IT’S A MATTER OF ONE’S PHILOSOPHY

by Betty Luks
The League found itself in the media limelight last weekend. The Australian Press Council had “considered a complaint by Nigel Jackson about a column by Phillip Adams in the Weekend Australian Magazine on 9-10 April 2011. The column described the late Eric Butler as having been a “truly evil man” and “Australia’s most virulent anti-Semite”. It also said: “If the word ‘traitor’ means anything Butler was a traitor, often investigated during World War II by stumblebum security people for his pro-Axis activities”.

“Mr Jackson complained that the description of Mr Butler as a traitor was inaccurate and deceitful because he served overseas in the Second AIF during the war and was one of a group of people whom the Reed Board of Inquiry described in 1944 as “loyal to His Majesty the King” and “actuated by a sincere desire to improve the lot of themselves and their fellow men”.

“Mr Jackson also complained that Mr Butler’s views were inaccurately portrayed as primarily anti-Semitic when in reality they were principally concerned with public service from a Christian orientation… Mr Jackson had expressed these concerns in a letter to the editor of the magazine but it was not published.”Read more…

For me, the key words were “Mr Butler’s views were inaccurately portrayed as primarily anti-Semitic when in reality they were principally concerned with public service from a Christian orientation…”

Butler, the student of history and his introduction to Social Credit:
As a keen student of history, Eric D. Butler had read all the well-known historians of his younger days, but it was when he read the works of C.H. Douglas his understanding received a jolt - and the direction of his life was irrevocably changed. He began to see there were many ‘historical gaps’ in the written histories of the time.
Douglas had observed: “History is crystalised politics”, while a colleague, Hewlett Edwards in “The Cultivation of History” noted: “He who writes history, chooses history.”

Philosophy and Policy: Stripped of the variables there are only two basic philosophies: being diametrically opposed, they give rise to conflicting policies.

Centralism: The first philosophy conceives of all power arising from a point outside, or external to the individual. This philosophy gives rise to policies calling for a certain type of organization. The individual is looked upon merely as an instrument, or tool, of power wielded by someone else. This is the essence of all forms of totalitarianism whatever the label: monopoly capitalism, communism, socialism, facism, nazism, zionism.

Eric Butler wrote: “The philosophy of centralised power always produces the same destructive results. It is a false philosophy because it conflicts with Reality, one important aspect of which is the nature of individuals. The inevitable result of more and more centralisation of power is more and more compulsion.”

Freedom: The Second Philosophy is One of Freedom for the Individual: “It conceives of a social organisation that provides the basis of that rather awful freedom, where a man becomes responsible to God for his own development and achievements. “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
This philosophy conceives of a social structure, where the individual is able to make free choices, and to accept personal responsibility and be accountable for the choices made. Only in this way can the individual make real progress, which is moral progress. This also means organic growth as opposed to rigid and sterile planning. Systems and Institutions are there to serve man and not to control him. “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath”

Policy of Centralism: The Bank of England and 1694: One of the most important events in modern history was the setting up of the Bank of England in 1694. It was with that legislative act that the monetary policy of the English people was changed without them knowing it. The ancient prerogative of the King to create and administer the nation’s money system was handed over to a private concern – the Bank of England – and the beginnings of the national debt. The private banking system, by its control of the monetary mechanism of every nation, controls every aspect of social life. This is a tyranny! Eric Butler wrote of the background history of the Bank of England in “The Enemy Within the Empire”...This was an act of unforgiveable betrayal on the part of those involved in 1694.

Christians were told: “The love of money (Mammon) – that is, the preference for money, in terms of personal advancement, above all other considerations - is the root of all kinds of evil.” There is another saying from among the south sea islanders: "Know the roots and you will know the tree…"

Social Credit, Policy of Freedom: Jesus said “WOE unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You tithe mint and anise and cumin, but have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy, and social credit, these you ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. You blind guides, which strain out the gnat and swallow the camel."

The Greek word translated as "social credit," is generally rendered "faith" in the New Testament… another ordinary meaning it had in the Greek is: "faithful dealing between man and man”. In St. Paul's letter to the Galatians it is used in the same sense: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, . . . faithfulness" (R.V.).

It is faithful dealing between man and man that is fundamental to all human relationships, including those between individuals within a nation. We were promised there are benefits to be had, there are fruits resulting from such faithful dealing. There is an increment to be had from the association, if it is based on ‘faithful dealings’.

In a Christian social credit group, society, nation, the rights of the individual members and their relationship to one another is nurtured and protected. That is, their relations with each other, and the relations of the group with other groups i.e., community, state, nation.

Social credit and the Three-Fold Commonwealth:
1. Political/Legislative - 2. Economic/Financial - 3. Cultural/Spiritual
In the Political/Legislative fold, matters concerning what is broadly termed “the maintenance of law and order" are attended to. From a Christian viewpoint, there is freedom balanced by responsibility and accountability.
Eric Butler was fond of using the road rules as an example of the rights of the individual protected by the rule of law. Under the road rules, he could travel where and when he wanted. He was free to choose - as long as he respected the rights of all other road users. Why, the governor-general could travel safely in his Bentley where and when he wanted, just as I could travel in my aged Holden where and when I wanted.

2. In the Economics/Finance fold, we associate to provide for the material wants of life--food, clothing, shelter and services, such as transport, sanitation, water supplies and roads, etc.
With the advent of the Industrial Revolution and then the Automation and Technological Revolution, the Economic System became a communal activity and the present generation lives off the fruits, the efforts, of those who have gone before.
But the first essential policy in a free society is that economic activities be directly related to genuine individual requirements and not waste the earth’s resources simply to provide ‘work’. If a car is what is needed, build one that will last a lifetime.

Social credit teaching insists the huge production now streaming forth from the Economic System doesn’t belong to any one class or group. Yes, the worker receives his wages and the manufacturer his Just Price, but when the needs of the people have been satisfied, why produce for production’s sake?
The answer to that question is a philosophical one. Does man work to Live or does he live to Work? Christianity teaches that work is a means to an end and not an end in itself. “Is not Life more than food and the body more than raiment?”

3. It is in the Cultural/Spiritual fold that the individual naturally strives to develop and fulfil himself in such activities as Religion, Sport, Arts, Learning, Community Service, etc. In this field his associations are generally most satisfactory because the correct principles of association are observed.
There is voluntary association for clearly defined objectives e.g. cricket, theatre, charity, gardening, crafts, etc., etc. It is in this fold that individuals readily submit to the highest form of discipline, which is self-discipline

For a Policy of Freedom to be incarnated, (i.e., “it is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things as yet unseen!), Political Democracy must first be made to work. Our political representatives must be brought to realise they are the People’s servants, not their masters.
It is essential the People insist on Political Democracy in order for Economic Democracy to function - to become a Reality.

This is what Eric Dudley Butler was about. He spent a lifetime travelling the length and breadth of this great land, teaching, encouraging his fellow Australians, and fighting for, their freedom to choose. From what I know of Phillip Adams’ background (a former communist party member) he did not share Eric’s philosophy. In fact the two philosophies were and are diametrically opposed.

*** Important DVD: Social Dynamics with Eric Butler and Jeremy Lee. Full definition $10 + $3.00 postage.  

THE QUESTION OF JULIA

by Ian Wilson LL.B.
I have collected all of the material published by The Australian dealing with their investigation of Julia Gillard conducting “controversial legal work for an allegedly corrupt union boss, her then boyfriend.” (The Australian, 21 August, 2012 pp.1,4) I have also looked at a number of internet sites which allege that Gillard either knew about misappropriation of AWU Workplace Reform Association funds and/or funds from this entity were used to fund renovations at her property.

In my opinion as a legally trained person, there is no evidence meeting the criminal standard of “beyond reasonable doubt” that Gillard did any wrong doing in a criminal sense or in any legal sense. I am sorry to disappoint readers and I have no love for Gillard myself, but I do love the rule of law and the fundamental principles of common law justice, and that is the conclusion that a think a hypothetical reasonable person would reach.

The allegations that Gillard was acting inappropriately are based solely on suspicions that she did not open a file on the establishment of the Association because she had something to hide. I find this is a crazy argument. Examining closely the 1995 Slater and Gordon transcript (The Australian 22 August 2012 p.11) gives no evidence of this. Gillard did not open a file and The Australian journalists have made much of this.

But, for many firms it is standard practice not to open files for work done for existing clients pro bono i.e., without charge. (The Australian 22 August 2012 p.1) In any case, the mere existence of a client misusing a legal structure which a lawyer has created happens all the time. It alone does not imply any wrong doing on Gillard’s part. This is so even if the client was her then boyfriend.

With all the tens of thousands of words written on the Gillard issue I am surprised that no-one, until now, has not mentioned the legal folly of doing work for partners and relatives. Legal ethics does not preclude it, but it certainly should. It is not wise because if something goes wrong it starts to look like a conspiracy. Gillard made a professional mistake doing this work in the first place, but that was her choice.

What then remains? There is the allegation about Gillard receiving funds for her property renovations. Going over the 1995 transcript I don’t see any evidence of this. Slater and Gordon is a leading law firm and in 1995 was just as highly regarded in the legal world as they are today. The 1995 interview contains a detailed probe on this issue. They requested receipts from Gillard and I assume that the firm got them and conducted their own investigation. Gillard had also dealt with a claim that there existed a receipt with respect to renovation work done at her home, linked to AWU WRA funds. This was a “rumour”, and in any case, even in the “rumour” the AWU WRA refused to pay. Gillard said that while she, at the time, could not categorically rule out that there was anything at all paid for by “the association … the union or whatever” she could account for everything from her receipts. To date nobody has presented solid evidence that she did not do this. This is the key point of this issue.

Finally, there is the issue that Gillard knowingly created a “slush fund” – her own words. (The Australian 24 August 2012 p.1) – for her boyfriend and his mates to draw on, to fund their own elections. This was allegedly contrary to the stated objectives of the association. Well, what follows from this? Even if she did know about these intentions, she did the legal work. The operation of the Association was not Gillard’s concern as a lawyer. It was those who chose to use the Association as a “slush fund” that were acting contrary to the stated objects of the Association. Again, Gillard cannot be got on this point.

To sum up, as much as I personally hate to say it, from a legal point of view, even in terms of legal ethics, Gillard did nothing wrong. We may have our personal suspicions but that it irrelevant. What matters in the law is cold hard facts. Those who believe that Gillard broke the law need to come up with evidence.

This research on my part took up a fair slice of the week, but I thought it would be a worthwhile exercise because everybody deserves a fair hearing. Some on the net claim to have “the full story” that will cause a Government to fall”. If you have this, come forward because the time is ripe now. If you want this government to fall, supply hard evidence not rumour and suspicion.  

THEY IDENTIFIED WITH THEM THEY WERE NEVER OF THEM

by Betty Luks
The saga of PM Julia Gillard and the former AWU boyfriend’s activities remind me of the origins of the Fabian Society and what was really intended.
Most League folk know of the discovery Major Clifford H. Douglas made during the First World War. He had been enlisted by the government to sort out some costing/accounting problems at the Farnborough Aircraft Factory. The factory had gotten into a muddle with its accounting. His use of the new tabulating machines speeded up his investigation-- and it was here that he made his seminal discovery that later became known as the "A+B Theorem".
Put simply: The factory was generating costs (A) at a faster rate than it was distributing money – or purchasing power - in the form of wages and salaries (B)!

The question to Douglas was: "Is this a peculiarity of a factory producing weapons in time of war, or is it true of every business?" He investigated further (he was not only an engineer but also a cost accountant) and found that in every case the total costs always exceeded the sums paid out in wages, salaries and dividends.
Douglas could see that Financial Accounting did not accurately record the reality of the Physical Accounting of the Factory Production. Remember this was at the end of WW I. It was the problem that faced all the industrialised nations - whether they recognised it or not. The age of the NEW Economics had been born. The age of the Old Economics had ended with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. A NEW AGE had begun.

The Delusion of Super Production
Douglas first tackled the lack of purchasing power in a 1918 article, “The Delusion of Super Production”. His resolution for this lack of financial purchasing power was the proposal of a National Dividend for everybody irrespective of work. The surpluses would be distributed to everyone irrespective of their place in the Society. The social structure would not dramatically change as happened under the Soviets.
And, as long as the leaders were genuine servants (He who would be greatest among you - must be the servant of them all) and served their people, their people would respect them.

Physically, the Industrial Nations could produce more than enough for their own people – and more. So, what prevented the distribution? Surely it was the lack of Purchasing Power?

In the 1930s an American group known as The Technocracy put out some very interesting data which Douglas, founder of the Social Credit movement, studied. He said it was: interesting, useful, and, in the main, correct; but didn’t tell engineers and social crediters anything they didn’t already know.
* the rate of production per man-hour is a function of the mechanical power which is employed in production,
* this factor, combined with other factors, has now enabled, a small and diminishing portion of the available labour, to produce everything required for a high standard of living,
* not only for the actual workers, but for the increasingly unemployed. Over and above this, The Technocrats noted,
* this immensely accelerated production
* has not been bought by the general population,
* but has resulted, on the contrary, in a piling up of debt, in the United States alone, of approximately 218 billion dollars (America’s debts now run into the trillions!)
* and that money debt, represents unpaid for production.

While Douglas was most interested in the data provided by the group, he cautioned people about accepting the form of organised proposed… As distinct from the facts,” said Douglas, “the policy didn’t differ in essence from the policy associated with Fascism, Soviet Communism or Rationalism - which at the time was the Bank of England's particular brand of industrial reorganisation for Great Britain. Douglas’ proposals were savagely attacked by the Fabians of the day. The Labour party declared that social credit was not compatible with socialism. Better to have Marxist policies, of which at the time, the Soviet regime was a good example, than look into Douglas’ proposals of a National Dividend for all.

Enter the Fabian Society
Fabians such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, said they would never approve of, never stand for, such a proposal. They would never agree to give every citizen his birth right of an annual share of what was now communal production. Production, that in the main, was no longer based on human and animal energy, but on much more powerful natural forces.

These people – the Fabians and their ilk - identified with the workers – but were not of them. They used the working people as an instrument for the gaining of power. They were really not interested in resolving the conflict between the Employers and the Workers. They wanted a monopoly over Labour. For them, better Revolution than Resolution.

An Aside: If you follow the thread of this Technocracy Group, you’ll discover the thread can be traced down the years to the Global Warming issue, Climate Change, Carbon Tax, Carbon Trading – and next? Carbon Currency!  

CAPITALISM, EMPLOYMENT AND THE CULT OF ETHNIC DIVERSITY

by Brian Simpson
The Career One handout in The Advertiser 4 August 2012, had an article “Ethnic Diversity Should Be a Plus”. The article begins by noting that a survey of 2000 Australian and New Zealand found that found that 66 per cent of leaders, 61 per cent of managers and 58 per cent of employees thought that ethnic diversity was a positive.
However only 50 per cent of leaders and 48 per cent of employees agreed that ethnic diversity was benefitting their organisations to a great or moderate extent. The article says, “This is despite the economic reality that Australia’s aging population demands a continuation or increase in the net overseas migration intake in the next 40 years.”

This is not about celebrating diversity and the usual multicultural soft-sell. Let us suppose that a space ship with 50 trillion blonde, blue-eyed workers landed outside of Sydney. Each Nordic white worker would fill any job a capitalist had, no matter how degrading. They would work for less than any human, maybe for nothing. Would the capitalist continue to mouth off about diversity? If blonde workers were so cheap and numerous that they could be used literally as bricks in buildings, if there were so many workers that fat capitalists struggled to light their cigars for lack of oxygen, would diversity matter? No! It would not, only numbers count!

The claim that an aging population requires more migrants has been refuted by academics many times, but it keeps getting repeated. Migrants age too. Older workers will need to have a place in the economy. The article does not critically reflect upon whether racial diversity is helping business.  

THE CASE AGAINST ‘FREE’ TRADE

by Brian Simpson
Ian Fletcher, a senior economist for a Prosperous America has recently published an essay: “The Case Against Free Trade”, in The Social Contract Summer 2012, pp.3-6. The article is directed towards Americans but makes some relevant points for Australians as well. Here is the core part: “The US is competing under self-imposed free trade rules against foreign nations with aggressively mercantilist trade strategies. Free traders act as if we are operating in a global free market, but we are not. The prima facie evidence is that it is not. We are instead in a contest with various types of state capitalism just as real as the contest we once fought against communism.”

The game is rigged and set-up by the state capitalists with foreign governments subsidising their exports, and blocking American imports. Fletcher notes that the Congressional Research Service located 751 types of barriers to US exports. Such manipulation means that only about 15 per cent of world trade is “free” in a textbook sense. Value-added taxes are used by foreign governments as a form of protectionism.

Fletcher doesn’t support autarky or self-sufficiency but wants genuinely free trade. But the classic Ricardo argument is only valid if a mass of assumptions are met, such as no capital mobility or externalities. These assumptions arise as an inevitable part of globalisation, which is by definition about the free movement of capital and goods, which invalidates Ricardo’s comparative advantage argument for free trade. Globalism thus undermines free trade thus creating unfree trade!  

WHERE ARE THE MORAL POLICE WHEN A MACHETE-WIELDING MINER NEEDS THEM?

by Peter Ewer
Marikan, South Africa: 30 miners were killed on 17 August 2012 after South African police opened fire on them. The miners were on strike at a mine owned by a British company. The miners were wielding machetes and short Zulu-type spears (or so it appears to me from a photograph).

While the media could not resist saying that white police in the past had fired on protestors, the police gunning down the miners were mostly black. Now, where are the white liberals in the West protesting about this? Of course, since whites are not involved, it is for them not an issue. The moral police only police the behaviour of the whites.  

GLAD PASSING OF THE UNIVERSITY AND ITS COSMOPOLITAN IDEOLOGY

by James Reed
Whatever is the world coming to? First we have the chairman of the Fullbright Foreign Scholarship Board, Tom Healy, saying that times up for the four-year degree (The Australian 22 August, 2012 p.31).
The US is “degree obsessed” and tough economic times “are going to break it apart”. With student debt in the US now over $US 1 trillion, it is hard to disagree. Students will need to focus on job-related skills.

Over the seas to Australia: “Offshore Students Told Not to Come” by immigration officers. (The Australian 22 August 2012 p.29) “Immigration officers are sabotaging Australia’s education marketing overseas, rejecting would-be students, and suggesting they are better off taking courses in their home countries.”
This arises from application of the new “genuine temporary entrant” test which is catching student applicants keener on migration than education.

Well, it’s a start; let us hope that all of these negative bits add up to the passing of the university.  

LETTER IN THE PRESS

“Seniors in the office” is not a cause for celebration. (The Courier August 20). Only a couple of weeks ago a television current affairs program ran a segment on youth unemployment in which it was claimed that unemployment among eighteen to twenty five year olds was as high as 39 per cent in some areas such as Broadmeadows. Do the people who want to work on into their dotage have any empathy with those trying to get a foothold on the employment ladder?

How are the young to gain the experience that is expected if the older people maintain their “dog in the manger” attitude? The age at which retirement benefits can be accessed should be lowered. However governments, in their myopia, have taken the reverse direction.

Of course this cuts across the approach of the manager of Ballarat Oncology and Haematology Services (Gillian James) who employs people “--- for their ability and merit irrespective of their age.” How did these people gain their ability and merit if they had been unemployed until they were 25? If a person has not been employed by 25, gaining a work ethic will be all but impossible.

You can usually rely on one side of our political spectrum to accept anything that will increase the budget deficit and spend, spend, spend. Not in this case, however, for they have been the ones to raise the retirement ages, firstly for women from 60 to 65 in half-yearly rises, and more recently for men from 65 to amen.

- - Yours truly, Ron Fischer Sebastopol Victoria.