just as is seen in societies like the United States which have similar
social 'welfare' systems.
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THE RETURN OF THE 'BEAST'
by James Reed
Back in 1987 the Hawke government's Australia Card proposal was defeated
by soundly co-ordinated grass-roots action. James Riley in The Australian,
21/1/05, "Privacy 'risk' in national ID plan" reveals that the
Attorney-General's Department is finalising a new high-tech document verification
scheme (DVC) which, unlike the single number identifier of the Australia
Card, will now make use of technological advances. Biometric data, including
fingerprints and facial features (e.g., iris identification) could be
incorporated.
The proposal has met light-weight criticism from groups such as the Australian
Privacy Foundation. In essence, this is an even more sinister version
of the Australia Card updated from 1987.
That a single number as such is not used is irrelevant because biological
data effectively substitutes for this. This card is only one set away
from the frightening world described in George Orwell's 1984 and
Revelations. This is a matter which should concern all Australians.
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SCHEMING JUNTA OF NEO-CON SPIVS, SHAMANS AND
WAR MONGERS
Mike Carlton of the Sydney Morning Herald 21/1/05, summed up
the US Presidential Inauguration extravaganza in terms many would relate
to in "The Empire of Vulgarity".
He wrote, "George Bush's second inaugural extravaganza was every
bit as repugnant as I had expected. A vulgar orgy of triumphalism probably
unmatched since Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French in Notre
Dame in 1804."
As for George Bush and those with whom he surrounds himself, Mike really
'let his words rip':
"The little Corsican corporal had a few decent victories to his
escutcheon. Lodi, Marengo, that sort of thing. Not so this strutting
Texan mountebank, with his chimpanzee smirk and his born-again banalities
delivered in that constipated syntax that sounds the way cold cheeseburgers
look, and his grinning plastic wife, and his scheming junta of neo-con
spivs, shamans, flatterers and armchair warmongers, and his sinuous
evasions and his brazen lies, and his sleight of hand theft from the
American poor, and his rape of the environment, and his lethal conviction
that the world must submit to his Pax Americana or be bombed into charcoal."
And Mike Carlton's disgust in the whole sorry Iraqi affair also triggered
a response - the terrible waste of lives of the young American and British
soldiers (thankfully, only one Australian). Dying horrible deaths, or
being hideously wounded and maimed for life, so these human leeches
(who don't go to war themselves, nor send their children or grandchildren
to do the fighting for them) can gain more and more control of the world's
resources, and/or add a few more profit-dollars to their balance sheets
as a direct result of the war.
With malice toward none, with charity for all
Mike Carlton continued: "Difficult to know what was more repellent:
the estimated $US40 million cost of this jamboree (most of it stumped
up by Republican fat-cats buying future presidential favours), or the
sheer crassness of its excess when American boys are dying in the quagmire
of Bush's very own Iraq war. Other wartime presidents sought restraint.
Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address in 1865 - "with malice
toward none, with charity for all" - is the shortest ever. And
he had pretty much won the Civil War by that time."
Carlton sees the present President of the United States of America as
having learned nothing and "the dumbest and nastiest president
since the scandalous Warren Harding died in 1923…"
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THE WAR IN IRAQ
by Betty Luks
There are readers of this journal who have a problem with our writing
against the war in Iraq. They think we are being disloyal to our own
service men and women. Not so! I come from a family with a tradition
of service to their own people. With a threat of invasion, they would
'answer the call' as they have always done. But in this war we are not
using our young service men and women against an invader. We are the
invaders!
Readers must ask themselves: Who benefits from
this war?
Last October 2004, staff writers Joseph Neff and Jay Price of The
News & Observer shone a tiny beam of light into the dark secrets
of just 'who does benefit' from this present war.
Cost details secret
"The News & Observer obtained the Blackwater documents
while reporting on the fate of four Blackwater contractors ambushed
and killed in Fallujah in March: Jerry Zovko, Scott Helvenston, Wesley
Batalona and Michael Teague.
In the days after the men were killed, the images of the mob abusing
the contractors' bodies and dragging them through the streets drew worldwide
outrage. The incident also spotlighted the growing role of private military
contractors. What wasn't clear at the time was how complex a structure
lay beneath a simple decision: to use private contractors in Iraq.
Jerry Zovko's contract with Blackwater USA
looked straightforward
"He would earn $600 a day guarding convoys that carried food for
U.S. troops in Iraq. But that cost -- $180,000 a year -- was just the
first instalment of what taxpayers were asked to pay for Zovko's work.
Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., and three other companies would add
to the bill, and to their profits.
Several Blackwater contracts obtained by The News & Observer
open a small window into the multibillion-dollar world of private military
contractors in Iraq. The contracts show how costs can add up when the
government uses private military contractors to perform tasks once handled
by the Army.
Here's how it worked in Zovko's case
Blackwater added a 36 percent mark-up, plus its overhead costs, and
sent the bill to a Kuwaiti company that ordinarily runs hotels. That
company, Regency Hotel, tacked on its costs for buying vehicles and
weapons and a profit and sent an invoice to a German food services company
called ESS that cooked meals for the troops. ESS added its costs and
profit and sent its bill to Halliburton, which also added overhead and
a profit and presented the final bill to the Pentagon.
It's nearly impossible to say whether the cost
for Zovko doubled, tripled or quadrupled. Congressional investigators
and defence auditors have had to fight the primary contractor, Halliburton,
for details of the spending. The companies say the subcontracts are
confidential and won't discuss them. About 20,000 private security contractors
are now in Iraq, escorting convoys, protecting diplomats, training the
Iraqi army and maintaining weapons…"
And we haven't even touched on the awesome 'weapons
of mass destruction' (WMD), that is the fire power being used by the
Americans and when they invaded Iraq! Whew! Just imagine the profits
flowing into the coffers of the spivs and the arms industries, the suppliers
of the WMD!
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WAR EXPENDITURE DWARFS HUMANITARIAN AID
It took a tragedy of gigantic proportions to
bring the truth into focus. The amount of money spent by such 'civilised'
nations as the USA and the UK bringing death and destruction to the
peoples' of the world is vastly greater than is spent by them on aiding
the victims of war and natural disasters. George Monbiot brought the
matter to his readers' attention in The Guardian early January,
2005.
On New Year's Day, characters in a TV sitcom
signalled their support for a campaign to "Make Poverty History"
by the wearing of white armbands on camera, and to bring the point home;
during an interval, a scene of two young African children recently orphaned
was aired to further play on the viewers' emotions. Later there was
media discussion of a homeless man seen in a bank queue, so overcome
with concern for the disaster victims, he emptied his pockets of all
he had.
"The timing," wrote Monbiot, "was perfect." And
the people of Britain gave generously to the appeals.
But for him one obvious question kept recurring: "Why must the
relief of suffering, in this unprecedentedly prosperous world, rely
on the whims of citizens and the appeals of pop stars and comedians?
Why, when extreme poverty could be made history with a minor redeployment
of public finances, must the poor world still wait for homeless people
in the rich world to empty their pockets?
"The obvious answer is that governments
have other priorities. And the one that leaps to mind is war. If the
money they have promised to the victims of the tsunami still falls far
short of the amounts required, it is partly because the contingency
fund upon which they draw in times of crisis has been spent on blowing
people to bits in Iraq.
US official aid to disaster victims equivalent
to one and half day's spending in Iraq
"The US government has so far pledged $350m to the victims of the
tsunami, and the UK government £50m ($96m).
The US has spent $148 billion on the Iraq war and the UK £6bn
($11.5bn). The war has been running for 656 days. This means that the
money pledged for the tsunami disaster by the United States is the equivalent
of one and a half day's spending in Iraq.
UK official aid equivalent to five and a half
days spending in Iraq
"The money the UK has given equates to five and a half days of
our involvement in the war. It looks still worse when you compare the
cost of the war to the total foreign aid budget. The UK has spent almost
twice as much on creating suffering in Iraq as it spends annually on
relieving it elsewhere. The United States gives just over $16bn in foreign
aid: less than one ninth of the money it has burnt so far in Iraq.
The War is 'for the good' of the Iraqis
The figures for war and aid are worth comparing because, when all the
other excuses for the invasion of Iraq were stripped away, both governments
explained that it was being waged for the good of the Iraqis. Let us,
for a moment, take this claim at face value. Let us suppose that the
invasion and occupation of Iraq had nothing to do with power, domestic
politics or oil, but were, in fact, components of a monumental aid programme.
And let us, with reckless generosity, assume that more people in Iraq
have gained as a result of this aid programme than lost. To
justify the war, even under these wildly unsafe assumptions, George
Bush and Tony Blair would have to show that the money they spent was
a cost-efficient means of relieving human suffering. As it was sufficient
to have made a measurable improvement in the lives of all the 2.8 billion
people living in absolute poverty, and as there are only 25 million
people in Iraq, this is simply not possible.
Even if you ignore every other issue - such as
the trifling matter of mass killing - the opportunity costs of the Iraq
war categorise it as a humanitarian disaster. Indeed, such calculations
suggest that, on cost grounds alone, a humanitarian war is a contradiction
in terms.
Distinguish between helping and killing people
"But our leaders appear to have lost the ability to distinguish
between helping people and killing them. The tone of Blair's New Year
message was almost identical to that of his tear-jerking insistence
that we understand the Iraqi people must be bombed for their own good.
The US marines who have now been dispatched to Sri Lanka to help the
rescue operation were, just a few weeks ago, murdering the civilians
(for this, remember, is an illegal war), smashing the homes and evicting
the entire population of the Iraqi city of Falluja.
Even within the official aid budgets the two
aims are confused
$8.9bn of the aid money the US spends is used for military assistance,
anti-drugs operations, counter-terrorism and the Iraq relief and reconstruction
fund (otherwise known as the Halliburton benevolent trust). For Bush
and Blair, the tsunami relief operation and the Iraq war are both episodes
in the same narrative of salvation. The civilised world rides out to
rescue foreigners from their darkness.
While they spend the money we gave them to relieve suffering on slaughtering
the poor, the world must rely for disaster relief on the homeless man
emptying his pockets. If our leaders were as generous in helping people
as they are in killing them, no one would ever go hungry."
IT'S THE SYSTEM GEORGE
From the foregoing statement it is clear Mr. George Monbiot believes
it is the role of the state to determine, collect, control and direct
where our taxes should go - hence his call for the leaders to generously
help people of other lands, rather than use our taxes for wars of aggression.
While most sane people would be opposed to the wars of aggression, his
suggestion for solving the problems rings alarm bells with me. Why,
he might even believe in a world tax system which would do away with
the nation states -- a system the One-Worlders have had on their drawing
boards for many a year.
The people of the western world, who once highly
valued their freedoms, have come a long way down the collectivist, authoritarian
road. Geoffrey Dobbs warned us in The Just Tax the critical stage
in our retreat from freedom was reached with the setting up of the Welfare
State. Much of the freedom our peoples once enjoyed was bought by hard-bargaining
between our predecessors and their rulers. When they agreed to a tax
rate on gabled houses in return for the right of trial by jury instead
of by combat, they got something specific and worth having for their
money, and it was in this spirit that Parliament functioned in those
early days.
NEITHER SOCIALSM NOR MONOPOLY-CAPITALISM WORKS
George Monbiot is right to highlight the outrageous
situation of a nation spending more money on destroying people than
it does on assisting them, but he is going to have to rethink his ideas
that the help can and will come through totalitarian governments. Socialism
has been tried and failed and we are now living with the bitter fruits
of Monopoly Capitalism using political Socialism to further centralise
its power in the western world.
Clifford Hugh Douglas exposed the truth of the
corrupt, fraudulent and oppressive financial system the whole world
now labours and groans under, and showed us a way out. It is a way between
Socialism and Monopoly Capitalism and is known as Social Credit.
In a Social Credit email discussion group
Jeremy Lee noted
"In the capitalist religion… poverty for some and bankruptcy
for others are the signs of a flourishing economy! The survival of the
fittest is the essence of Monopoly Capitalism. The Welfare State is
simply a tiresome but necessary measure to stop the people revolting!…
But, imagine (we are now in the age of) "an automated economy,
where only a fraction of the population would have "earned purchasing
power" through wages or salaries. A price on an article would be
beyond the reach of those not needed in the productive system, whether
discounted or not.
Hence as Douglas insisted all those years ago… "there is the
need for a 'dividend for all', for the worker and those who are not
needed in the productive system. And as a right! It is their share of
the social inheritance, an inheritance which belongs to all!
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'MULTIKULTURAL UTOPIA' IN NEED OF REALITY CHECK
by Betty Luks
So, we've celebrated 'Australia' Day once again, and the politicians
and multiculturalists are busily congratulating themselves and each
other; patting themselves on the back for such a marvellous media-hyped-up
'celebration'. Bravo! All that hoo-hah!! All those fireworks!!!
Now for some reality checks
I kept on file a pre-Christmas report (19/12/04) from the Netherlands
for just such an occasion. The UK's Sunday Express' correspondent,
David Paul warned from Amsterdam there were some sobering lessons for
Britain to take note of, as many "fearful Dutch families turn their
backs on a multicultural society."
He wrote: "Beside a giant Christmas tree in Amsterdam's Dam Square
last night a Rastafarian was cheerfully selling lumps of cannabis to
passers-by. A few hundred yards away dozens of almost naked girls from
all around the world were standing in floodlit shop windows selling
their bodies to any man with £30 in his wallet.
"Drugs and sex openly on sale are familiar scenes to anyone who
has visited Amsterdam, whose residents have long adhered to the maxim
"Leven en laten leven" or "Live and let live".
But beneath the surface, Dutch society, hailed for many years as a model
of liberalism and racial tolerance, is in crisis. And there are some
disturbing lessons in the alarming breakdown in the social order of
a European nation just a one-hour flight from London or Manchester.
Religious and ethnic violence has erupted
"Rising religious and ethnic violence has erupted across Holland,
with attacks on immigrants and revenge attacks by them in response.
In just one week last month, more than 20 mosques, churches, Islamic
and Christian schools were either petrol bombed or vandalised.
Half a dozen Dutch politicians accused of being "enemies of Islam"
have received death threats. Two are deemed to be in such danger they
are living in police safe houses and the Speaker of the Dutch parliament,
Jozias van Aartsen, has said: 'Holy war has come to the Netherlands.'
It is the educated middle class who are fleeing
"Holland's educated, white middle class fear for the future, despite
having an income per head that is higher than in any major country in
Europe, and they are leaving their homeland in droves. Last year, more
people left The Netherlands than arrived as migrants or asylum seekers,
for the first time since the end of the Second World War. In the first
six months of this year, the net loss to Holland's population was 13,313
people.
Those leaving are engineers, nurses, computer
experts, lawyers, accountants and businessmen. They have had enough
of the multiculturalism of Holland and are heading for the wide open
- and, though few will publicly admit it, almost exclusively white-populated
- lands of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. (They will get another
culture shock if they migrate to Sydney or Melbourne…ed)
Dutch artist and TV personality Theo Van Gogh,
great-grandnephew of the painter Vincent Van Gogh, was cycling to work
through the centre of Amsterdam when a Muslim extremist shot him eight
times. As Van Gogh pleaded for his life, his attacker tried to chop
off his head with a knife. The murder had seemingly been provoked by
a film Mr Van Gogh had made, highlighting the treatment of women under
Islam.
After Van Gogh was murdered there were revenge attacks on mosques and
Muslim schools. It has developed into a hate campaign. Van Gogh's murder
followed the May 2002 assassination of Holland's firebrand homosexual
politician Pim Fortuyn. He was shot by a left-wing activist after denouncing
the Netherlands' 30-year "experiment" with multiculturalism
as a "disastrous error".
Mr Fortuyn launched a mass movement he said was
to defend Holland's tolerant way of life from the radical Muslim clerics
based in his country, who are often subsidised by Dutch taxpayers. He
was killed just nine days before an election that might well have seen
him become Prime Minister.
One woman planning to migrate with her family was quoted as saying:
"In Holland and elsewhere in Europe there is an Us and Them mentality.
I think this is happening in England and Germany as well."
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ADELAIDE CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB
The Adelaide Conservative Speakers' Club will hold
its February meeting on Monday, 7th February. The venue, as usual, is
the Public Schools' Club, 207 East Terrace (Cnr. Carrington) Adelaide.
The two-course dinner will commence near to 6.45pm and the Main Address
at 7.45pm. It will be a "Have Your Say" night and time will
be allotted depending on the number wanting to take part. You can 'take
the floor' to put your point of view across, to educate us or to entertain
us. Let's make the first meeting for the new year a resounding success;
make every effort to bring some new people to enjoy the company at the
dinner, and the speakers' addresses. Inform Doug and Jean of your wish
to "Have a Say" so that the time frames can be planned when
you phone in your dinner bookings. Phone: 8296 4704. Bookings for the
Dinner to be in by Thursday, 3rd February.
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ADVANCE NOTICE FOR VICTORIA'S 2005 STATE LUNCH
AND SEMINAR
Victorian supporters make note in your diary of
the coming Victorian State Lunch/Seminar. It will be held on Saturday,
19th March 2005. The venue will be The Central Hotel, No 1 Princes Highway,
Beaconsfield Vic. The charge will be $28.00 per person and RSVP's will
be requested to be in by 10/3/05.
The Hotel is on the old Princes Highway, just 5 minutes walk from the
Beaconsfield Railway Station. Full details of the program will be announced
in later editions of "On Target". |
INVERELL FORUM 2005 - MARCH 11-14
There are some great speakers lined up including
Jeremy Lee, Eve Hillary, Senator Len Harris and Tony Pitt. For further
information contact: Inverell Forum Inc., P.O. Box 987, Inverell NSW 2360
or Phone: 02 6723 2351 or Fax: 02 6723 2364 |
HELP SAVE TELSTRA - WHAT HAS TO BE DONE
· Inform your federal politicians, both Representatives
and Senators, you do not want him/her to vote for sale of Telstra.
· Insist Senators represent their State on this matter not a political
party.
· Contact all Local Government and State Government representatives,
including the Premier, and ask them to support the campaign to retain
Telstra for the people.
· Write to as many media outlets as possible informing the readers
of what is happening and asking readers to join in the campaign.
· Write to local business leaders and community groups seeking
their involvement in the campaign.
Send for your supply of "Telstra" flyers. Addresses on back
page of Bulletin.
Prices include postage & handling: 5 copies $3.00; 10 copies $5.00;
50 copies $15.00 |
IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS
"The Money Trick": Veritas Publishing
Co. is to be commended for bringing out an updated version of this valuable
Australian publication. This new edition needs to go out in its thousands
to people who still believe banks only lend out other people's deposits!
Creating money 'from nothing' is the banking fraternity's greatest 'black
magic' trick -- ever! Learn how your home-loan is created from nothing;
learn how we, the people, produce all the wealth, all the goods and
services, while the banks produce all the debts! Learn why Governments
are on a 'debt roller-coaster' -- and why under such a fraudulent system,
debt and tax increases are inevitable.
· Learn about Paul Keating's betrayal of the Australian people
when he opened our nation's doors to 13 foreign banks.
· Learn why John Howard toadies to the American establishment!
Price: $11.00 posted.
"How to Kill a Country" by Linda
Weiss, Elizabeth Thurbon & John Mathews.
Australians have been sold out by their so-called political representatives
for far too long. The Australia-US Free Trade Agreement with the United
States of America must be the last straw. This book by three Australian
academics discloses the devastating trade deal our so-called political
representatives and bureaucrats have made with the Americans.
The authors are right when they write: The priorities we establish for
ourselves in our dealings with foreign powers --whether allies or otherwise
-- flow from the way we view ourselves as a people and our potential
place in the world. So, for example, a national strategy which takes
pride in Australia's achievements, has confidence in its people's abilities,
and adopts a positive view of our future, will seek to secure the conditions
necessary to safeguard what we have developed and to enhance its value
in the future. Price: $29.95 posted.
"1215: The Year of Magna Carta"
by Danny Danziger & John Gillingham.
For one who had the sheer joy of visiting the Church/Cathedral at Bury-St-Edmunds
and revelling in the historical display which included replicas of the
shields of the Barons of Magna Carta/Runnymede fame, I found this book
such a delight. It opens an historical window revealing the life and
times of the people of Magna Carta and what this all means for western
man today.
The mediaeval design of the cover which features the baron's shields
is just delightful and gives the right 'feel' and fixes the right time-frame
for the contents of the book. Price: $29.95 posted.
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