NEW HEIGHTS FOR DOUBLE-SPEAK - OR NEW DEPTHS?

by Betty Luks
These measures will encourage greater public participation in our democracy, which will lead to a fairer, more competitive electoral system" - so announced the Liberal spokesman when releasing details of amendments to the Federal Electoral Act. Dean Jaensch of Flinders University wrote of the amendments for his readers in the Adelaide Advertiser 30/8/06.

To sum up the most blatant:
§ Candidates for the House of Representatives will now have to pay a deposit of $500 and for the Senate $1000. This will make it harder for minor parties and independents to contest elections. This proposal met with Labor support - of course.
§ The raising of the level of undisclosed donations is now $10,000. This means that a political party will not have to disclose who gave how much to which party unless it goes over $10,000. Jaensch observes this amendment does nothing for transparency and financial influences on the political parties.
§ Further, the amendments increase the level of tax-deductible gifts to parties and candidates from $100 to $1500 per year. He asks: "Why should the taxpayer give to a person or business who has donated to a political party?" Charities are acceptable to most people - but political parties?
§ Sitting members of the federal parliament will now have $217,000 of taxpayers' money in an election year to spend on printing and postage mail-outs, leaflets, and every other type of personal or party propaganda. Peter Costello - good fellow that he is - defended the overall expenditure of $20 million.

Pity the poor taxpayer:
"But," writes Mr. Jaensch, "there's more." For the first time, sitting members can now use taxpayers' money to print their how-to-vote cards and the millions of postal vote applications they send out at every election. "But surely these, especially the how-to-vote cards, are for the benefit of the party?" he asks.

Taxpayers, take careful note of such gall:
You the hard working people in this land, not only do you have to bear the weight of the heaviest taxation in Australia's history, you will now be funding - over the three year cycle - nearly half a million dollars FOR EVERY MEMBER OF FEDERAL PARLIAMENT to assist him/her in holding on to his plum position for as long as he can, at your expense.

TELSTRA

Not only have the sitting members done their best to ensure they retain their plum positions, they have also decided to sell another huge portion of the people's asset, Telstra - and, wait for it, invest the proceeds from the sale into what is known as 'The Future Fund'.

Future Fund:
A vague term implying a benefit for someone, sometime, down the track. It is an investment fund set up by the politicians on the proceeds of the Telstra sale (to be managed by David Murray, former chief of the Commonwealth Bank) to ensure that when the politicians do finally leave the political scene they will have access to a share of the golden eggs the Fund will generate for them.

As for the under-serviced country and remote area Telstra customers… tough luck.

AMERICA GOES 'CAP IN HAND' TO CHINA

by Betty Luks
Although not quite the same conditions prevail as in ancient times (since earliest times there have been banks and bankers, cheque systems, Letters of Credit, Bills of Exchange, etc), Americans are going to learn a hard lesson as did the ancients, as recorded and explained in Richard Kelly Hoskins' "War Cycles: Peace Cycles".
Once a nation lets the Money Power (Mammon) gain control of their financial system it is merely a matter of mathematics and time before that nation is going to end up in pawn to that Money Power. After a time, when the host nation has been bled dry, and therefore on the verge of financial bankruptcy, the parasitic Money Lenders will latch on to another nation - another host body - relocate their central headquarters once more and repeat the process as before.

Richard Kelly Hoskins gives an example in "War Cycles: Peace Cycles":
The ancient biblical character Seth borrowed 10 talents from the temple priests - he'd had a bad year and needed to purchase seed for the next year's crops. The temple priests graciously allowed Seth to borrow the ten talents on condition he repaid the 10, plus one talent extra as 'interest'. His land, livestock, wife, children and he himself served as collateral, that is, as security for the loan.
The extra talents in circulation proved of benefit to the little community as a whole and the following year's production proved abundant. Grain, sheep, cattle, you name it, there was plenty of production.
But wait a moment, the contract Seth had signed was for the repayment of the ten talents plus one more. With such a good harvest he could pay in grain, sheep, cattle or some other real wealth but the contract he'd signed called for payment in talents. Even if he was able to gather up the original ten borrowed he still could not produce the extra one. Farmers, you see, don't 'make' talents (money). The source, where money originated was in the temple treasury (banking system). The temple treasury had the sole prerogative of creating and issuing the community's money supply.

The ancient story goes:
Besides Seth and his family, there were tens of thousands of Babylonians who could not pay debts of eleven talents when only ten were in circulation. And so, the priests of Baal reduced a large part of their fellow countrymen to slaves and the "system of interest" spread wherever Babylonian armies marched or Baal priests practised their religion.

Crudely searching for money:
In this age of prodigious production, the great United States of America's power and might is declining and President George Bush, according to a United Kingdom MP, Michael Meacher, went with "cap in hand" to "crudely search for money" from the Chinese - where those who practice the parasitic system have firmly settled into a cosy symbiotic relationship with the next 'host' body, the Communist regime in China. They may not have removed their central headquarters to China as yet, but it obvious they are supplying the financial 'blood' to the economic body, thereby building up the nation.

"America Goes Cap in Hand, as Britain Once Did", Michael Meacher, The Telegraph 18/8/06.
"The financial and trade imbalances that are now severely stretching the US are changing the balance of power in China's favour. Indeed, what prompted George Bush's recent Asian trip was no new political initiative but, crudely, a search for money. With US net foreign debt of over $4,000bn now approaching 40pc of GDP, and a current account deficit of more than 6pc, the US is reduced to seeking financial support from China, just as Britain was obliged to go cap in hand to the US after the Second World War."
(It was after WWII that the Money Power transferred its central headquarters from Britain to the USA - having bankrupted Britain. Now it is America's turn to be abandoned. The Money Power acts like rats fleeing a sinking ship…ed)
"And, as was the case with Britain 60 years ago, help will be forthcoming but at a price. The Chinese politely listened, and waved Bush off as he flew on to thank the Mongols personally for sending 160 troops to Iraq. The symbolism could hardly be lost on anybody.

Investments have reached 40pc of GDP:
China's investment rate has accelerated to the point where it now exceeds 40pc of GDP, leading to a huge growth in exports capable of financing an equally dramatic growth in imports and still yielding a current account surplus of over $70bn.
With Japanese exports to China now totalling nearly £10bn a year, Asia is increasingly forming into an economic bloc focused on China.
The American response to its parlous financial state is eerily reminiscent of the strategy adopted by Britain when its empire faced a similar financial and security challenge a century ago. In the inter-war years Britain still maintained a global military stance, dependent on Middle Eastern oil to fuel it, but gradually undermined by a weakening home industrial base and rigid domestic wage structure.
World-wide investments built up over the previous century were no longer sufficient to cover the British deficit. With sterling still the reserve currency, the solution sought was a mix of capital controls and imperial trade preference. The British Empire was transformed into an international trading and monetary bloc, with the main net savings surplus countries forced to keep those assets in sterling to finance Britain's deficit.

Today the US appears to be trying to achieve a similar device:
There are, however, significant obstacles to this US strategy. Hitherto the US has used access to its enormous internal market to finance its growing worldwide military presence and particularly to ensure the continued flow of strategic commodities on to international markets, above all oil. America now has troops in 133 countries across the globe. But there are clear signs that this cannot be sustained indefinitely as US trade and finance deficits continue to grow remorselessly….
The US exit from Iraq, which will be enforced under unfavourable conditions, will certainly not be the final day of reckoning. That will come when the US is compelled to make fundamental changes to its current financial-trade-political stance as being insupportable, as happened half a century earlier to Britain at Bretton Woods."
Michael Meacher, Labour MP for Gidham West and Royton, was Environment Minister from 1997 to 2003.

WMD? MEANWHILE, AT LEAST 100,000 HUMAN LIVES LATER

The Sydney Morning Herald's Marian Wilkinson reports: 1/9/06:
"The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has confirmed for the first time that he was personally told by a senior Australian weapons inspector that the US-led weapons hunt in postwar Iraq was seriously flawed. But he denies suppressing a damning six-page letter by the inspector, John Gee, who resigned from the Iraq Survey Group in March 2004.

Interference by CIA and Bush Administration:
The letter outlines in detail, interference by the CIA and the Bush Administration in first reports about the weapons hunt, to avoid finding that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction. Dr Gee, one of Australia's leading chemical weapons experts, briefed Mr Downer on his concerns after his resignation. He bluntly told him that he believed Iraq had no such weapons.

While praising Dr Gee as "a serious person", Mr Downer said yesterday: "I personally gave no instructions that it [his letter] was to be or wasn't to be distributed. As far as I knew, people around the Government were very well aware of Dr Gee's concerns. We had no reason not to want to hear what he had to say."

But Dr Gee repeated his belief, reported in the Herald yesterday, that when he returned from Iraq in March 2004, Mr Downer issued instructions that his letter not be be distributed outside the Department of Foreign Affairs.
"I was told that by some people whose judgement and commitment to the truth I trust," Dr Gee told the ABC yesterday."

REAPING WHAT THEY DESERVE

by James Reed
A "consumer culture invades universities" and "students demand value for money" (The Australian 26/7/06, p.21).
Thus some fee-paying students in June threatened a class action against RMIT University TAFE on the issue of allegedly being "short-changed in the number of student contact hours received."
Students on other campuses had planned to take disputes that once were settled "in house" to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

This is as it should be: you reap what you sow. Universities long ago gave up the liberal ideal of pursuit of learning for the continuation of culture. Indeed, they became academic prostitutes, selling knowledge to the highest bidder. Consequently they deserve their fate at the hands of lawyers.

IN DEFENCE OF MEL GIBSON

by Betty Luks
While tens of thousands of Lebanese fled in fear of a massive invasion by Israeli troops, while bodies of dead children were pulled from the rubble and the "old, sick and weary" emerged from the rubble of Beni JBail - the media roasted Mel Gibson about his alleged "anti-Semitic" remarks, said to be "tragically inflammatory statements". Yet the remarks were made while the man was drunk.
He said that "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" - obviously absurd and a remark not to be taken seriously. Yet, even if Gibson had said that "Jews are responsible for some of the wars in the world" - this need not be a racist anti-Semitic remark. Maybe he in fact believed that this was a good, positive thing which was doing the world a service in the aid of freedom a la the "war on terrorism".

It seems that people jumped the gun, without giving Mel time to explain. Mel has worked with Jews in Hollywood and has never been offensive to them before. "The Passion of the Christ" film is merely a faithful recording of the Christian Gospels and he should not be punished over and above all of Christianity for this portrayal.

Christopher Hitchens (The Australian 2/8/06 p.14) says that Mel Gibson is "sick to his empty core with Jew hatred". He goes on to attack almost everything about Mel and especially Mel's loyalty to his father, described as a "raging Jew baiter".

From the nasty tone of this article, one wonders why Hitchens would go so far over the top in criticism. In the scheme of things in the modern new world order, it seems that words hurt more than guns and bombs, stone and rubble.

THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION OF MULTICULTURALISM

by James Reed
Phillip Adams ("Populist Diatribes Pressure Our Identity," The Australian `/8/06, p.12) does a good job of summing up the dilemma of multiculturalism.
Once, the White Australia Policy "protected us from contact with these unwholesome coloured people" (his words) and gave us a national identity. But that is now gone.
So what rights have our citizens to get involved in overseas wars? According to Adams, every right, because our identity now is not having an identity at all. Ethnics cannot hurt their backs on "their past, cultures or their religions". But that was the social contract upon which Post World War II immigration was based: that of assimilation.Multiculturalism only slightly modified this policy allowing plurality within a liberal framework (acceptance of the rule of law, etc.)

However with the core Anglo culture now in tatters, with national identity non-existent for many "Australians" there is no longer a "nation" - just a set of administration functions.
If Adams is right, immigration and multiculturalism have ended the Australian nation. But with this goes the values of tolerance and egalitarianism that the dwindling Anglo population accepted as the Social Contract.

Contrary to Adams, his world view leads to us all becoming ethnic islands in the multicultural 21st century. His own cultural relativism gives us no reason for accepting his own value package of tolerance, tolerance and more tolerance.

WHY IS THIS ALIEN INVASION PERMITTED?

Older Australians must be shaking their heads in bewilderment as they see more and more groups of alien peoples on the streets of their towns and cities. Any who have recently visited the United Kingdom lately know full well that it is now a racial/ethnic basket case and can see this country heading in the same direction.

Under the guise of 'asylum seekers' the flood of aliens continues unabated, as it does in other western nations. So, why is this invasion permitted? Under a United Nations convention no one applying for asylum on political grounds can be refused entry until all listed requirements of investigation have been completed; and this process could take years. The 'human rights' lawyers and activists have tapped into a very lucrative field.

Fifteen years ago, South African-born journalist, Ivor Benson, wrote it was common knowledge in many Third World countries: "get-rich-quick 'immigration advisers' had set up business giving would-be emigrants all the instruction they needed to pass themselves off as legitimate asylum-seekers."

Surrender of national sovereignty:
Government responses to older Australians' alarm are pure bluff and designed to keep them quiet while the flood continues unabated. What is happening in most Western countries is one of the unavoidable consequences of a surrender of national sovereignty as the world elites further their aims of a New World Order.
Ivor Benson, focusing on the enormous costs to taxpayers because of the tidal waves of aliens into the United Kingdom, cited one case investigated by a London Express investigating team:
"Somali-born Faduma Aden and her eight children were in a free four-bedroom London house with schooling provided for her family. The cost to 'the state' (read the taxpayers…ed) £900 a week! Yes, £900 a week! Calculate that back into Australian dollars and in today's prices and the situation is even more alarming.

Ivor Benson warned us: "the signing of that UN convention was a more damaging betrayal of the national interest than anything perpetrated by traitors like Philby and Burgess." (Philby and Burgess spied for the Soviet Union and betrayed their own nation and people…ed)

BLACK ARMBANDS FOR ANZAC DAY?

by Betty Luks
Aboriginal activist Noel Pearson said on 23/7/06 (see The Advertiser 24/7/06 p.6) that he feels nausea watching young Australians celebrating Anzac Day while "ignoring what had happened to indigenous people." How he knows this is not detailed.
In any case, the RSL, now very much politically correct after the departure of Bruce Ruxton, said that the ANZAC service of Aborigines had been ignored. The RSL was making amends by starting an Aboriginal scholarship and by including material on the Aboriginal contribution in its material.

Anzac Day is not about race, and saying that it feels "too white", says more about Pearson than it does the young Australians who turn out. One wonders if the politically correct critics of Anzac Day would have been able to say that the Japanese equivalent of this day, was "too yellow" if Japan had won the war and defeated Australia? Would we even be here to debate this? Would we all even be here to argue about this?

DESECRATION OF THE AUSTRALIAN FLAG

from David Flint's Opinion Column:

On 27 March, 2006, the Hon. Bronwyn Bishop introduced into the House of Representatives a private members bill, the Protection of the Australian National Flag (Desecration of the Flag) Bill, 2006. The bill would make an offence punishable by a six-month jail term or a fine of up to $11,000 for persons who "wilfully destroy or otherwise mutilate the flag in circumstances where a reasonable person would infer that the destruction or mutilation is intended publicly to express contempt or disrespect of the flag or the Australian nation".

I suggested in this column on 29 March 2006 that most Australians would support this. The opposition is more about tactics, and whether this will produce martyrs. I don't think many Australians will have any sympathy with someone who desecrates the flag and is subsequently punished.

Now a teenager who set fire to the flag stolen from The Returned & Services League of Australia, the RSL, has been ordered by a Sydney magistrate to face the members of the branch.
On the night of the disturbances at Cronulla, 11 December, 2005, the youth took one flag from the front window of the RSL Club at Brighton, and another from the roof. He set one alight and then handed the flags to a group of males who dragged them along Bay Street, urinating and spitting on them. Another offender had been earlier gaoled for three months.

The general reaction in the letters columns and on talkback was outrage at the leniency of the magistrate's decision. It was pointed out that the charge related to the theft and destruction of property, not desecration of the flag.
Civil libertarians tend to argue against creating an offence of desecration. They say burning the flag is an exercise in freedom of speech. The US Supreme Court takes this line, which would surprise those who drafted their constitution.

The Prime Minister is opposed to the creation of the offence on pragmatic grounds. He probably fears that this would encourage flag desecration for publicity purposes. In any event, it is appalling that any Australian could so insult the national symbol.
In the meantime, thanks to the Australian National Flag Association, National Flag Day will be celebrated on Friday, 1 September, 2006, at lunchtime from 12.15PM in Martin Place Sydney.

CORRECTION

In On Target 25th August 2006, vol.42 no.33 "In Defence of Eric Butler," by James Reed one section of the article should have read:
"…Writing a few days later Philip Jones ("Anti-Semitic Zealot Held Surprising Political Sway," The Australian 13/6/06 p.10) repeated the same abuse as McNicoll and added his own mud.
Butler, so the claim ran, during World War II had been consorting with the enemy via the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, and the Attorney General H.V. Evatt at the time sought to lay subversion charges against Butler because of the articles which he had written criticising the war loan campaign. This says more about H.V. Evatt than it does about Eric Butler.
The claim of consorting with the enemy is completely false and was amply refuted by Butler's book responding to an earlier attack by Phillip Adams, "The Truth About the Australian League of Rights". Published in 1985 the book is now out of print…."

VALE: NEIL MACDONALD

by Betty Luks
Neil MacDonald was the first League person I ever met. He had invited my husband and young son to a League meeting in his Highton, Geelong home, early in 1963. Later Neil came to my home, with Edward Rock and Horton Davies who had travelled down from Melbourne for the meeting. I later met up with another League person, a Mr. Abramson - interested in banking and finance - who considered me his 'great find'.

Neil was Eric Butler's army mate, personal friend, and livelong supporter of the League. As a carpenter/joiner he put much time and effort into the renovations and building programmes that went on at "Runnymede" over the years. Over the years, Neil also contributed quite original articles to the "Heritage" journal.

Neil MacDonald, army mate, personal friend of Eric and Elma Butler and livelong supporter of the League - we salute you and honour your recent passing.