Archives: Letters to the Editor

Let’s have a recap shall we?

A wanted war criminal enacting a genocide, and a president who is arresting and disappearing his own citizens, come up with a 20-point peace plan that involves no Palestinian input.

A reminder that this is a war criminal, whose population at latest poll, showed 95% believed that “not enough force” or “sufficient force” had been used in Gaza, and a president who thinks that a 400% discount on eggs means you’re getting them at a discount.

And we think these people are sufficient to create a peace plan? The coloniser and the enabler?

Australia’s prime minister comments that this “plan” is cause for hope. What hope might you be referring to prime minister? Hope that the protesters in your own country will stand down? Hope that criticism for our inaction and complicity will evaporate? Hope that your Labor rank and file will settle down and think that you’ve done enough?

Never again will Australia be able to lecture another country on human rights or humanitarian aid. Our promise of a better future for the Palestinians fell at the first hurdle. And continues to fail. Our lack of courage is responsible for their continued suffering.

The US business and political elites set out over 100 years ago to eliminate any real democracy that might have emerged in the US. That was brilliantly illustrated by Alex Carey in his revelatory book Taking the Risk out of Democracy.

Since the early part of last century, trillions have been spent by those elites on the most extensive and brilliant propaganda campaign to eliminate any possibility of democracy in the US. During that same period, billions have been spent by US and other Zionists to create a fantasy narrative of god-given Jewish rights to the land of Palestine.

Anyone interested can get a beautifully put together history of that campaign in a book written by Alison Weir called Against our better judgment.

What this demonstrates is the power of propaganda in eliminating democracy by creating a world of lies that then shapes the views of the population.

Finally, the stark reality begins to tear away at the tissue of lies. That is happening now in the US. New campaigns of propaganda are now being launched, but social media reveal the truth and begin to undermine the power of propaganda.

You would think that we would have come to an understanding of the sheer mental and moral vacuity of the orange Donald. But apparently not!

That the vast bulk of Western punditry and political leadership could not treat this dog’s breakfast of a proposal with anything but derision indicates the extent to which Western civilisation has declined into fatuity and ineptitude.

Only the mentally incapable could see it as anywhere near dealing with the substantive moral issues involved. But I guess that is most of us!

Lama Qasem tells a powerful story and provides an insight into the most important perspective to look at when considering the experiences of Palestinian children.

There is no question that treating people, and children particularly, in the horrible ways described will only perpetuate the cycle of hatred and violence that has cursed Palestine and Israel for 80 years.

However I’ve read the prime minister’s speech to the UN and I don’t see anywhere that he says children are taught to hate. The word “hate” doesn’t appear anywhere. It’s a shame if the article’s important message that “truth is not hate” loses some impact by pointing a finger at the wrong person.

Editor’s note: Albanese clearly used the word “hate” in this speech:

“Working together, we can build a future where instead of children in Gaza dying in pain, living in fear, or being taught to hate – they can go to school, build a “life in larger freedom”, aspire to raise children of their own.”

Julian Cribb is right to assert that the idea of perpetual growth on a finite planet is delusional. His estimate of a maximum sustainable global population of about two billion is also about right, though even that may be too high should climate change render much of the planet uninhabitable.

Maps of the world at three degrees warming, that show regions that have become uninhabitable, are profoundly alarming. They include all of India and Pakistan, for example. And what if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation shuts off? It means the end of agriculture in much of Britain and Ireland and many countries in Western Europe.

James Lovelock, co-proposer of the Gaia Hypothesis, once predicted that by the end of the century, “climate change will reduce the human population to a few breeding pairs surviving near the Arctic”. This implies a mass die-off of people that does not bear contemplation, and probably the loss of civilisation as well.

However, we’re not called “sapiens” for nothing, and hopefully our inherent wisdom will win the day. That means pulling out all stops to mitigate climate change. It means net zero emissions by 2035 and rapidly drawing down carbon out of the atmosphere.

Henry Reynolds’ essay “Australia’s decolonisation runs aground” is a timely reminder of how far we remain from completing the work of decolonisation. He is right to note that our retreat from the republic, from structural recognition of First Nations, and even from re-examining our national symbols reflects not just public hesitation but a lack of political courage.

What Australia needs most is leadership with vision. Our future cannot be shaped by leaders content with small steps or short-term calculations. We need politicians and other civic leaders willing to lift the national conversation, to imagine a republic, to embrace genuine reconciliation and to chart a course beyond the shadow of empire. Without such visionaries, the project of decolonisation will continue to stall.

Lyons argues the absence of Arab leaders in the White House for the announcement of the Trump Plan “says everything”. Does it really? Arab leaders have publicly supported the plan. But they in no way represent the sentiment of the Arab public, so why make their support central? What about a Palestinian presence in the room? Does the Palestinian voice not count? Non-Palestinian Arab leaders have no greater right to determine Palestine’s future than Israel or the US.

Lyons’ use of the word “outmanoeuvred” is also problematic. It suggests an intellectual chess battle between Netanyahu and Trump, with Trump acting as a bulwark against Israeli designs. I submit that Trump is a willing participant in the genocide and this neocolonial plan.

Lyons quotes John Howard when suggesting that the Israel-Palestine “conflict” is central to instability and conflicts across the Middle East. But is it central? It was Howard himself who propagandised for, and committed, Australian forces to an illegal and deeply destabilising war in Iraq. That had nothing to do with Palestine. Was Palestine the reason for the long Iran-Iraq War? The Iranian Revolution? The first Iraq War? The second Iraq War? The Syrian civil war? The Arab Spring?

An excellent summary by Julian Cribb of the cancers eating away at the heart of the West, but it may be an exaggeration to apply it to all current civilisations.

Much of what Julian alleges against civilisations is easily identifiable in the dying West, but is nowhere near as identifiable in some others. China is making huge and long planned strides in dealing with many of these threats and is willingly sharing those strides with the Global South.

I share Julian’s concerns, but am perhaps more optimistic given that other cultures have recognised the heedless rush of the West to global catastrophe and intend not to share that psychopathic fate.

To say Albanese’s UN speeches were a disappointment would be an understatement. No one could miss the sycophantic pandering to the US within the first few minutes of the National Statement:

“… international rules-based order owes much to the post-war leadership of the United States of America.”

Does it? Should I mention the words “weapons of mass destruction”, Iraq and the illegal war waged by the “coalition of the willing”? Should I mention the last eight months?

I, like Lama Qasem, was stunned when I heard, during the Palestinian Statehood address, Albanese say the children of Gaza were being “taught to hate”.

Where was the admonishment of Israel that 82% of their population wishes the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, or that 47% support the IDF killing all Palestinians in Gaza?

I then listened to the extraordinary, inspiring and brilliant UN speech of Mia Mottley (Barbados’ prime minister), and I regained some faith in humanity.

Watch it and be restored.

Mottley is not our prime minister — that is true — but it was an urgent reminder that we, as Australians, must expect far, far more from those who seek to lead us.

Trump’s plan for Gaza is possibly the most overtly unfair, morally corrupt, ethically vacant, horrendous, hideous, self-centred, vacuous, vicious, pile of steaming Augean stable sweepings we have seen created in almost any of our lifetimes. There is a remote chance that a few people born before the Treaty of Versailles was penned still exist.

Even the most cursory glance screams that the “plan” provides more avenues for the Israeli Zionist conquest to be resumed while Palestinians have any minuscule “bargaining chips” left to them. They are left naked, blindfolded, and nailed to the firing squad wall by this outrageous assault on any decent negotiated agreement.

And Trump as the supreme leader of a “Peace Authority” forced upon a whole nation? This is a scenario from an alternate and intrinsically evil universe.

The rest of the UN community must in all humanity denounce this idea as blatant regime change, and support to the hilt a future for Palestine that is just and reasonable. It is not only Palestine, but post-Gaza conflict Israel that otherwise has no chance for a safe and prosperous future.

Notwithstanding the 32,000 proven and documented lies by Trump, the quite bizarre fact the world and the mainstream Western media are treating this plan as having any credibility at all suggests a level of self-deception bordering on insanity.

The two people involved, one a compulsive liar and the other a treacherous, vicious and utterly morally vacuous genocider, surely must give pause to even the most naive and credulous observer. But apparently not!

Anthony Albanese is the personification of power without purpose. His place in Labor mythology will be that of the long-serving but achievement-less “leader”.

With this single article , John Lyons again proves his integrity and professionalism as a journalist. We don’t see an analysis as hard-hitting as this of how Netanyahu has triumphed over Trump anywhere in the Western mainstream media landscape.

Netanyahu — who is a truly evil man — will probably succeed because the Gazans have been reduced to desperation. Zionist Israel will pay in the long run – a rightly discredited and despised nation.

Trump is a weak appeaser of Israeli fascism. He could not even protect his benefactor Charlie Kirk. Russia and China are right not to trust Trump .

Or alternatively this assistance to Iran could simply be a continuation of China’s long game in assisting the creation of a world that can no longer be subjected to Western violence and control.

Similar assistance is being provided by China to a number of countries that are again threatened by US attempts to destabilise, destroy or loot their patrimony. Just a thought!

This is by far the best expose I have ever read of the fraud that the US is, or has ever been, a democracy.

The intentions of participants in the Constitutional conventions were very clear. They overwhelmingly believed that “those who own the country should govern it”.

They ensured that by reducing democracy into a theatre performance. Great article!

An excellent, forensic disquisition by Jack on the manifold problems of an Opposition that thinks focusing on the past and trying to bring back the glorious 1950s, is a recipe for electoral success in a fundamentally changed world. It really reflects the desire of conservatives across the Western world to secure the future by returning to the certainties of a past age that has no chance, thank God, of returning.

Currently, Labor offers no significant alternative in many policy areas and also seems to have a similar, if less urgent, fixation. In a sense, they are all desperately trying to revive the dying Western empire of colonialism and imperialism without recognising the growing emergence of a multipolar world which has a focus on equality of nations, peaceful co-existence and respect for mutual sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Their shared fear of China comes from them both living in a hall of mirrors where their own predilections are reflected back to them about far more sophisticated and civilised cultures.

Does Andrew Hastie have, as Jack Waterford wonders, “a sense of despair over the Liberals’ lack of direction and current failure to project anything much in the way of ideas or values”, or does Hastie see this failure as an opportunity?

September poll results are in line with the May federal election, and yet there is a volatility in some quarters, perhaps most worryingly in the energy transition “space”, where Hastie has grabbed the anti-renewables baton from Peter Dutton and is running (with team Sky/Murdoch) to put spanners in the works.

The gaining of social licence for renewables infrastructure has at times been mishandled, but some of the opposition appears politically motivated. The Clean Energy Council’s submission to the Senate inquiry into climate and energy misinformation reported on intimidatory tactics used against hosts of renewable infrastructure: “Verbally abusing children, boycotts of a farming business, and painting threatening messages on roads” for example.

Could the industrial strength anti-renewables campaign being conducted in the US take hold here? Hastie rejects our net-zero target; who knows whether this would be an encumbrance in the cities, if the target is seen to be slipping away in 2028?

The truth that all of us US vassal states continue to give every effort to avoid is that the Philippines, with the US assisted emergence again of the Marcos crime family, is just another US proxy funded, armed and trained by the US to prevent the emergence of a challenger to US world domination.

Ukraine was one, as is Israel, the new government of Moldova, the Philippines, Nepal, Armenia and many others. Most have failed dismally to achieve their purpose. On the bright side for the US, it saves them having to send US soldiers to die in foreign lands and simply sacrifices the native peoples to that end.

The problem for the US is that it is rapidly running out of countries willing to fund these proxy wars by taking and holding US dollars and Treasuries. In addition, the US is now being outmatched by both Russia and China in the development of new and, in some instances, unbeatable military hardware which they are increasingly willing to supply to other countries around the world that are being threatened by the US.

This article makes us ask, what about here? Anthony Albanese has just declared unilaterally at Balmoral that Australians are to have no referendum on a republic. Yet, within a day he was at the UK Labour Party conference lauding democracy.

His government intends to bring down swingeing changes to freedom of information laws. His government has also relentlessly pursued two whistleblowers who ought to have been protected by any decent whistleblower law. Important elements of the surrender of sovereignty under AUKUS continue to be withheld from the Australian public. And the promised NACC had turned into a dead dog.

The three legacy parties have ganged up to make it harder for other parties to be elected, and the Albanese Government has cut the research staff they need. There is continued evasion by some government witnesses at parliamentary inquiries, which even some of the questioning by the most skilled senators, such as David Pocock and Malcolm Roberts, fails to crack. According to information obtained under FOI, the prime minister has not answered any correspondence on Gaza, although Penny Wong has answered about a fifth, though not mine. I am sure readers could contribute more examples.

Thanks for your two China visit pieces. It’s a while since I’ve been in China, so I imagine I would be even more startled by the advances since then, let alone your two years.

I was particularly pleased because there is a startling absence — and I think a decline — in civil society contact with China. You know some of the reasons, probably much better than me. Universities/research organisations — now increasingly problematic on a number of dimensions — are one aspect.

But also civil society groups like peace groups I am familiar with are either reluctant to raise the issue or puzzled about how to go about it. The obstacles and potential traps are obvious, but as someone who visited the Soviet Union during the height of the Second Cold War (for United Nations University disarmament workshop in Tashkent) I can attest to the personal importance.

It was about the time Sting produced his song Do the Russians love their children too? – a question that should have been asinine, but was in fact all the more effective for being asked. Given the current climate in the parts of the world that like to think of itself as The West (vs The Rest), including Australia, I think that many in government would answer a Chinese version of Sting’s question unequivocally at best.

There’s much to criticise about actions of the Chinese Government, as there is about our own – or about the government of our increasingly grotesque most important ally.

But the more cold the diplomatic and military situation, the more important exploration and deepening of civil society relations become.

So, thanks for your pieces.

Much of the discussion in this journal suggests that when it comes to important questions of foreign policy that impinge on the US, Australia has choices.

Your readers may well know that Chomsky likens the way in which the US conducts its international relations to how the mafia operates. He refers to it as “The Mafia Doctrine”.

An important consequence of being a (lesser) member of the (Mafia) gang is that when it comes to obedience to the don, gang members who break the rules are treated the same as or worse than anyone else, as I have explained at greater length elsewhere.

What I have called “the Hotel California effect” severely limits what gang members can do without permission.

This means of course that you cannot wake up one morning feeling bright and sparky in the refulgence of a new dawn and suddenly decide that “all this murder and mayhem are not for me, I’m out of here” – that is, unless you are prepared to incur the Godfather’s wrath (note that the hypocrisy of a sudden change of heart would not matter as you have become inured to all of the double dealing).

It seems that Graeme Stewart, like much of the media, jumped on the shark netting misinformation bandwagon by trying to claim that Long Reef beach where the shark encounter occurred on 6 September 2015 had shark nets removed:

“The tragic fatality at Dee Why, the first at a netted Sydney ocean beach in 88 years, followed the removal of the nets a month earlier, at the end of March.”

The truth is that Long Reef beach, where the fatality occurred, has never been netted. However, this has not stopped the press (including now, I’m sad to say this erudite masthead) getting into a frenzy about how the removal of nets has caused a rise in shark encounters.

That may be true, but it had no bearing on this case where sadly the important details of this instance have been lost in the quagmire of misinformation regarding shark nets.

The recent article on Australia’s mental health crisis highlights how governments continue to pour money into medicalised responses while overlooking the social causes of stress.

One important point to add is the gap between policy and affordability. Even with access to a mental health plan, many people find the out-of-pocket costs of counselling or psychology sessions beyond their reach. After a few visits, the financial burden becomes unsustainable, often leading to high dropout rates and people left without the support they need.

At the same time, many Australians living under stress caused by housing unaffordability, financial insecurity, domestic violence or family breakdown may not need a psychologist at all. They may need free or subsidised referrals to financial advisers,tenancy advocates, or practical support services to help them navigate the maze of social problems that are driving their distress.

If governments are serious about tackling the mental health crisis, they must move beyond a purely biomedical model and invest in strategies that address these root causes. Practical, accessible supports, alongside systemic reforms, are essential if we are to reduce the stressors that undermine health and well-being.

Surely I can’t be the only person who enjoys Pearls and Irritations but finds Michael McKinley’s style of writing using single sentences almost impossible to follow?

If Trump today — and I emphasise today, as tomorrow he will say something diametrically opposite to what he says today — believes that he can recreate the bipolar world of the Cold War by getting agreement with the US to divide the world into two blocks, he simply demonstrates again his intellectual vacuity.

The Chinese, since 1953 under Zhou Enlai, have pursued a policy of peaceful co-existence with all countries on the planet. That stance, unlike the hundreds of ephemeral and superficial policies that the US has pursued over the same more than 70 years, shows China is not for turning. Its policies are consistent and are based on the carefully thought out and consistently applied five principles of peaceful co-existence, “namely mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence”.

China will continue to pursue those principles in its relations with every country on the planet.

Outside the aggressive West, these are also what the rest of the world wants to do. The US will get left behind continuing its fruitless efforts to divide the world. That can only be a good outcome for humanity.

I’m not sure whether Jocelyn Chey was exercising the universal habit of the Chinese in being considerate and discreet, but it seems to me that one word summarises the reason for the exclusion of Chinese cities, and those in many non-western countries from these Western surveys.

The word is racism. The West remains unable in its mainstream media to overcome its hundreds of years of racism towards China.

It is a far from admirable quality, but one that has been commonplace for those hundreds of years. I agree with Jocelyn in that the cities she mentions in China can easily outstrip the ones chosen by the surveyors, but will never even get in to the competition.

So many are reporting on social media after hearing or seeing an interview with Dr Saya Aziz. Her work in a Gaza hospital is remarkable for her tenaciousness in the face of overwhelming cruelty. What can be done to help?

I remember at the time of the East Timor Crisis, the director of nursing of a large Sydney Hospital raiding the stores and sending them to people who were shipping them to East Timor. The stores staff just asked her what she wanted and they gave it to her. There are, of course, problems with getting them to an into Gaza but perhaps on one of the flotillas? Just a thought.

For the first time, Bishop Browning disappoints. “The actions of Hamas on 7 October were inhumane and contemptible.” Those words give no context for what happened on 7 October, and directly followed, as they are, by “But what Israel has unleashed is barbaric.” implies that Israel started its genocide in response.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Reading Browning, anyone could be excused for thinking the confiscation of land, building the wall and building settlements on occupied land did not involve violence towards Palestinians that was “inhumane and contemptible”.

The truth is, Palestinians have been suffering a slow genocide since Jewish settlement gathered pace following World War I and the Balfour Declaration. The number of Palestinian deaths, injuries and hostages prior to 7 October far, far outweighed those of Israelis. The only surprise on 7 October was that more people were killed than usual in a Palestinian raid. The extent of that raid’s brutality, as described by Israel, has been largely disproven and it has been even shown that Israel killed Israelis in their immediate response. Israel’s ongoing response did not “unleash” anything. It “merely” ramped up the genocide it had been practising for almost a century.

There can be no peace without truth.

Strictly speaking, Marty Hirst’s statement, “The IHRA statement explicitly condemns any political criticism of Israel as antisemitism and protects Zionists from any accountability for the genocide in Gaza”, is incorrect. The relevant sentence is less clear and more open to interpretation: “Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

As I see it, the IHRA definition is dangerous because it is so vague that it can be used by the powerful to impose almost any meaning they wish. This danger is demonstrated by the alleged examples that follow it: they are not logical consequences of the IHRA definition unless several implicit debatable assumptions are made.

On the other hand, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism is much clearer, less open to misuse, and valuable for identifying genuine antisemitism: “Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).”

Les Macdonald gets it right. He notes that “in current discussions between the US, Britain, France and Germany, they have simply thrown out the right of the Palestinian people to vote in the government of any new Palestinian state, by saying that Hamas will not play a role in that state regardless of any possible desire of the Palestinians themselves”.

The US, of course, has no intention of allowing the existence of a “Palestinian state” and no intention of preventing Israel from transforming “occupation” of Palestine to destruction of Palestine in its entirety.

The US made this obvious most recently when they banned Palestinian representation at the UNGA. All Palestinian passport holders are persona non grata in the US, including representatives of Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, an organisation willing to work as sub-contractors to Israeli control of Palestine in all ways.

Britain, France, Germany — and Australia, Canada among other minnows now frantically scratching for straws of legacy security — have no interest in Palestinian “self-determination”, for they all continue to materially support Israeli genocide in Gaza and they all continue to deny that genocide is taking place.