Citizen legislators vs. the mob

The Australian Alert Service is the weekly publication of the Australian Citizens Party.

It will keep you updated on strategic events both in Australia, and worldwide, as well as the organising activities of the Citizens Party.

To subscribe to the Australian Alert Service, it's easy, and it's secure.
Click here for subscriptions within Australia
Click here for overseas subscriptions

Lead Editorial

13 February 2020
Vol. 23. No. 1-2

The new corporatism, historically known as fascism, which has turned over control of public agencies to private companies is having its intended effect. So-called “social media” was touted as a new era of open communication but is now a tool of censorship for the main source of media content consumed by citizens globally. It started long before US President Trump was banished from Twitter. In 2007 this publication warned that oligarchical foundations were dumping billions of dollars into social-networking technologies—starting with Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace (remember that?) and Bill Gates’s Facebook—in order to socially engineer a left vs right divide, keeping society permanently at odds when they would otherwise, under the shock of an economic crisis, unite to solve problems. (Just as entire nations are being forced apart for similar reasons—witness the demonisation of China and Russia.) A situation verging on civil war, as occurring in the USA right now, is perfect pretext for the implementation of fascism (think French Revolution and Mussolini’s Italy).

Unfortunately, many thinking people have been caught up in the confetti of confusion being rained down by social media regarding the current global situation, due to their justified rage at the economic crisis and the utter lack of effort on the behalf of our so-called leaders to rectify it. The Citizens Party has demonstrated the real pathway to effect change through our mobilisations over the last few years, culminating in the victory in the campaign to stop the ban on cash transactions over $10,000. The most effective form of protest is engaging directly in the legislative process with your elected representatives, and mobilising others, including local institutions to do the same.

In contrast to the enforced left-right division, through parliamentary engagement we created an unexpected unity of effort around the necessity for a legislative agenda to reform the financial system so it is fit for purpose to generate an economic recovery. With a properly functioning economy any crisis can be tackled. We united various parties in the fight to stop deposit bail-in; to stop the cash ban; to reregulate the banks with Glass-Steagall legislation to prevent speculation and an audit bill to truly assess their financial status; and most overwhelmingly, our legislation for a national investment bank with adjunct Australia Post savings bank.

Without any elected members of our own, in three years we drafted and introduced four pieces of legislation into federal parliament, one of which—the bail-in amendment— came to a vote; we triggered four parliamentary inquiries, flooding them with thousands of submissions, unprecedented in modern politics; and we exposed that the political assassination of one of Australia’s most effective CEOs, Christine Holgate, was done in order to privatise yet another vital public service, Australia Post, and sabotage the potential for it to become a postal bank.

In a time of crisis, operating within a rigged system, this is how you can govern, via unacknowledged legislators. During a crisis in 1820s Britain when the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley described poets as “the unacknowledged legislators of the world”, he was referring to poetry, drama and art as a powerful medium of delivering truth. In a time of crisis, Shelley stated, there is among ordinary people “an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature”. The elite fear nothing so much as an awakened population in a context where there is real political leadership. That leadership is emerging as the crisis worsens—from among MPs, community and business leaders, and from among ordinary citizens. With a dedication to reviving our fellow human beings’ commitment to truth (back page) we can rise above manufactured divisions and build a more powerful citizens movement that directly participates in governing. Give a friend a copy of the AAS today: they will do more “research” by reading one issue than from a year’s worth of reading Facebook posts!

In this week's issue: 

• Australia Post inquiry exonerates Christine Holgate!
• Was Christine Holgate the victim of a Scott Morrison special: The stitch-up?
• Fight for Assange’s freedom continues
• Economic recovery requires credit for the real economy!
• SEC repo market graph needs a surgeon general warning before viewing
• Assault on the Capitol: Political shock, unanswered questions
• FDR’s Four Freedoms indict and inspire us today
• China’s only ‘challenge’ is to Anglo-American ‘liberal’ imperialism
• What it means to be a citizen: a perspective from ancient Greece

Click here for the archive of previous issues of the Australian Alert Service