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Lead Editorial
29 June 2022
Vol. 24 No. 26
Anthony Albanese has taken the reins of an Australian government apparatus that is tied closely into the Anglo-American war machine, and the failing City of London-Wall Street financial system. While the new PM hasn’t had a chance to do much yet, the early signs on foreign policy are alarming. His participation this week in the NATO summit in Spain, the alliance that deliberately caused the current Ukraine conflict, and his rhetoric pledging Australia will work with its NATO “allies and partners, globally and in the Indo-Pacific”, combined with his refusal to repeat the public support he expressed as Opposition Leader for releasing Julian Assange, demonstrate the strength of our bonds.
This isn’t a reason to despair, however; it merely defines the challenge we face to shift our nation towards an independent foreign policy. Assisting in this challenge is the contrast with important developments in New Zealand, where there is a growing political backlash against PM Jacinda Ardern leading that country also into the NATO camp. Unlike Australia, which projects a “damsel in distress” posture towards the United States, virtually begging the USA to protect us from supposed threats in our region, our Kiwi cousins don’t act like they are living in mortal fear of a Chinese invasion, and are proudly more independent, having at least partially broken with the USA over then-PM David Lange’s refusal to allow US nuclear warships in Auckland Harbour in the 1980s. Ever since, NZ has proudly led the global campaign for nuclear disarmament. Ardern, who, disturbingly, worked for dishonest, warmongering British PM Tony Blair in 2007, has recently started to undermine NZ’s proud tradition, by inching into the NATO camp over Ukraine and therefore back under the USA’s “nuclear umbrella”.
It is in this context that former NZ Labour Party PM Helen Clark earlier this month intervened, as a senior stateswoman, against Ardern’s policies. The 11 June NZ Herald reported: “No one is better qualified than Clark to comment on geopolitics and the pressures being applied not just to the Pacific Islands but to New Zealand as the competition between China and the US intensifies. And despite her firm belief that any Pacific security pact with China is unwarranted, it is clear she is also uneasy about New Zealand’s shift so firmly into the US camp.”
In the interview with NZ Herald reporter Audrey Young that was the basis for the article, Clark questioned the sovereignty of a joint communiqué issued by Ardern and US President Joe Biden after her recent White House visit: “I think if you read that statement that came from the White House visit, that’s quite a perceptible shift, particularly in the language around security,” Clark said. “When you read it at face value, it doesn’t have the feeling of a New Zealand statement. It’s as if New Zealand has signed up to someone else’s language and I think the statement needed a lot more New Zealand input. It creates perceptions that New Zealand isn’t maintaining that kind of careful balance that it had. I am one for believing that every word has to be weighed and measured and have value when you are dealing with international relations and geopolitics, which is a sharks’ pool, so you’d better be careful how you swim in it.”
Helen Clark knows of what she speaks. As PM, she famously defied the USA, UK and Australia by refusing to participate in the criminal Iraq war. Her intervention, which has contributed to a significant debate in NZ, is also a message we must ensure the Albanese government hears.
This week’s and last week’s AAS document the amazing economic development progress that is happening rapidly around the BRICS Plus and other forums which is creating an alternative to the US-UK-NATO-London-Wall Street system, and in which the majority of the world’s nations want to participate. Australia could too—if we break the ties that stop us
In this issue:
- Save essential banking services in abandoned communities
- 575 towns that once had one or more major banks, now have no bank at all
- BRICS+ push alternative economic platform
- ‘Two systems are before the world’
- ‘Colossus on clay feet’ is tipping. New Bretton Woods now!
- JPMorgan Chase’s $14 trillion derivatives spike
- US housing bubble dive may be worse than 2007-08
- British intelligence, media collude to smear anti-war ‘left’ as Russian agents
- Ukraine has lost the war, but thermonuclear war still threatens
- Game on for a postal bank!
- Bank of North Dakota—a Commie plot?
- ALMANAC: Torchbearers for true sovereignty and a national banking system
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