31 October 2014 Thought for the Week:
“Gilbert Chesterton told of a temptation that had once been his…. That temptation was to become a prophet like all men in Heretics, by emphasising one aspect of truth and ignoring the others… He had a vision – which constantly grew wider and deeper – of the many-sided unity of Truth… it is so much easier to see and magnify a part than laboriously to strive to embrace the whole… He must not for the sake of being a prophet and of having a following, sacrifice – I will not say a truth already found, but a truth that might still be lurking somewhere. He could not be the architect of his own intellectual universe any more than he had been the creator of sun, moon and earth.”
“Gilbert Keith Chesterton” by Maisie Ward (1944)

A Report by the Council of The Club of Rome (1991)
Page 85: The First Global Revolution by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider. The Common Enemy of Humanity is Man: In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we suggested that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and in their interactions, these phenomena constitute a common threat which demands the solidarity of all peoples. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap about which we have already warned, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy is humanity itself.

A Guaranteed Annual Income?
It keeps gaining in popularity. On Friday 10 October 2014 on Alberta (Canada) Primetime they were talking about a guaranteed annual income. It was explained as “a new program that would ensure every Canadian citizen earned $20k each year is gaining traction across Canada but not everyone’s in favour”. Watch: https://www.albertaprimetime.com/Stories.aspx?pd=7057

M. Oliver Heydorn Ph.D.

“Allow me to re-emphasize in conclusion the very great relevance of Social Credit for our contemporary society. Although it may sound like an exaggeration, I have become convinced that the Social Credit ideas of Major Douglas are still, after so many decades, the single most important set of ideas if we are to salvage civilization and especially western or European civilization... There isn’t a single social problem, not a single symptom of societal decline, that is not in some way connected with what Douglas discovered and yet how many people living today know anything at all about C.H. Douglas?” M. Oliver Heydorn Ph.D. New Times Dinner, South Australia October 2014

POVERTY IN AUSTRALIA: SAME OLD, SAME OLD FROM ‘THE EXPERTS’

Of course it is not only the ‘poor and needy’ who are struggling to ‘make ends meet’; just ask the average farmer how he is surviving. When asked how he is going, one farmer at the League’s National Weekend said he was ‘hanging in there’, but the hours worked are long and hard for the resulting monetary returns.

According to the ACOSS (Australian Council of Social Services) report:
“Poverty among Australians on the rise; one in six children struggling,” 12/10/2014. The ACOSS report analysed figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for 2012, it revealed more than 40 per cent of all people on social security benefits fell below the poverty line.

ACOSS chief executive Dr Cassandra Goldie said: "We have to take this issue seriously. This is not the idea of if we just have economic growth, then everything will be all right. The reality is we need a really strong set of policies and we [need to] know what they are in order for us to make sure that every person - and importantly every child - in Australia has a decent chance to a decent start, and that we are a country that does not need to have one single person living in poverty. What we are asking the Governments around the country to do is stop what we seem to be having at the moment in Australia, which is once again a blame game that the problem, if you are living on unemployment (benefits), is that you are not trying hard enough. "

A PERSONAL BASIC INCOME FOR ALL

“Douglas’s economics was concerned with the realities of production and consumption, with money as the enabling, not the controlling, factor. His best-known proposals: the debt-free national dividend and the anti-inflationary compensated price, both possessed an element of negative feedback, being governed solely by the need to equate money demand with the price of the real product available, rather than being arbitrary hand-outs determined by prevailing political or sociological opinion.”
Geoffrey Dobbs

In 1988 UK social crediter Geoffrey Dobbs reviewed a 25 page booklet “Basic Income for All” by a industrial Chaplain* Malcolm Torry. Geoffrey Dobbs noted the author gave a brief historical outline of the Poor Law from 1601 onwards and a longer treatment of the Beveridge Report - which made it clear Beveridge’s aim for a universal insurance which would in time abolish the Poor Law (e.g., National Assistance) had not been implemented.

Dobbs also noted Bertrand Russell put forward essentially the same proposal in 1918, in his book “Roads to Freedom”, the same year that C. H. Douglas’s book “Economic Democracy” appeared in the New Age under A. R. Orage’s editorship.

Douglas’ National Dividend – always part of a package designed to cancel debt, prevent inflation and decentralise financial control to consumers - therein lies the main difference…
In 1924 a specific proposal for a National Dividend appeared in Douglas’ book “Social Credit” in an appended Scheme for Scotland. This was, and remains, the best known of the proposals put forward by C. H. Douglas and the Social Credit Movement which he initiated, though never as an inflexible objective or a panacea, always as a part of a package accurately designed to cancel debt, prevent inflation, and to decentralise financial control of production to the consumers. Therein lies the main difference from what Mr. Torry is hoping for, which is a new Beveridge Scheme, (p21) rather than a revision of the old one, but with a far more sweeping redistribution of income by taxation of earners and investors, not just to the poor, sick or unemployed, but to everyone, as an extension of the principles of the Welfare State.

The proposed scheme is simple: a Personal Basic Income (PBI) would replace all benefits, grants, allowances, and would probably be paid into every citizen’s giro account (children’s to the parents’, probably the mother’s). It would be financed by a tax on all income other than the PBI itself, with no other exceptions or allowances.

The Advantages are Great
The advantages are obvious: provided the PBI were sufficient for a decent subsistence, it would confer independence and freedom of choice of occupation upon all, and far greater flexibility on the employment system. That choice could include living somewhat austerely on the PBI alone, doing much needed voluntary work without pay, or with minimal pay, taking worth-while part-time employment, or full-time employment as at present. Employers also would be more free to employ the most suitable people, or to sack the inefficient without worrying about depriving them of livelihood or rendering them ‘unemployed’, since that condition, and the stigma attached to it, would cease to exist.

Innumerable causes of desperate dissension, frustration and degradation would disappear, though not, of course, all of them, and the conflicting ideals of basic economic equality for all, and freedom for initiative with earned reward for merit, would both be largely and harmoniously realised. The author admits the difficulties, and draws attention to the Basic Income Research Group and the considerable literature now available on the subject. He rightly feels that the proposed great liberation of personal choice as to how and for what purposes to spend one’s life and energy, is fully in accord with Christianity.

So far, so good! That is the positive side of it. To the exclusion of the negative side
But as with the original Beveridge Report, the short account stresses the benefits from the receipt of money, to the exclusion of the negative side, the damage done by the compulsory taking of money under threat of the penalties of the law. The author briefly mentions the debate about whether the PBI should be set at or below subsistence level.

If below, then supplementary benefits would still be necessary for some ‘unemployed’ and the scheme would partly fail in its aim. But if it were as much as subsistence level, then taxation could be over 50%.

What we should first ask ourselves is what real basis there is for such a basic income.
If the money were available, do we have the materials, the energy, the tools and machinery, the skills, the manpower, to provide the means of living, the housing, clothing food etc, which a basic income could buy? Or if not could we acquire them? The answer surely, is Yes! In most cases in excess, witness for instance the ‘mountains’ of food being wasted, the closing of coal pits, unemployment in the building and clothing trades, closing of many factories, or cutting down of staff and production, and so on.

It is quite clear that poverty and deprivation in a country such as Britain (and/or Australia…ed) is monetary, not based on the real wealth potential.

Based on Real Wealth — or Political Debate? Author not thinking in Real Terms
In real terms a Basic Income is certainly possible: the material ingredients are, or could be, present now. But the author is not thinking in real terms. He does not try to relate the amount of the PBI to the real wealth which is or could be available, but which is suppressed or destroyed and not distributed, or else purchased only on ‘credit’ (i.e. debt, mortgaging future income). He assumes, as most do, that a distribution of money, irrespective of what is available to buy, should be decided by debate and discussion and feelings as to what would be ‘fair’ and expedient. He also assumes that the Basic Income can be financed only by depriving anyone who contributes to the wealth-making process of probably half their reward, by a tax levied on all earnings and investments - but he does not go into the consequences of such a penalty, though it must be clear that they would be disastrous. They must, in fact strangle the economy and render a subsistence income for all impossible.

It is strange how often Christian people, who in other matters are passionately against any form of compulsion, call for, support it and promote that form of forced extraction of money under threat of fines or imprisonment known as taxation. The proposal here put forward if carried out must necessarily constitute the most merciless discouragement of all gainful economic activities ever attempted, unless, indeed, as would probably happen, trades union or other organised pressure should succeed in inflating wages to cover the tax as well as a fair return in ‘take-home pay’ for the work done.

Dividends would also have to be more-than-doubled for the investment to be worthwhile. All this would mean galloping inflation with which the subsistence income could never catch up, since the PBI-tax itself would be the major factor in enforcing it.

Wages and Salaries are Costs and go into Prices
It always seems to be forgotten by those who favour taxation to reduce poverty that wages and salaries are costs and go into prices, and it is the poor who are hardest hit by high prices. What they are given out of other people’s wages is taken away again in prices. It is a futile cycle fed by a puritanic perversion of the charitable instinct, which has confused taking with giving.

As electronics proceeds and liberates more people from unnecessary routine labour, how can the wages of the dwindling minority provide a decent income for the growing majority, and why should they? Already, a vast amount of ‘employment’ performs no really useful function, and much of it a damaging or destructive function. It is undertaken solely for the acquisition of money, either as wages and salaries or as profits, and its product, if any, is forced upon the public by the techniques of advertising. But a tax-based basic income for all would require an ever-growing money-earning economy, however wasteful or futile. People who exercised their freedom to avoid such work in favour of more useful unpaid, part-time or lower paid work would simply be destroying the tax-base of their freedom.

Why always Taxation?
But why is it assumed that taxation is the only possible source of such a basic income? Already there is some alarm about the growing proportion of pensioners and the falling proportion of wage-earners to tax for their support. In effect the proposed tax-based PBI would be a pension for everyone, from birth to death.

Our whole economy is now run on credit, including the ‘consumer credit’ without which it would collapse. It must be repeated that this is debt, repayable with interest, mortgaging future pay, another reason Why pay must be got, regardless of how.

If we add this burden of debt to, say, 50% taxation on all money earned (with no allowances, thresholds, or lower rates) it would mean that only a small proportion of the wage-element in price would be the actual cost of the labour. The rest would be quite extraneous costs. That is not real economics at all.

In the Real World the Cost of Producing Something is…
In the real world of production and consumption the cost of producing something is the labour, energy and materials used in its production. When the job is finished it has, in real terms, been paid for. Thus the capacity for ‘overproduction’ (in terms of current money incomes) which would in the first place form the substance for distribution as a Basic Income for all, has already, in real terms, been paid for. But not so in monetary terms.

All money, nowadays, is simply a system of figures, created as a debt repayable with interest, and every economic activity leaves behind it a burden of debt which, ultimately, somewhere in the system, can be repaid in full only by more borrowing. We have given many examples of this, e.g., of a block of flats which was demolished, leaving £43,000 annual loan charges for the next 43 years, and the Humber Bridge, with a debt now at £256 million and still growing, since the tolls cannot meet even the interest charges.

Our Artificial Debt Economy
The money which Governments spend is raised by borrowing. Taxation is necessary to repay the debt. Our whole economy is a debt economy and grinds on with enormous friction and misery and is manifestly breaking down, basically because it controls and distorts instead of reflecting and enabling the real economic situation. Economists, those experts on debt-economics, take the money system for granted as if it were an immutable reality rather than a man-made system of symbols on paper.

Our situation since the technological revolution (and indeed, before it) is ironic to the point of absurdity. It is as if admission, say, to a banquet were in the hands of an entirely separate body which limited the tickets according to various theories of ticketry quite unrelated to the places and the meals offered. The fact which people are so loath to face is that our money is now quite as artificial, arbitrary, and centrally controlled a system of computer-and-paper-work as any ticketing system, though of course far more complex and subject to political, ideological and other power considerations which ought to be extraneous to its purpose.

Since, as we all know, the technological revolution has made it easily practicable to produce the necessities and common comforts of civilised living with an ever-decreasing work-force, are we prepared to demand: let those who cannot find a paid job, and their families starve or go short, while we suppress or destroy that which could supply them? for if not, we should realise that we all ought to receive our share of this inheritance which we owe to the scientists, technicians and inventors of the past and not in any way to our own work or merit.

To pay the PBI out of taxes is to kill the golden goose…
Nevertheless, there is no production, and no wealth to share, without somebodies’ work however much multiplied by technology. To pay the basic income out of taxation of the workers is to kill the goose which lays the golden eggs. Why should producing the means of everyone’s livelihood be treated as a criminal offence, subject to a perpetual fine of half the rewards of all labour - a penalty which would arouse violent protests if applied to a real criminal? Where is the ‘social justice’ in that? Manifestly, a PBI is far from impossible in real terms, and manifestly it could be made practicable in financial terms, but only by a radical reform of the loan-credit system to allow of the monetization of produceable real wealth without borrowing, which would be resisted by the entire loan-credit establishment - admittedly a formidable opposition which could not be overcome quickly.

Maybe it would be a lifetime’s work, but surely that would be more worthwhile since it aims at a real objective than to devote one’s efforts to the punishing of wealth-production by confiscatory taxation.

No Mention of the New Economics
Mr. Torry assures us that the debate on this subject of the Basic Income is now widespread among the unemployed, the churches and academic circles, but he does not mention the world-wide, public discussion and extensive literature on the National Dividend as part of a more radical approach to the New Economics which took place between the two World Wars. Much of this may rightly be thought to be out of date, but the analysis and proposals of the late C. H. Douglas ought now to be looked at again with far more respect than they were shown at the time, for the course of events has shown that he was far more right than his critics.

From 1918 onwards Douglas pointed out in his writings and speeches that the deficiency in purchasing power, expressing itself as a growing time-lag between incomes and prices, was a permanent, built-in feature of the length and complexity of modern technological processes, as financed by loan-credit. Also that it must result in a continuous rise in the cost of living. At the time both these contentions were contemptuously rejected by professional economists as exaggerations of temporary effects.

C. H. Douglas – Engineer and Pioneer of Automation
Now, both continuous price-inflation, and a massive growth of consumer credit (i.e. debt) as an essential part of the economy without which it would collapse, are taken for granted. So is the continuous growth of technology replacing human labour, which Douglas - an engineer and pioneer of automation (the Post Office Tube) also predicted. His later development of a deeply Christian social philosophy under the name of Social Credit is even more worthy of study and discussion.

Douglas’s economics was concerned with the realities of production and consumption, with money as the enabling, not the controlling, factor. His best-known proposals: the debt-free national dividend and the anti-inflationary compensated price, both possessed an element of negative feedback, being governed solely by the need to equate money demand with the price of the real product available, rather than being arbitrary hand-outs determined by prevailing political or sociological opinion.

* Malcolm Torry: “Basic Income for All” (Grove Ethical Studies No.68) Grove Books Ltd., Nottingham, 1988.

AREN’T WE ‘CONFOUNDING THE PERSONS’ AND ‘DIVIDING THE SUBSTANCE’?

by Betty Luks.
I admit to being a little ‘miffed’, feeling a little ‘prickly’. It was a wonderful National Weekend and the speakers were appreciated; the friendship and fellowship very special – but. Later on in the week I received a couple of phone calls criticising some aspect of the work of the League and one person thought the League “should pay more attention to the political structures of this nation, clearly spelling out the answers to the problems” in the sphere of those structures. I’m afraid I was none too polite in my response… I had thought that was what the League had been striving to do all these many years. I thought the League had dealt with that aspect in all of its writings about the trinitarian nature of a society. After all, a Society is a complex form of Association of which there are clearly three major divisions:

There is the Economic aspect that includes:
• National housekeeping
• Private ownership
• Competitive enterprise
• Consumer control of production
• The "Money Vote"
• True profit and dividends

There is the Political aspect which takes into account:
• Constitutional Government
• Political units
• Division of powers
• Constitutional safeguards
• Rule of law
• Justice. Independent Judiciary
• Police
• Defence and foreign policy

And then there is the Spiritual/Cultural aspect:
• Churches.
• Cultural activities.
• Sporting associations.

According to my understanding it is the responsibility of the electors of this Commonwealth to keep their own political representatives informed of what they want – not the League of Rights do it for them. Many electors do not relate to the Christian Faith but do believe they have the right to be free – in which case they also have the responsibility to keep their political representatives informed of their will on important issues affecting them, and thereby keeping their representatives in check.

As for those Catholic Christians who would ask: “What does Social Credit have to do with Catholicism?” In “The Economics of Social Credit and Catholic Social Teaching”, Dr. Oliver Heydorn shows that “if the Church’s social doctrine successfully encapsulates the seed, or the basic blueprint, of a healthy social order, then the financial analysis and remedial proposals of C.H. Douglas, often referred to under the name of ‘Social Credit’, are of the greatest practical import. Social Credit promises to provide an effective policy and a set of appropriate mechanisms by means of which the Christian vision of society can finally be brought to a spectacular fruition on the economic plane”.

LETTER TO P.M. ABBOTT AND OPPOSITION LEADER BILL SHORTEN

The Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and the leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten, 14 Oct 2014:
Gentlemen,
Let’s Not Kid Ourselves about the Malaysian Airline Tragedy over Ukraine. Shirt-fronting is a hoodlum's comment.
First of all, the very idea of a possum shirt-fronting an elephant shows hoodlum characteristics. NOT in my name, thank you, Mr Abbott! Mr Vladimir Putin has the power of most of what used to be an empire, while Australia is not even willing to keep the increase of wages of its defence forces up to the rate of inflation! I'll spell it out - that amounts to a wage reduction. (At the same time, the Liberal-National government is to spend billions, of a budget supposedly in deficit, joining in a war in the Middle East, which the experience of more than 10 years shows you will not win. You can't democratise theocratic cultures.)

Secondly, neither of you has the slightest idea of how the Malaysia Airline plane came down over eastern Ukraine. An inquiry showed multiple holes in the front of the aeroplane, which could have come from cannon fired by a fighter plane (Russian, Ukrainian?), or by fragments from an explosion of whatever provenance. That is, there could have been an on-board explosion, or a missile fired by the Russia-backed militia, or by Russia, or by mistaken Ukrainian government defence people.

The real guilt ought to be on the managers of Malaysia Airlines, and other airlines, who allowed passenger aircraft to fly over the civil war zone. In fact, defence force aircraft had already been shot down over Ukraine, while airlines blithely kept on entering that air space. Russia, the separatists, and Ukraine ought to have co-operated to have the bodies collected and repatriated, and a proper crash investigation to occur. Instead of that, the Ukrainian government forces kept up an offensive operation, and ought to be blamed for that.

At the G20 conference due soon in Australia, please remember the relative size of the Russian and Australian nations. Look up the population figures, check the defence industries in each (Australia, to save money, is even ordering its military boots from overseas), and look at a globe of the world, counting how many time zones are occupied by the Russian Federation, formerly the Soviet Union, and before that, the Russian Empire. Is it triple Australia's?
John C. Massam,
Greenwood, West Australia, 6024

TAKE NOTE TONY ABBOTT:

A Case Against Canadian Military Involvement in Iraq and Syria by Peter Ewart, 7 October, 2014.
Back in 2003, as leader of the Opposition, Stephen Harper was a prominent cheerleader for Canada to join U.S. president George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq. At that time, luckily for us, he was unable to convince the Canadian parliament to participate in that disastrous war.

What would likely have happened if Canada had participated? Undoubtedly, many hundreds of our troops would have been killed and thousands wounded or permanently disabled. In addition, hundreds of millions or even billions of government funding would have been diverted from much-needed health, education, and social services in Canada and poured into war spending. Indeed, in the annals of history, Canada would have been numbered among those countries held responsible for a criminal act, the launching of an unprovoked war, one that, along with other actions, has wreaked havoc, death and destruction on a sovereign people and has spread chaos throughout the Middle East.

Flash forward to today. Unfortunately, Stephen Harper, using his Conservative majority in parliament, has finally got his way. Canada will be expanding its role and sending combat forces, not only into Iraq, but also possibly Syria, supposedly to fight the forces of the latest terrorist threat, ISIS. Although the mission will be limited to air strikes (at least for now) and has a six month duration, it is not minor. Forces will include 10 aircraft, including 6 CF-18s, and 600 aircrew and support personnel. This is in addition to the 26 non-combat military advisors already in Iraq (footnote 1).

Royal Canadian Airforce CF-188 Hornet (Fighter Aircraft)

But just who is this ISIS? Much has been made in the news media and by politicians of some sensational Youtube videos showing ISIS combatants beheading a couple of captives from the U.S. and Britain. As horrific as these videos are, since when are beheadings and other atrocities new in the chaotic Middle East (footnote 2)? Saudi Arabia, a supposed U.S. ally, beheads many dozens of its own citizens every year. And just a few days ago the Taliban in Afghanistan beheaded over 25 villagers. For that matter, U.S. military personnel have been implicated in a whole number of atrocities, including torture and killings of civilians, in the past dozen years in Iraq. The utter incoherence of U.S. policy regarding ISIS was revealed in the last several days when U.S. Vice-president Joe Biden acknowledged that close allies of the U.S. – Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates had been pouring “hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons” into the hands of ISIS and ISIS-connected groups that are operating under the banner of opposition to the Assad government of Syria (footnotes 3,4,5,6). What Biden failed to acknowledge is that the U.S. itself has been doing the same for the last several years, even going so far as to train militants who have gone on to join ISIS in its terrorist war against the Syrian government (7,8). As some observers note, the so-called “moderate rebels” that the U.S. have been supporting with arms are largely a fiction, and that many of these arms eventually ended up in the hands of ISIS connected groups (9).

Now ISIS, this horrific creature nurtured into being by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE, has turned on its sponsors, at least for now, which is very convenient for those Western powers who have long wanted a pretext to escalate intervention in that part of the world against Syria, Iran and other countries. In that regard, ISIS is a very convenient “all-purpose” terrorist group (10,11). On the one hand, it can be used to destabilize countries not part of the U.S. “coalition.” On the other hand, if it gets out of control, as it is now, it can be used as a pretext for intervention or invasion.

For example, just as the 9/11 attacks by Al Queda terrorists back in 2001 were used as a pretext to invade Iraq (a country that had nothing to do with the attacks), many observers fear that the ISIS intervention will eventually morph into an escalated war against the Assad government of Syria, which has long been in the cross-sights of the U.S., Britain, Saudi Arabia and others. In that regard, the British establishment newspaper, “The Independent”, published an article in its October 2nd edition, claiming that such plans to use the ISIS crisis as a cover to overthrow the Syrian government are already well underway by U.S. and British intelligence forces (12). Similar tactics were used to overthrow the sovereign government of Libya several years ago. While U.S., Canadian and European airforces dropped bombs on Libyan government forces, various Al-Queda connected forces on the ground were provided political and logistical support. It is interesting to note that many of the current ISIS personnel are made up of these same Libyan forces that only yesterday were being hailed as freedom fighters by Harper and Obama. In that regard, U.S. general Thomas McInerney has acknowledged on Fox News that the U.S. “helped build ISIS” by supporting ISIS personnel in Libya and allowing arms to be smuggled into Syria (13).

And what has happened since the Libyan government was overthrown? What was once one of the most prosperous countries in North Africa has been reduced to chaos and destruction, becoming a dysfunctional state overrun by numerous warring factions.

It is clear that some dirty business is afoot in this latest Iraqi and Syria intervention. Yet Prime Minister Harper appears obsessed with dragging us into the quagmire. As a result, besides only making a bad situation worse, he exposes our soldiers and military personnel to prolonged and unnecessary danger (some observers say the conflict could go on for years), as well as leaving our country open to possible “blowback” from terrorist forces as a result of our intervention.

Who should deal with ISIS? Well, first of all, the countries in the Middle East region who spawned it, starting with Saudi Arabia and Turkey who both have powerful, well-equipped armies. Turkey in fact has the second largest army in NATO (600,000 in total). If these countries are truly serious, they should cut off all under-the-table assistance and “safe haven” to all the rebels and work in a common front with Syria, Iraq and Iran and other countries already fighting ISIS. In the final analysis, Middle Easterners must be the ones to sort out Middle Eastern problems.

The Opposition parties in Parliament were right last week not to go along with Harper’s latest Iraq adventure. But they should stiffen and expand their opposition, and not support military aid of any kind including providing “military advisors” to this or that faction in the shifting sands of the Middle East. As the old saying goes, “Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.” Peter Ewart is a columnist and writer based in Prince George, British Columbia. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca

1. Payton, Laura. “ISIS in Iraq: 5 things we learned about Canada’s mission.” CBC News. Oct. 3, 2014.
2. Simpson, Jeffrey. “Our Mideast mission implausible.” The Globe & Mail. Oct. 3, 2014.
3. Tanis, Tolga. “Biden says Erdogan admitted ISIL mistake.” Daily News. Oct. 4, 2014.
4. Brookings Institute. “Playing with fire: Why private Gulf financing for Syria’s extremist rebels risks igniting sectarian conflict at home.” Analysis paper, Number 16. Dec. 2013.
5. Cockburn, Patrick. “How the US helped ISIS grow into a monster.” Mother Jones. Aug. 21, 2014.
6. Rogin, Josh. “America’s allies are funding ISIS.” The Daily Beast. June 14, 2014.
7. Reuters. “Americans are training Syria rebels in Jordan: Spiegel.” March 10, 2013.
8. Klein, Aaron. “Blowback! U.S. trained Islamists who joined ISIS.” WND. June 17, 2014.
9. Reynolds, Ben. “There are no moderate Syrian Rebels.” Counterpunch. Oct. 3-5, 2014.
10. Glazebrook, Dan. “This war is not aimed at ISIS, but at Assad.” Counterpunch. Oct. 3-5, 2014.
11. Nazemroaya, Mahdi Darius. “Fighting ISIL is a smokescreen for U.S. mobilization against Syria and Iran.” Strategic Culture. Sept. 26, 2014.
12. Sengupta, Kim. “War against ISIS: British troops likely to train Syrian rebels nearly three years after similar plan failed.” The Independent. Oct. 2, 2014.
13. Watson, Paul Joseph. “U.S. General: ‘We helped build ISIS.” Global Research, Sept. 3, 2014.

Source: https://www.250news.com/2014/10/07/a-case-against-canadian-military-involvement-in-iraq-and-syria/

Response by Wallace Klinck to Peter Ewart’s editorial:

Thanks, Peter—for this excellent editorial (250 News) with which I am almost entirely in agreement. I think that it is increasingly well known that there has existed for some long time a plan not to assist the nations in the Middle East surrounding Israel but to destabilize and destroy their viability as functioning independent states. This has intimately to do with Israel's strategic aims for expansion of control over the region. America is essentially controlled by Zionist influence and acts symbiotically to further the interests of large “American” corporate interests in acquisition of cheap natural resources, esp. in the energy field.

I note the comment by “Socredible” who as usual cuts through all of the confusion and goes straight to the heart of the issue. The debt system of finance to which we adhere causes an exponentially increasing deficiency of consumer income, vis-a-vis consumer prices, necessitating ever expanding debt in an attempt to bridge this gap. Thus, we attempt to overcome this deficiency by mortgaging our future income and by engaging in ever-increasing wasteful and destructive activity in order that incomes may be created to purchase past production.

These factors put enormous pressures upon nations to prioritize exports over imports and drive competing nations to seek cheaper natural and human resources from less advanced nations, which they attempt to acquire through the use not only of diplomacy but increasingly by the use of brute military might.

In this world of cut-throat forced competition, there is no such thing as a “balance” of trade. Might makes right in a world where obviously not all nations can export more than they import. As C. H. Douglas demonstrated, the existing financial system must result in increasing friction among nations resulting in continuing military conflict.

Comment by ‘Socredible’
Suppose there was a group of people in the world who were bent on getting themselves into a position where they would have absolute power over everyone else.
That they saw themselves as being so superior to their fellow human beings that they believed, in a religious sort of way, (although they may, or may not, be a part of some, or any, of the recognised religions), that they had been given a right to rule. As if by some Divine power. Suppose those people realised that the way to achieve this dominance by their minority over a probably unwilling majority, (if that majority were conscious as to their real aims), would best be achieved through the time-tested process of 'divide-and-conquer'.

Suppose to achieve this ultimate goal they, themselves, had self-divided, with one part of their group being 'visible', and promoting their goal more or less 'openly', albeit in small increments. With the necessary propaganda apparatus operational to try to ensure that anything horrible they were really doing, and why, was always explainable as unfortunate, but necessary for their own survival as the long-suffering underdog to have a right to a mere existence.

While the other part was 'invisible'. Even seemingly opposed sometimes to what their 'visible' counterpart was doing. Yet subscribing to exactly the same overall hidden philosophy, under seemingly kinder and gentler methods to enforce it as their policy on their unwitting victims. Which of these two parts of the same thing are the greater danger? That which we can see, which, despite all its efforts at mass-deception cannot help but make mistakes which expose itself to be seen for what it really is? Or the other part, which can't be seen, which operates in the shadows using deception to get others to do whatever it wants under the guise this will be 'good for everyone'?

Which of the two will be the easiest for those of us, the majority of us outside this 'elite' group, I believe, to defeat? Or do we want to defeat them at all, and just bow to their superiority as a manifestation of God's will?

SAD NEWS: SA MP BOB SUCH DIES AFTER SUFFERING BRAIN TUMOUR 11 October 2014:

South Australian Independent MP Bob Such has died, Premier Jay Weatherill has announced. Dr Such, 70, revealed he was being treated for a brain tumour just days after the March election. His wife Lyn, said she and some of Dr Such's family were with him when he died at Daw Park Hospice. Of course this will mean a future by-election for his seat.