War party doubles down amid fierce backlash

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Lead Editorial

20 March 2023
Vol. 25 No. 10

This editorial should be all about the amazing political breakthroughs in the regional bank closures/postal bank fight (pp. 4-5), but insanity has intervened.

If you were in doubt that there is a powerful war party that wants war, with all its evil heart, and is determined to push the world into World War III, the screaming headline of the 7 March Sydney Morning Herald and The Age should surely put those doubts out of your mind. “Red alert: War risk exposed!” it blared, accompanied by: “- Panel’s hard truths - China the key threat - Public complacent”, and illustrated by a graphic of military jets flying towards Australia from a red China.

What warranted this dramatic front page? Did the Sydney Morning Herald’s political editor Peter Hartcher, the co-author, find a deep-throat source in the People’s Liberation Army who revealed advanced plans for an imminent Chinese invasion of Australia? No, he didn’t. Instead, Hartcher hatched his “red alert” headline first, and then convened a panel of five “experts” who agreed with it. The panel, identified by insightful foreign affairs commentator Caitlin Johnstone (p. 9), was dominated by associates of the notorious Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the pro-war “defence” think tank funded by the Australian, US, British, Dutch, and Japanese governments and some of the biggest weapons manufacturing companies in the world. In other words, this was an entirely orchestrated story, not based in any reality, but intended as shameless propaganda by a war machine determined to shift the psychology of the Australian people to also want war with China.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating led a fierce backlash with this extraordinary statement:

“Today’s Sydney Morning Herald and The Age front page stories on Australia’s supposed war risk with China represents the most egregious and provocative news presentation of any newspaper I have witnessed in over fifty years of active public life.

“It is way worse than the illustrated sampans shown to be coming from China in the build up to the war in Vietnam in the 1960s.

“Apart from the outrageous illustrations of jet aircraft being shown leaving a profiled red-coloured map of China, the extent of the bias and news abuse is, I believe, unparalleled in modern Australian journalism.

“And the arch villain in this is the provocateur and warmonger, Peter Hartcher, and his compliant editors.

“The thinness of the narrative is built around five supposed ‘experts’, three of whom are regular anti-China commentators—each firmly and long identified with the strategic interests of the United States.

“Their views form the basis of this exclusive ‘Red Alert’.

“Not anyone of the so-called ‘experts’ has any comprehensive knowledge of China—especially in matters of war and peace. A point Hartcher and his editors well know.

“Locking five people up in a room for a day asking for an articulation of their views or biases on China’s attitude to Australia—does not represent either revelation or responsible journalism.

“The illegitimacy of the publication is manifest even to a moderately informed reader. The management and board of Nine Group will have much to answer for should it allow further publication of this wantonly biased and inflammatory material.”

From where is this desperation for war coming? As the Citizens Party has long explained, the world is on a collision course between two economic systems: one is the collapsing Anglo-American system of financial empire and looting controlled from the City of London and Wall Street, which subjugates people and nations to a financial oligarchy; the other is a system which nations like the USA and Australia once had, of national investments in the infrastructure and industries that uplift people and nations, now epitomised by China’s economy and its partnerships in Eurasia, Africa, and South America.

If we don’t want a war of our annihilation, we must win our nation back from this financial imperialism. That’s why the ACP’s fight for a government postal bank is so crucial.

In this issue:

• Stop allowing the banks to rip off Australia Post and its licensees
• Sale regional bank hearing sets the stage for a dramatic inquiry
• NAB deflects like mad at Sale hearing
• Neobank sideshow says digital world premature
• Albanese government tortures Australian citizen to please Washington
• No, Australia does not actually need to prepare for war with China
• What will happen when banks go bust? Bank runs, bail-ins and systemic risk
• With or without banks, towns support a Public Post Office Bank!
• Use a national infrastructure bank to build the ‘sovereign seven’
• ALMANAC - Ukraine: the tunnel at the end of the light

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