The fight for principle eclipses party politics

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Lead Editorial

11 November 2020
Vol. 22. No. 45

Two Greens party motions opposing the lowering of bank lending standards and demanding justice for Julian Assange passed the Australian Senate this week, garnering the support of the Labor Party and the crossbench (p. 6). This demonstrates the spirit required to bring real change—MPs should always vote as people rather than partisans!

It is obvious that the determining factor in history is not the way the left-right pendulum swings as major parties pass through government in succession. This changes little of substance. The big changes come down to shifts in the thinking of the population. A crisis forces shifts in thinking, and so creates an opportunity. If leadership rises above the usual political divides to educate and mobilise the population, fights over decisive issues can be won. The Australian political process is proving this is possible; as for the USA, while the election outcome is still not settled, with the biggest voter turnout since 1908 there is an unprecedented potential if political leaders from both sides of the aisle can be convinced to move on transformative policies such as the National Infrastructure Bank currently in Congress.

Defeating depositor bail-in to save banks in a financial crisis is a crucial flank because it would block a major act of actual foreign interference. Victory requires getting politicians to recognise the long arm of the Bank for International Settlements, its ugly origins, and how it has acted since the 2008 global financial crisis to impose a bankers’ dictatorship. Defeating bail-in would affirm the principle that the sovereign nation-state is compelled to act for the common good of Australian citizens, not a select banking elite.

The fight for national banking is similar. By directing public credit to rebuild the nation we can rapidly revive real economic growth. Solving the financial and economic crisis would mean all the City of London-Wall Street “Great Reset” plans for control go down the toilet.

The question is how to direct the potential for change. The difference between civil war and revolution is seemingly slight, but actually massive, and it comes down to an educated citizenry. Australia’s historic republican and Labor leaders knew this well, which is why 19th century NSW MP John Dunmore Lang brought in boatloads of educated and skilled British immigrants; why fellow MP Daniel Deniehy established “Mechanics Institutes” for adult education; and why Australian Workers’ Union founder W.G. Spence insisted on setting up libraries in shearing camps. The leaders of the American Revolution knew it, as evidenced by the seminal role of intellectuals such as Benjamin Franklin in achieving American independence.

They knew, on the other hand, when it came to the French Revolution, that a hasty effort to copy what had happened in America could result in anarchy and warned of the dangers of stoking up a population which had not been uplifted in their thinking over time. The leaders of the 15th-century European Renaissance thought in terms of decades or centuries to effect substantial change. The financial oligarchy certainly thinks in decades and centuries. It has exerted its influence through seeding the population and leaders with ideas via a network of think tanks, media and other institutions. As John Maynard Keynes described the process: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. … I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.”

The Australian Citizens Party has built a leadership movement over more than three decades, which is intervening in this moment of opportunity. We must educate the awakening population on the principles necessary to achieve freedom and prosperity.

In this week's issue: 

• The plot thickens! Did Morrison and Kitching coordinate their ambush of Australia Post?
• Learn from New Zealand and Japan on postal banking
• Two Senate motions show potential for victory against bail-in
• Trading with the enemy?
• Four years later—the Citizens Party’s verdict on Trump
• BRICS helps forge new paradigm for world in crisis
• NZ anti-China fearmonger in hot water over ‘inaccurate, inflammatory’ report
• Biden headed for win in unprecedented Presidential election
• Call your Senators and recruit others
• Beyond the senses: Beethoven and Helen Keller
• ALMANAC: Max Planck and scientific method—the rock in a revolutionary period

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