THE SHAMING OF AMERICA – AND AUSTRALIA TOO

by Betty Luks
When the Americans first invaded Iraq I wrote in On Target, condemning the act of aggression. At the time a well-known RSL identity, and a friend to Eric D. Butler, wrote to me expressing his disgust for me condemning the act. I believe he did not distinguish between loyalty to our servicemen who, acting under orders, went to war, and the act of aggression which our so-called ‘leaders’ agreed to. I am the daughter and sister of a number of ex-servicemen, so don’t think I don’t know the difference between the two issues.

There is all the difference in the world in going to war in defence of one’s own people and land, to that of being used as pawns in the Game of World Power by power-hungry old men. Shakespeare in “Henry V” dealt with these issues and sought to delineate between what the soldiers were responsible for and what the King was responsible for, including the act of war and what he could expect of his soldiers that was his responsibility as opposed to their own.

C. H. Douglas challenged my thinking on these matters in his book “Social Credit” 1924.
In the chapter “Relation of Group to Individual” he writes: “…The shifting of emphasis from the individual to the group, which is involved in collectivism, logically involves a shifting of responsibility for action. This can be made, it would appear, an interesting test of the validity of the theory. For instance, the individual killing of one man by another we term murder. But collective and wholesale killing, we dignify by the name of war, and we specifically absolve the individual from the consequences of any acts which are committed under the orders of a superior officer.
This appears to work admirably so long as the results of the action do not take place on a plane on which they can be observed; but immediately they do, the theory obviously breaks down. There may be, ex-hypothesi, no moral guilt attributable to the individual who goes to war; but the effect of intercepting the line of flight of a high-speed bullet will be found to be exactly the same whether it is fired by a national or a private opponent. Nations are alleged to have waged the first world war, but the casualties both of life and property fell upon Individuals.
There is no such thing as an effective national responsibility - it is a pure abstraction, under cover of which, oppression and tyranny to individuals, which would not be tolerated if inflicted by a personal ruler, escape effective criticism. (emphasis added)
We do not know what is the automatic re-action consequent on the killing of one individual by another, as distinct from the non-automatic and artificial reaction involved in the trial and punishment of a murderer in a court of law. But we do know that over every plane of action with which we are acquainted, action and reaction are equal, opposite, and wholly automatic.
Consequently, there is nothing to indicate that the automatic consequences of a given action will exhibit any difference if committed under the orders of a superior officer, or not.
Further, it may be observed that non-automatic "punishment" really constitutes a separate group of actions and reactions. If we throw a stone into a still pool of water, the ripples which result are not eliminated by throwing in a second stone, although they may be masked, and to the extent that legal punishments represent, not the ripples from the first stone, but the casting of the second, it will be seen that a complicated situation is inevitable…”

‘The March of the Hypocrites’: Solzhenitsyn’s words for western leaders are so apt here.
In the parliamentary ‘debate’ Andrew Wilkie Independent MP said: "Ditch the dishonest terrorism rhetoric and try and tell the real reasons for our seemingly open-ended involvement in a war that has gone from bad to worse over nine years, making it one of the longest wars in Australian history."
He also questioned why other MPs were not speaking out. "Whatever happened to some of you that now you're so ready to sacrifice your soul for your party's political self-interest?" More here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/20/3043474.htm
VIDEO: Wilkie wants Australia to pull out of Afghanistan (ABC News) https://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/20/3043474.htm

Again Douglas challenges my thinking:
“…Is there a moral “law” connecting political transgression with national punishment? Contemporary Governments clearly think that there is not; that they are free to legislate in a moral vacuum.” (“The Realistic Position of the Church of England” 1948).

And as for Andrew Bolt’s line of reasoning.
If I have read you right, Andrew, you should be ashamed. Whether it was 600 Iraqi lives or 655,000 lives, we are talking about human beings here, we are not talking about cattle (which we would kill more humanely than the manner in which some of the Iraqis were killed).

“WikiLeaks leaks all over the anti-war cause” Andrew Bolt, 26/10/2010:
“Is WikiLeaks just a cunning front for the American military-industrial complex? First its latest document dump showed that Lancet exaggerated by 600 per cent when it published its notorious paper claiming the liberation of Iraq cost the lives of Iraqis.
Now it’s confirmed that Saddam Hussein did indeed have weapons of mass destruction - and the experts to resume production once the US backed down:..
But WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction …”

ROBERT FISK: THE SHAMING OF AMERICA, The Independent, Sunday, 24/10/2010:

Now let’s read what Robert Fisk has to say, and do remember this man has observed at first hand what has been happening in that sad, war-torn land.

“Our writer delivers a searing dispatch after the WikiLeaks revelations that expose in detail the brutality of the war in Iraq - and the astonishing, disgraceful deceit of the US. As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies. Find a man who'd been tortured and you'd be told it was terrorist propaganda; discover a house full of children killed by an American air strike and that, too, would be terrorist propaganda, or "collateral damage", or a simple phrase: "We have nothing on that."

Of course, we all knew they always did have something. And yesterday's ocean of military memos proves it yet again. Al-Jazeera has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down the actual Iraqi families whose men and women are recorded as being wasted at US checkpoints – I've identified one because I reported it in 2004, the bullet-smashed car, the two dead journalists, even the name of the local US captain – and it was The Independent on Sunday that first alerted the world to the hordes of indisciplined gunmen being flown to Baghdad to protect diplomats and generals. These mercenaries, who murdered their way around the cities of Iraq, abused me when I told them I was writing about them way back in 2003.

It's always tempting to avoid a story by saying "nothing new". The "old story" idea is used by governments to dampen journalistic interest as it can be used by us to cover journalistic idleness. And it's true that reporters have seen some of this stuff before. The "evidence" of Iranian involvement in bomb-making in southern Iraq was farmed out to The New York Times's Michael Gordon by the Pentagon in February 2007. The raw material, which we can now read, is far more doubtful than the Pentagon-peddled version. Iranian military material was still lying around all over Iraq from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and most of the attacks on Americans were at that stage carried out by Sunni insurgents. The reports suggesting that Syria allowed insurgents to pass through their territory, by the way, are correct. I have spoken to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers whose sons made their way to Iraq from Lebanon via the Lebanese village of Majdal Aanjar and then via the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to attack the Americans.

But, written in bleak militarese as it may be, here is the evidence of America's shame. This is material that can be used by lawyers in courts. If 66,081 – I loved the "81" bit – is the highest American figure available for dead civilians, then the real civilian mortality score is infinitely higher since this records only those civilians the Americans knew of. Some of them were brought to the Baghdad mortuary in my presence, and it was the senior official there who told me that the Iraqi ministry of health had banned doctors from performing any post-mortems on dead civilians brought in by American troops. Now why should that be? Because some had been tortured to death by Iraqis working for the Americans? Did this hook up with the 1,300 independent US reports of torture in Iraqi police stations?...” Read the rest of the report here.

Watch ABC interview with Robert Fisk here

HERE WE GO AGAIN – BANKING SHARKS CIRCLING FOR ‘THE KILL’

by Betty Luks:

In his book “War Cycles - Peace Cycles” Richard Kelly Hoskins observes that “Money is simple. The same things occur throughout history time after time… There may be some little change each time an economic event comes around – but after 15 times you learn to recognise what it is…” And the stage is being set for the removal of more of our farmers off their lands – and forcing them into the ‘feed-lot cities’. This time it is ‘to save the environment’ – as if individual, free enterprise farmers are not concerned with the state of the environment in which they live and work – and produce!

Pattern for a World Economy Already Set in Ancient Times:
As Frances Hutchinson notes in her book “Understanding the Financial System: Social Credit Rediscovered”: “The pattern for the development of a world economy was set in the ancient world. Powerful individuals like the Pharaoh in Genesis, on the advice of their Prototype financial advisors like Joseph, commandeered control over material resources like grain, which they predicted, according to ‘insider information’ were likely to be in short supply in the future…”

Our farmers need to grasp what is planned for them. Joseph, in the Genesis story, communised or socialised Egypt – just as Lenin communised Russia, and President Rooseveldt and his High Financial and Economic Advisers corporatised (monopolised) America.

Bearing in mind that the Egyptians with a thousand year civilisation, would have known something about drought years and good year cycles, Joseph works his way up to become second in authority to the Pharaoh and ‘dreams’ that Egypt is to have seven years of ‘plenty’ followed by seven years of ‘drought’. Mind you the story tells of ‘famine’ - the cause of which could be for a number of reasons - not necessarily drought. The Ukrainian peoples suffered famine - because the Communists commandeered the grains!
And, what happened to the Egyptian people? They were forced off their farms and herded into the cities and eventually became serfs, on their own land, to the Pharaoh. Read it for yourselves gentle readers – Genesis Chapters 41 and 47.

America’s ‘proletariat’ or landless ‘wage slaves’:
American author John Steinbeck in “The Grapes of Wrath” wrote of the American farming folk forced off their lands by the banks during the 1930s, creating America’s own ‘proletariat’. Geoffrey Dobbs in “On Planning the Earth” (1951) wrote of the propaganda the American people were being subjected to by announcing another ‘crisis’.
Geoffrey writes: “…War Crisis: “Mankind is waging and losing a desperate battle against Nature, and is in dire need of an efficient General Staff if disaster is to be avoided.
This picture is, of course, entirely false, except in so far as we have been forced into the position of waging war on Nature, and particularly on the soil, by the operations of this same would-be General Staff… The destruction of the soil has not been brought about mainly by the innate errors of free individuals, who naturally tend to co-operate with their environment, but by bad farming enforced by the dictates of the remote holders of agricultural debt, and more recently, by Government Departments.
The worst effects have been caused by extensive farming with low yields, e.g., yields of the order of 12 bushels of wheat to the acre have destroyed the prairies of North America, … It is worth noting, in passing, that "the average term of farm tenancy in the United States is under two years." (Jacks and Whyte: "The Rape of the Earth", p. 232)…”

And what of English agriculture?
“The destruction of English agriculture by the Debt System during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century is indeed amply portrayed by *William Cobbett, who, despite his astonishing foresight, can scarcely have foreseen the lengths to which the process would be carried in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, not only in England but throughout the world, reaching its culmination in the dust bowls of North America and the giant tractor-farms of the U.S.S.R….”

“Economic Hansonism and Newspoll realities” The Australian October 14, 2010 :
Please note the term used in the headline ‘Economic Hansonism’. The term implies Australian farmers are a bunch of ‘hicks’ and are too ‘simplistic’. They couldn’t possibly understand all the intricacies government departments and banks have to deal with!
The news report continues: “Government tells banks it's too early to start foreclosing on Murray-Darling farmers' loans” – BUT THE THREAT IS THERE! “THE Gillard government has warned banks it's too early to start foreclosing on loans to irrigation farmers in the Murray-Darling Basin….”
The politicians and banks are 'warning them' of the dire consequences yet to come if they don’t fall into line! You should read "Operation Bankwatch" by Jim Cronin. The farmers on the West Coast of South Australia made a real stand against the banksters. They joined together as a community to do so.

* William Cobbett: We carry Cobbett’s two books “Rural Rides” and “The History of the Reformation of Ireland and England.” 

ABOUT THE ‘CRUMBS OFF THE TABLE’ FOR OUR ABORIGINAL FOLK

Readers will remember what we had to say about ‘native title’ legislation in On Target Vol.46 No. 40: “Land Rights or Native Title is Another Example” of how “… Vast areas of land are now effectively tied up under the guise of ‘native title’. Aboriginal folk are now realising they also are ‘tied up’ under the same legislation…The land will eventually be exploited by the multinationals and the Aboriginal folk will scramble for the ‘crumbs off the table”.
Here: https://alor.org/Volume46/Vol46No40.htm#1a

Andrew Bolt reports “Searching Ayers Rock for the “achievements” 26/10/2010
“Progress is celebrated: Anangu traditional owners are today celebrating the 25th anniversary of the hand-back of Uluru-Kata Tjuta in central Australia. The hand-back of the iconic sites in 1985 is considered a key symbolic moment for Indigenous land rights in Australia, paving the way for joint management of the park… Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park chairman Harry Wilson says he is very proud of what has been achieved in the 25 years since the hand-back. So what precisely has been achieved since the handover?
Meanwhile, Mr Wilson says the community of Mutitjulu, which falls within the park boundaries, desperately needs infrastructure improvements. He says there have been significant failings over past decades and it is time to turn things around: “It’s the health and education wise, everything has failed us in the last 30-odd years and we’re trying to look forward and work with people, and even with government so we can move forward as a community,” he said.”

Millions of dollars have been spent, but not necessarily on the Aboriginal people. There are bureaucrats and bureaucracies by the dozen. The state of the Aboriginal people? Look for yourselves, watch Mike Munro with former Aboriginal Affairs Minister Mal Brough.

MERKEL’S MULTICULTURALISM: ALL SMOKE AND MIRRORS

by James Reed
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that Germany’s attempt to build a multicultural society had “utterly failed”. Don’t think for a moment that she is suddenly critical of that holy of holies, immigration. Migrants are welcome but they must integrate and accept the country’s norms. This is all just propaganda to hose down rising criticism of immigration. She should ask herself as the minorities become majorities : what culture will be left to integrate to.  

GILLARD AND THE NEW DETENTION CENTRES

by James Reed
Surprise, surprise. Gillard’s tough talk on asylum seekers has been dropped as the government opens two more detention centres and bows “to pressure to release children and their families into the community”. (“PM Softens Detention Stance” The Australian 19/10/2010 p.1)

Gillard, in my opinion, lied during the election about taking a tough stand on border control, her body language during the speeches was a-give-away, as I saw it. Also I did not believe her for one moment because such a stance was contrary to her socialist philosophy. The Advertiser (19/10/2010) has the headline p.1 “Outrage at Hills Detention Centre: Why Weren’t We Told?” The reason is, Adelaide friends, Gillard’s mob would have lost votes.
So don’t forget this. It seems the children of the asylum seekers will attend the local school – if the bureaucrats can psychologically break down *the local residents’ resistance and accept this imposition. Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers will be “free to mix with local residents” but will be “forced to adhere to curfews and report to officials about their movements”.

How long before “pressure” results in their release completely into the community, if this is not already a release? Again, don’t forget this voters! Have you written to your federal member of Parliament expressing your outrage at what the political parties are imposing on this once Anglo-European nation? If he doesn’t know about your outrage you are failing in your responsibility to make him/her accountable to you.

* Did you see the reactions of the local people to the news that Julia intended to impose 400 ‘asylum seekers’ on them ?

NICE PLACE TO VISIT – IF YOU ARE A TAMIL!

by James Reed
“The vast majority of Tamils granted asylum in Australia and Canada had returned to Sri Lanka for a visit within a year”. The claim by Rohan Gunaratna was backed by Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotbaya Rajapaksa, who said there was no reason for Tamils to seek asylum overseas”. (The Australian, p.1, 18/10/2010) Correct, and in general most asylum claims are no more than people wanting a better lifestyle.

I don’t blame them, I would do the same if I was in their shoes. It is the Establishment elites who want endless numbers of migrants an refugees, for profit and their agenda of demographic displacement of Anglo-Australians. I for one, do not blame the asylum seekers or migrants; I blame our own ruling elites who have long ago betrayed us.  

THE “MORAL CRISIS” OF AMERICA

by James Reed
You just know things are bad when leading light intellectuals, of the liberal-left, speak about a “moral crisis”. Jeffrey Sachs (“US Gripped by its Growing Moral Crisis”, The Australian, October 14, 2010, p.8) laments that the discourse of compassion has drained from the US.

“The US today represents the paradox of a rich country falling apart because of the collapse of its core values”. The rich are not helping the poor – blacks, Hispanics and migrants.
Sachs continues: “The US is vulnerable to social breakdown because it is a highly diverse society. Racism and anti-immigrant sentiments are an important part of the attack on the poor, or at least the reason why so many are willing to heed the propaganda against helping the poor. As other societies grapple with their own increasing diversity, they may follow the US into crisis”.

Sachs is concerned about the rise of the right in Europe. But it is “diversity” which has caused “racism” in my opinion and it is this “diversity” created by undemocratic immigration policies which has undermined core values.
Immigration, multiculturalism, multiracialism and the whole politically correct package of diversity, is at the heart of the West’s problem. Only elites bent on destroying Western civilisation would have taken us down this dusty road.  

THE DARK SIDE OF CHINA

by Peter Ewer
Criticism of China in the Murdoch press are few and far between. Thus it was good to see Bret Stephens (“Dark Side of the Chinese Miracle”, The Australian, October 13, 2010, p.11), reflecting on China’s suppression of dissent, as recently seen in Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Peace Prize and his imprisonment. For saying less than me poor Liu got 11 years gaol for “incitement to subvert state power”. Liu is now one of tens of thousands of political prisoners in China. Stephens sums it up:

“Repression isn’t just woven into the fabric of Chinese life – it is the warp and woof”. That, as I see it, is a key reason for opposing the economic rise of China and by minimising purchase, as difficult as it is, of Chinese manufactured goods. Speak to Freedom with your dollars! If enough people do this, the obese dragon will shrink.

CRANKING UP IMMIGRATION PROPAGANDA

by James Reed
Oh no! The drop in international students could lead to inflation and higher interest rates! (“Migration Rules Bring Danger of Inflation”, (The Weekend Australian, October 16 – 17, 2010, p.9) Quick, quick, let’s have all the scams back again!

In fact the argument is based on the idea that Australia needs these migrants for its resource boom as it flogs off its resources to China so that China can be No.1. But international students don’t work in the resources industry, they cling to the cities and their ethnic enclaves. Most of these students work in the service sector (eg. accountants, lawyers) with little connection to mining.  

LEAVE ADELAIDE ALONE!

from Len the Cleaner
Ian Smith, a partner in the Adelaide-based advisory business, Bespoke Approach, with former ministers Nick Bolkus and Alexander Downer, wants to see development, development and more development in Adelaide (“City of Churches Needs a Modern Makeover”, The Weekend Australian, October 9-10, 2010, p.14).

In fact, he writes “Adelaide is Stagnant”, a turn of phrase which brings to mind a green puddle of water. But in fact, Adelaide is liveable – just. The growth lobby and the Rann government want to increase Adelaide’s population by 100%, I believe making it unliveable for the little people like me.
Why should big business get what they want? Why should money rule the world? When will this madness ever stop?  

HISTORIC MOMENT: DVD-ROM IMPORTANT NEW RELEASE !

All 1575 issues of the New Times Journals (from 1935 to 1999) are now on DVD ROM (for your computer). The DVD ROM was launched at the National Weekend; along with the new books on social credit and economic democracy, the DVD ROM proved an outstanding success. The multi-media supplement includes the only known recording of C.H. Douglas' voice in an address given in 1935 "The Causes of War".
Through many years of hard work and patience by one of our League supporters (thank you D.M.) in Queensland, every single issue of the New Times Journal is now available on one DVD ROM ! This is a great resource for Independent Political and Economic commentary for the 65-year period from 1935 to 1999.

The Journals are presented in a reader format, with menus enabling each journal to be selected. Or if you prefer, you can print each issue to read at your convenience.
• Find out what was going on during WWII.
• Discover the events and people who were responsible for ... our history, etc.
• All text has been converted so that it may be searched and quoted.
• All photographs have been preserved.
• The DVD ROM also contains a multi-media supplement with some of our best audio and video files.

The DVD ROM may be purchased from Heritage Book Shops Mailing Service - Send $35 plus postage ($2) for your copy of this huge and valuable resource!