Vive la révolution, or bring on the solutions?

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

12 August 2020
Vol. 22. No. 32

Rapid change is coming, but the question is, how would you like it served? From shots fired outside the White House to the fall of the Lebanese government, revolution is in the air. The coronavirus pandemic has brought the grave economic crisis into stark relief and populations the world over are rebelling. At such a moment what is most critical is calm leadership and carefully crafted policies to replace the collapsing system. Nobody wants to see popular uprisings and violent protests descend into societal breakdown.

Mass protest is legitimate but it can quickly spiral into mass hysteria, and at a certain point it must lead to engagement with current leaders and institutions to force a beneficial shift in policy, or it will spill over into civil war between factions. The AAS has exposed the “third force” in the US riots following the murder of George Floyd in May and the Pentagon plan to use such chaos as the justification for a military crackdown on the population. One of the architects of that plan, Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, an Australian seconded to the US Defence and State Departments by the worst of the Bush neocons to run the War on Terror, issued a clear warning in a 30 May Australian article. Subtitled “Coronavirus is threatening to ignite a tinderbox of grievances in the US. The growing parallels with Iraq, Lebanon and Somalia are real and disturbing”, the article went on to state that following the health and economic devastation of coronavirus, “there is a third wave coming: the possibility of armed conflict towards the end of this year, when the combined health and economic impacts of the crisis will peak amid the most violently contested presidential election in memory.”

At the same time the establishment and its media hacks are desperately crafting an enemy image of China which is leading us to the brink of world war, in order to distract from its domestic failings and planned crackdown. In 1988, as the Cold War came to a close, American and Russian academics wrote a paper warning that construction of an enemy image impedes conflict resolution and is a driver of the arms race and ultimately, war. Critically, they added: “the hysteria about the outer threat is often used as justification for secrecy and suspicion, covert actions, policies creating ‘mobilised’ societies, artificial national unity, ‘witch hunts’, and policies suppressing dissent, all ignoring domestic problems and distracting attention from them.”

When a new political opportunity opened up after the 2008 global financial crisis, China was one of the nations to seize upon it. Another force for change was the UK Labour Party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, who declared: “A new consensus is emerging from the great economic crash and the years of austerity, when people started to find political voice for their hopes for something different and better. 2017 may be the year when politics finally caught up with the crash of 2008—because we offered people a clear choice.” Corbyn promised a revolution in policy, as did China. The Chinese, who in a study of the causes of the GFC determined that economic liberalism detached the financial sector from the real economy, proposed the Belt and Road Initiative so all nations could join it in injecting credit into development of infrastructure and industry.

Both were demonised, due to the threat that mushrooming popular support for such policies would depose the City of London-Wall Street “money power” from its throne. Crucial chances were missed, and here we are.

The Citizens Party is wrangling with our policy makers to shape a pathway out of this mess—starting by protecting depositors and empowering a national investment bank to unleash development—and we are working with those overseas who are doing the same. Success means Australia could bridge enormous political divides and lead the world.

In this issue:

• Post office bank proposal added to national bank debate
• Stripped aged care sector dooms our elderly
• The neoliberal take-down of Australia’s health care
• Path for nuclear power in Australia
• Africa’s position in the new ‘Cold War’
• Powell keeps his nose in conflicted Fed-BlackRock pact
• The China Narrative Part One: War-Machine Propaganda
• Lebanon’s future hangs in the balance after Beirut blast
• Deepening collapse demands Hamiltonian solutions
• Taking the fight to a higher level
• Health care and the Common Good
• ALMANAC: To diversify trade and investment, Australia needs a national development bank

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