by George Monbiot, (first Published in The Guardian, this is an edited extract)

For 67 years successive US governments have resisted calls to reform the UN security council.  They’ve defended a system which grants five nations a veto over world affairs, reducing all others to impotent spectators.  They have abused the powers and trust with which they have been vested.  They have collaborated with the other four permanent members (the UK, Russia, China and France) in a colonial carve-up, through which these nations can pursue their own corrupt interests at the expense of peace and global justice.

Eighty-three times the US has exercised its veto.  On 42 of these occasions it has done so to prevent Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians being censured.  On the last occasion, 130 nations supported the resolution but Barack Obama spiked it.  Though veto powers have been used less often since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the US has exercised them 14 times in the interim (in 13 cases to shield Israel), while Russia has used them nine times. Increasingly the permanent members have used the threat of a veto to prevent a resolution being discussed.  They have bullied the rest of the world into silence.

Through this tyrannical dispensation – created at a time when other nations were either broken or voiceless – the great warmongers of the past 60 years remain responsible for global peace.  The biggest weapons traders are tasked with global disarmament.  Those who trample international law control the administration of justice.

Obama warned last week that Syria’s use of poisoned gas “threatens to unravel the international norm against chemical weapons embraced by 189 nations”.  Unravelling the international norm is the US president’s job.

In 1997 the US agreed to decommission the 31,000 tonnes of sarin, VX, mustard gas and other agents it possessed within 10 years.  In 2007 it requested the maximum extension of the deadline permitted by the Chemical Weapons Convention – five years.  Again it failed to keep its promise, and in 2012 it claimed they would be gone by 2021.  Russia yesterday urged Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control.  Perhaps it should press the US to do the same.

In 1998 the Clinton administration pushed a law through Congress which forbade international weapons inspectors from taking samples of chemicals in the US and allowed the president to refuse unannounced inspections.  In 2002 the Bush government forced the sacking of José Maurício Bustani, the director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.  He had committed two unforgiveable crimes: seeking a rigorous inspection of US facilities; and pressing Saddam Hussein to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention, to help prevent the war George Bush was itching to wage.

The US used millions of gallons of chemical weapons in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.  It also used them during its destruction of Falluja in 2004, then lied about it.  The Reagan government helped Saddam Hussein to wage war with Iran in the 1980s while aware that he was using nerve and mustard gas.  (The Bush administration then cited this deployment as an excuse to attack Iraq, 15 years later).

Sophie Mirabella and Pauline Hanson

The incumbent Sophie Mirabella continues to fight to retain her Australian Federal Parliament seat in the electorate of Indi.  Passive Complicity believes democracy would be stronger if she fails.

Ms. Mirabella has a history of fighting.  This is not unusual among those who cut their teeth in student politics; her leader, now Prime Minister, Tony Abbott made many enemies through his bruising, thuggish and uncompromising student years.  The opposition Labor Party has its share of thugs too.

Ms. Mirabella though, is special, in that until now, she has had little experience of losing.  Her actions and comments in relation to this election demonstrate this lack of experience.  She comes across as a bully, a sulk, and a person who would blame all but herself for the position she finds herself in.

Over her Parliamentary career Ms. Mirabella has done what no-one since Pauline Hanson has done.   She, through her behaviour, has made despicable behaviour by others look normal.

When Pauline Hanson made her maiden speech to the Australian Parliament in 1997 she questioned Australia’s commitment to multiculturalism, to immigration and to helping the disadvantaged.  Prime Minister John Howard failed absolutely to repudiate her racist views citing ‘free speech’ as his reason, at the same time expropriating and implementing much of her platform, whilst decrying her as extreme.  Hanson made room for Howard to operate.  These policies targeted Indigenous people and refugees.  Hanson took much of the heat for these policies.

Without Hanson Howard would have been a significantly more vulnerable target.  Hanson allowed Howard room to turn Australia xenophobic and racist.

The result, of course, is that Australia remains more frightened, insecure, and selfish, and far more unequal than it was.  The Howard and subsequent governments have used this fear and insecurity to make a ‘military’ first response to any perceived emergency, be it the Army as the first line in the “Intervention” into Aboriginal affairs in the Northern Territory, or the Navy “turning back the boats” of refugees, or just the general increasing para-military look of our police forces.  Our democracy is less open, less transparent, and less able to engage in meaningful dissent and debate than in the past.  His and subsequent governments used the growing selfishness to back middle class welfare, while cutting back on social equity programs.

Sophie Mirabella, unlike Hason, has worked from within a major political party, the conservative Liberal Party.  She, with her well honed and arguably unscrupulous tactics has given room for the rest of the party to look almost moderate.  It was she who lead the push to call the previous government illegitimate, who did much to make parliament look unworkable, to lower the already low standards of parliamentary behaviour.    She, by her performance has made her Leader, Tony Abbott and the rest of her party look (almost) reasonable and responsible.  Retiring Independent Member Tony Windsor names her as “the most detested person in Parliament”.

It would appear that the Liberals may have a problem if Ms Mirabella retains her seat.  It is generally assumed that she is to be offered a Cabinet Post.  She is the only Liberal to suffer such a large swing against her, just on 8% as compared to last election, which is in reality 13% if you add in the 5% swing to the Liberal Party state wide.

So what will happen to Mirablla now that she has turned a blue ribbon conservative seat into one of the most marginal in the land?   She is clearly on the nose.  Will that Cabinet Seat still be waiting for her?  Is she now an electoral liability, having run an inept, reactionary and expensive campaign, with a demeanor and operating style that grates with her rural electorate, not to mention with some questionable legal issues regarding an estate.  Giving her a front bench position will not improve the publics’ regard for politicians nor for Parliament.  The legitimacy of our democratically elected Government will not be helped by her.

Like the other supposed ‘psychopath’, Kevin Rudd, it seems possible that her era has gone too.

Voice 4 INDI is to be congratulated for reasserting democracy in the Electorate.  For some background visit this site

Jesselyn Radack: Bradley Manning’s conviction sends a chilling message – The Washington Post,  2 August 2013

In 1971, Richard Nixon’s administration charged Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo, the men who leaked the classified Pentagon Papers, under the Espionage Act. The case was eventually dismissed due to government misconduct. With the guilty verdict against Pfc. Bradley Manning, President Obama has won what Nixon could not: an Espionage Act conviction against a government employee accused of mishandling classified information. Obama’s administration has relied heavily on the draconian World War I-era law — meant for prosecuting spies, not whistleblowers — in its ruthless, unprecedented war on “leaks,” invoking it seven times (more than all other U.S. presidents combined) to go after people who reveal information embarrassing to the United States, or, worse, that exposes its crimes.

Until this week, this extreme crackdown had failed. I represent two of the whistleblowers whom the Obama administration at one time charged with espionage: former National Security Agency senior executive Thomas Drake and former CIA agent John Kiriakou. Not coincidentally, they exposed two of the biggest government scandals of the Bush administration — secret domestic surveillance and torture, respectively.

A little-known fact is that the government ended up dropping all espionage charges in both cases. In contrast, this did not happen in the case of Manning: A military judge convicted him on six espionage counts, among other charges. A key difference is that Manning’s trial occurred in a court-martial, significant parts of which were conducted in secret. The trial was barely covered by most media outlets, and those that did cover it closely were thwarted at every step by restrictive, arbitrary and ever-changing press rules from the Army’s Public Affairs Office. Thus the government was able to avoid the public and media scrutiny that assisted Drake and Kiriakou.

Prosecuting someone for espionage is one of the most serious charges you can level against an American. The term is so incendiary that it alienates a whistleblower’s natural allies among open-government, transparency and civil liberties advocates. To add insult to injury, reporters who bravely cover these cases and the lawyers who zealously represent those who speak truth to power now find themselves criminalized. The war on whistleblowers is just as much a war on journalists, including: the Justice Department’s secret subpoena of phone records from 20 phone lines at the Associated Press; Fox News’s James Rosen being accused of being an “aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator” by publishing a source’s information; and a disastrous appeals court ruling that New York Times reporter James Risen must testify against his CIA source.

Opponents of leakers can irresponsibly shout menacing words about lawyers and journalists facing criminal charges of aiding and abetting or being an accessory to a crime, but their ignorance is on full display. The most recent example is former NSA and CIA director General Michael Hayden calling the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald a “co-conspirator” for writing a series of stories that exposed massive NSA surveillance programs based on leaker Edward Snowden’s disclosures. Yet a cursory search would show that both legal and journalistic ethics rules already prohibit a lawyer or journalist from knowingly counseling or assisting a client or source to commit crimes or fraud. Representing a despised client is in the finest legal tradition set by John Adams, who agreed to represent the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre, despite the infamy and even death threats he faced, because of the duty he felt to offer adequate representation.

In this case, the people being prosecuted are those who disclosed fraud, waste, abuse and illegality of the highest order for the purpose of benefitting the public. It sends the most chilling of messages to jail truth- tellers and dissenters, essential actors in maintaining an informed citizenry, which lies at the heart of a free and open democratic society. After all, in our grand experiment with democracy, the people are supposed to control the government, not the other way around. The work of the government is supposed to be public and people’s personal lives private, not the other way around. There are a number of brave souls trying to correct the trajectory of decline that our country is on. Public servants should not have to choose their conscience over their careers, and especially their very freedom.

Jesselyn Radack is the National Security & Human Rights Director of the Government Accountability Project.

I have been told Errol Flynn frequented Cuba through the late 1940s and early 1950s.  He bowled up to a party at the home of American diplomatic people, dropped a bag of laundry with the lady of the house expecting it to be done.  She, in no uncertain terms, in fact, in terms which Errol himself could understand, told him to do it himself.  He professed great respect for the woman thereafter.

Some profound posts this week.  No, no profane, profound.  Learned.  Starting with Undermining Democracy from Suzanne Moore of The Guardian, arguing that the middle class is in terminal decline.  Suzanne Moore says “without this middle-class ….., this ever expanding inequality governed by aristocrats looks less like a democracy and more like a system that never shook off feudalism”.

“St Louis has a remarkable arch. ……….. In one act it expresses a weight of history and an unrestrained optimism for the future.  St Louis is like that.”  Quentin Cockburn reports on St Louis, its Arch, the Mississippi and the Museum

With bated breath we awaited the next instalment from Endette Hall where the “Film Industry” and the “Beaver Thieves” were disturbing the serenity of this special purpose facility.  Ira Maine did not disappoint.  Applications for residency are at an all time high.

This abridged article from The Guardian, “Behaviour you Accept”, clearly defines many Australians as Passively Complicit (at best) in reinforcing our sexist society – “The behaviour you walk past is the behaviour you accept”.

Profound posts abound – Tarquin then availed us of his intellect with the first part of a challenging piece “Man as Machine”.
“Think on this; for thousands of years we’ve either Hunted, or Gathered, or Farmed.  Extraordinarily, in the 19^th Century, we threw all that away when we blithely said, despite millennia of stability, experience and knowledge; ‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers..’ and took to the Industrial Revolution as if the past wasn’t worth a cracker.”

Saturday’s Musical Dispatch from the Front continues to tackle stereotyping and its nefarious results with the second part of the dispatch first published 9 August 2013.  (A rejoinder will appear next Saturday)

Our Australian Election Coverage continued with Paddy 0′Cearmada giving us a further two insightful articles ‘Hot Air’ (04 September 2013),  ‘Plaster Saints’ (28 August 2013), and his report on voting in  ‘Fear and loathing in North Balwyn’ (08 September 2013).  They can be read in the Election 2013 tab, along with today’s offering ‘Wake in Fright’ (Many voters in the Electorate of Indi seem to be yelling “Go Sophie, Go!”

For the day after Australia’s Federal Election Ira Maine, our Poetry Editor chose Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”, of which he said “The poem tells of a great adventure, of a terrifying enemy, sought and found and soundly defeated. Of how the hero, carrying the enemy’s severed head, is welcomed back home by an almost incredulous parent, who declares it a ‘frabjous day’, a day of wonder, a day of joyful celebration.”

And, dear reader, please feel free to add comments about this and any of our postings.

Regards
Cecil Poole

Unrepresentative swill
by Paddy 0′Cearmada  10 September 2013

As the recycling bins of Australia are filled with how to vote cards, unsolicited mail from hopeful candidates, and the empty bottles from election parties, the nation opened its eyes to an outcome akin to the title of the novel and perhaps in a metaphorical sense to its story line: Wake in fright.

A win for the coalition in the House of Representatives was after all expected, what was less predictable were the independents and the return of Adam Bandt.  The mining magnate Clive Palmer (and boy does he take that title seriously, like Gina Reinhart resplendent in her toga at Barnaby Joyce’s election party) should bring some entertainment, and in a hold-your-breath- it can’t be true – let’s hope it is way the prospect of Sophie Mirabella having absolutely no reason to visit Victoria’s North East is a wonder to behold.  This fine product of Toorak’s own St Catherine’s is the kind of rags to riches Greek migrant story that would be inspiring except for the protagonist.  Sophie, described by Tony Windsor, as the most hated woman in parliament could yet be history, and that honour would return where it rightfully belongs – Bronwyn Bishop – of whom Gareth Evans once said you form an instant dislike because it saves time.

Time weighs heavily however on the Senate count.  Conceived as the State’s House and a brake on the central government in a Federation, this has become a kind of alternate universe.  Once described as a bowl of strawberries and cream in reverse – all red carpet and white headed old men – it has become the kind of democratic expression of the truly weird that only a continent possessing the last of the monotremes could produce, for as odd as it is that such different looking beasts as echidnas and platypi are connected by the fact that they are egg laying mammals, so too is the reproductive cycle of Senators.

The combination of preferential voting, proportional representation and Senators being elected for twice the term of lower house members results in the kind of outcome we are currently witnessing.  A tiny first preference vote can quickly multiply to gain a quota and so we now have Palmer United Party Senators, a Family First Senator, a Motoring Enthusiast Party Senator, a Sports Party Senator and a very right wing Liberal Democrat Senator from New South Wales, added to the DLP Senator from Victoria, and the re-elected Anti-Gambling Nick Xenophon, much less the bowl of strawberries as a bowl of fruit-loops.

Neither the unofficial Labor-Green coalition nor the real coalition have much to look forward to in this morass.   And the gun-boat diplomacy of Tony Abbot in opposition threatening double dissolutions would only reduce the quota and let more of them in.  Perhaps Paul Keating was right in describing the Senate as unrepresentative swill.  Meanwhile in the Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean disappearing at the rate of three islands a year due to rising sea levels, a hard fought election has been made more honest by the ever watchful local constabulary who have detained a coconut on suspicion of vote rigging.  Perhaps as the last of the Maldives sinks we can grant the Maldive Police 451 Visas and put them in charge of the Senate.

Correction to Plaster Saints, (6th September 2013)
There were two double dissolution elections prior to 1974 (1918 and 1951) and three after (1975, 1983 and 1987).  The appetite now seems to be diminishing.

Man as Machine  (Part two)
by TARQUIN O’FLAHERTY

If we know nothing else about him, mere mention of the name, Jerome K. Jerome is almost bound to remind somebody that this is the man who wrote “Three Men in a Boat’, a gentle tale of blokes messing about on a river.  Less well known is his 1891 essay ‘The New Utopia’, in which he depicts a future and nightmarish society where everybody, whether they like it or not, is equal.  In Jerome’s ‘society’, if equality fails to occur naturally, then it is forced on people.  Everybody wears the same (black) clothes and has black (dyed) hair.  The populus is required to think the same thoughts, act in the same way, march (or walk) in step with each other, etc.  If an individual is too tall or too attractive then that person is surgically persuaded towards the idea of equality.  Inevitably,cracks begin to appear…

Now, before we go any further, I would like to point one or two things out.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution people knew their place.  You were either a born to rule bloated aristocrat or, from the cradle to the grave, an irretrievable peasant who’s back was aching for the lash.  This, to a greater or lesser extent, had been true for centuries, and people had got used to it.  Then along came canals and turnips and steam engines and people began to dream.  People began to think disgraceful thoughts, have unacceptable ideas.  One of these unacceptable ideas was trade unions, membership of which was (naturally) a criminal offence. 60,000 people went on strike in Scotland in 1820.  They were put down savagely.  This type of widespread repression of unions went on unceasingly up until the mid 1860’s when unions were at first decriminalised, and then, in 1871, made legal.

Two other ‘unacceptable’ ideas began to grow amongst the burgeoning new middle class.  The first was an old one, a left-over from the English Civil War, the idea of equality.  Whether we find the fact acceptable or not, it was church groups like the Puritans and the Levellers, who advocated most strongly for, and kept alive the ideas of, a society based on the notion of equality, universal suffrage, fair pay and reasonable hours of work.  These ideas, the belief in the essential dignity of man, did not originate with, but were brought back together in the 19th Century by people like William Morris and Robert Owen in England and to an astonishing level, by Marx and Engels et al in Russia.

The other idea was the perhaps naive belief in the perfectibility of society; that Utopia was possible.  You can easily understand why people believed this.  Society had changed out of all recognition.  There was no reason to believe that it wouldn’t go on changing, go on improving to the point where a Utopian society was inevitable.  Sadly, people didn’t recognise that the road to the English Utopia was paved with dead people.

So, what have we got?  What are we left with?  People in Edwardian England were very comcerned about the direction in which society was heading.  Some wanted Socialism; HG Wells saw Utopia as an inevitable result of this explosion in society; others saw a fairer society for all as a goal.  Everybody, with a few exceptions, was very excited about the future.

The few exceptions included Jerome K Jerome and Yevgeny Zamyatin.  Later on it would include Fritz Lang, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and Kurt Vonnegut.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Read Fear and loathing in North Balwyn
by Paddy 0′Cearmada  06 September 2013 in the Election 2013 tab
“I set out early walking the few blocks to the local primary school on a pleasant spring morning.  I wear my t-shirt with the cover design of the first edition of George Orwell’s 1984 figuring that if the seemingly inevitable happens at least I have read the book and know how the story ends.”

Jabberwocky
BY LEWIS CARROLL  with comments by Ira Maine, Poetry Editor

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree      And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,”
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Source: The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983)

Read Plaster Saints
by Paddy 0′Cearmada  06 September 2013 in the Election 2013 tab
‘Tomorrow Australia will really elect the first DLP government, firm in conviction, narrow in view, and beholden to a social and international vision informed by the fear of the other.’