Notes From An Imperial Outpost Down Under

Bravest woman in Australia, Senator Fatima Payman (scroll down to read more).

Because of my focus on resistance to imperial domination it’s been really interesting to see this from a flipped perspective i.e. from Down Under. Some of my anecdotal impressions may be of interest to readers.

Liberals are the same everywhere, except here they’re called Labor and Liberals are the conservatives (don’t ask). For example, they love to hate bad guys on the other team while making excuses for the bad guys on their team. And most of the focus is on personalities. So, if Trump and former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison have a meeting in the U.S., this is of great negative interest. (Morrison is a religious fanatic infamous for vacationing in Hawaii while bush fires swept Australia a few years ago.)

Excuses for bad guys on the Labor team are she’s not so bad, he seems like a decent bloke, he’s a good speaker, etc. Similar to defenses of the UK royal family such as, the former queen was a good sort who really cared about people. 

The royals happened to come up because Charles’ tampon-themed official portrait was unveiled back in the UK while I was here.

Further parallels include a devotion to lobbying elected officials who clearly don’t represent their constituents -- unless you consider the coal mining industry a constituent -- and a consistent failure to connect dots like warfare with climate crisis, or erosion of civil liberties with billionaire-sponsored government. And mum’s the word on the proto-WW3 military alliance AUKUS which I only heard mentioned once on the news in passing when Trump and Morrison were seen together.

You will search in vain for mention of Aussies Julian Assange, or Dan Duggan. There was a little bit on Army whistleblower David McBride being sentenced to 5 years in prison for revealing war crimes in Afghanistan for which no one has been punished.

That said, corporate news in Australia has a much more international focus than in the U.S. where Mark Twain once observed that wars were God’s way of teaching Americans geography. I saw lots about the revolt of the indigenous Kanak community in New Caledonia, one of France’s few remaining colonies, located in the South Pacific region. France is trying to impose new voting rules there such that French residents get a vote in local elections. The Kanak’s aren’t having it and have shut the roads and airport down.

Nightly reports on the color revolution in Georgia and on the Ukraine war depicting victimhood at the hands of the dastardly Russians but without a hint of the fact that Ukraine has already lost and just won’t admit it. We saw Putin received with fanfare by Xi in Beijing, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken introduced in a Kyiv nightclub inexplicably playing “Rockin' in the Free World,” a song he clearly doesn’t understand. (We did not see him eating neo-Nazi pizza.)

Coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza each day interviewed Palestinian refugees but without a whisper of Australia’s role. That is until extensive coverage of the "scandal" of a Labor member of Parliament saying her conscience was bothering her and asking PM Albanese on Nakba Day how many more deaths it would take before he condemned genocide. 

https://youtu.be/fqBFopusBzc?si=yv601M8vuE1Yb8Nt

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” concluded Senator Fatima Payman, an Afghan Muslim immigrant who was the first to wear the hijab in Parliament when her term began in 2022. 

Warmongering Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong joined 55 other senators in condemning the phrase as allegedly “antisemitic.” No one appeared to remember that Zionists coined the phrase back when they still called the land they coveted Palestine. TV news reported one Jewish organization in Australia objected while another organization lauded Payman’s statement (sorry, I cannot remember which was which).

Nightly reporting on students protesting genocide in both Australia and around the globe continued throughout my stay. Actually, protests of all sorts got a lot of coverage including Israelis protesting the Netanyahu government. 

Australian protests receiving coverage demanded more protection for domestic violence survivors, more crackdowns on teenage crime sprees, and reinstatement of a book about same-sex marriage that was removed from a local library.

One person interviewed for that story noted that they don’t want to see U.S.-style culture wars breaking out in Australia. Good luck with that.

Domestically, the high cost of living and related dearth of affordable housing were themes familiar to this USian. How will corporate overlords keep Australia from having the revolution it needs to reorient public policy toward meeting people’s needs? Foment civil strife, probably.

Or they could just let nature take its course and hope to reap the benefits of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

BRICS Summit vs. Camp David

In sharp contrast to the BRICS summit in South Africa ushering in a "multilateral organization that will shape the contours of a new system of international relations," (Pepe Escobar), the U.S. hosted Japan and South Korea at Camp David to hammer out a three-way military alliance between grossly unequal partners.

From Sara Flounders writing in Workers World:

The military pact of South Korea and Japan with the U.S. intentionally damages both the South Korean and Japanese economies, as China has been the major trading partner of both countries. However, right-wing militarists in office in each country seem willing to act against their own people’s interests.

The U.S. government has long maintained separate defense pacts with both countries. Based on Japan’s brutal 35-year colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula, from 1910 to 1945, there remains deep hostility among the Korean people toward Japan. Nevertheless, based on U.S. pressure, the regimes have now become “partners” against China.

Excerpt from the White House statement:

Pre­sident Biden commended President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida for their courageous leadership in transforming relations between Japan and the ROK. With the renewed bonds of friendship—and girded by the ironclad U.S.-Japan and U.S.-ROK alliances—each of our bilateral relationships is now stronger than ever. So too is our trilateral relationship.

My translation: the deeply unpopular President Yoon making nice with colonial exploiter Japan was a prerequisite for the new war pact against China.

In an interesting parallel, it now appears that China and Russia's brokering of an historic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran earlier this year paved the way for both nations to join BRICS. 

 

Now being termed BRICS 11 because six nations have joined the original five of the acronym (the other new members are the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt, and Ethiopia).

From BRICS fan Escobar writing in The Cradle:

Here is the Johannesburg II Declaration of the 15^th BRICS summit. BRICS 11 is just the start. There’s a long line eager to join; without referring to the dozens of nations (and counting) that have already “expressed their interest”, according to the South Africans, the official list, so far, includes Algeria, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Venezuela, Vietnam, Guinea, Greece, Honduras, Indonesia, Cuba, Kuwait, Morocco, Mexico, Nigeria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkiye and Syria.

So while the bigger, wealthier group forges ahead with a comprehensive agreement to reign in predatory debt mechanisms of the West against the Global South and, incidentally, to reject new members if they sanction existing BRICS nations, the U.S. continues looking for a nation to play the role of Ukraine in its planned war against China.

As blogger Andrew Korybko observed:

the recent Sino-Filipino incident that was sparked by Manila’s failed attempt to smuggle construction materials to a disputed reef could have been timed to precede the latest trilateral talks and this week’s joint drills, thus enabling them to be spun as defense measures instead of provocations..

All of this leads to “pacifist” Japan saber-rattling against China in its South Sea on the Philippines’ behalf in support of their shared US patrons’ “rules-based order”, which solidifies their nascent trilateral alliance.. and consequently advances the AUKUS+ agenda of “containing” China.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects have been busy on the information war front.

An investigation by Alan MacLeod of MintPress News found that the FBI and the government of Taiwan have been working together to spread hate against China in the U.S.

Official documents reviewed by “MintPress News” show that the Taiwanese government is attempting to drum up anti-China hostility, influence and intimidate American politicians and is even working with the FBI and other agencies to spy on and prosecute Chinese American citizens.

Key points of this investigation
• Taiwanese officials are monitoring Chinese Americans and passing intelligence to the FBI in attempts to have them prosecuted.
• Taiwan is working with “friends” in media and politics to create a culture of fear towards China and Chinese people in the US
• Taiwanese officials claim they are “directing” and “guiding” certain US politicians.
• Taiwan is monitoring and helping to intimidate U.S. politicians they deem to be too pro-China.
• The island is spending millions funding US think tanks that inject pro-Taiwan and anti-China talking points into American politics.

Why do nations like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines, for whom China is a huge trading partner, submit to U.S. demands that run counter to their own economic interests?

Because if you don't submit, they do this to you: "The Outcome Of American Interference In Pakistan."

But much of the world is banding together to say Enough! Note that BRICS came out strongly against war in space, and in favor of arms control treaties in what the U.S. predictably rejects in its key "warfighting domain." Indeed, satellite communications have been integral to the U.S./NATO waging their proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

Full disclosure: I work for the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space which is prominently featured in Jeremy Kuzmarov's article.

It appears that war has hastened ongoing cooperation with Russia by many nations -- in direct opposition to its stated goal of isolating Putin and his government. For example, check out this speech by Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki at the BRICS summit denouncing "U.S. exceptionalism" on the grounds that "it has gravely impaired global progress for over a century now."

I think we can all agree that century is behind us, and history is now remaking itself.

Australia Gets U.S. Warship Of Its Own -- Yup, You Read That Right

What was U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy so pleased about in this picture? The commissioning of a U.S.-built war ship for Australia to use called the U.S.S. Canberra.

It will be ported in Australia as that is much, much closer to China than any U.S. port. And it is festooned with this symbol of Australia's subservience to the U.S. war machine now doing business as AUKUS:

Does a stars and stripes kangaroo look like a joke to you? You cannot make this stuff up.

A less flashy but probably more egregious violation of Australia's sovereignty is the news that it is slated to become the nuclear waste dump of the AUKUS alliance.

From Crikey originally but it's paywalled, so here's the whole article reposted to MSN.com.

Seeing this news reminded me of an item I saw earlier in the week regarding Australia's unique global position for rocket launches. At think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), U.S. Space Force director of staff Lieutenant-General Nina Armagno told Aussies, "Australia is sitting on a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for our common national security interests."

Two major parts of a shared US–Australia space capability centred on surveillance and tracking of objects in space are now up and running near Exmouth in Western Australia. One is a C-band radar that was based in Antigua and has been relocated to WA, and the other is the Space Surveillance Telescope, originally developed by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The telescope is run as a joint facility and recently achieved its initial operating capability.

Who funds ASPI? Australia's Department of "Defence" plus plenty of corporate entities that would love to get their hands on some of that gold.

More from ASPI: 

Australia’s growing space industry will almost certainly welcome any moves to expand US–Australia launch collaboration, especially after a NASA rocket blasted off from the Northern Territory in June.

Old war ships and new rocket ships are all part of the massive international arms buildup for U.S. and its vassals, oops allies, to fight China and its strategic partner Russia. 

What does that look like where you live? 

Where I live we'll gather Saturday July 29 at 9:30am to protest the so-called "christening" of a nuclear-capable Aegis Destroyer war ship at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works shipyard.

Menacing China with nuclear weapons systems that can be ported in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, or Australia (and maybe New Zealand?) is the point. Peek below the surface rhetoric and you'll see that's what the war in Ukraine is about -- weakening Russia in advance of hot war with economic rival China.

I talked about much of this on a talk radio show here in Maine this morning (hear the recorded interview here). One of the hosts challenged my belief that building nuclear weapons systems and spreading them all over the world makes people in Maine less safe, not more safe.

What do you think?

Holiday From History Over For Australia?

See if you can make sense of this empire-speak:

Urgency must replace complacency. The recent decades of tranquillity were not the norm in human affairs, but an aberration. 

Australia’s holiday from history is over.

Holiday from history. That is quite a concept. Who the f ever gets a holiday from history? In this instance, I believe the phrase is supposed to mean war is on the horizon and soon. Because history is only a series of wars, and wars are normal, and your complacency is slack.

Pax Australia as enjoyed under the soft authority of Pax Americana is about to come to an end if these authors get their way. 

Here's context for the quote from Caitlin Johnstone: 

The report by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age — which former Prime Minister Paul Keating just called "the most egregious and provocative news presentation of any newspaper I have witnessed in over 50 years of active public life" —  actually comes close to actually admitting that there's a concerted propaganda campaign designed to increase hysteria about China and manufacture consent for war. The "expert" panel asserts that there needs to be a "psychological shift" in the public toward this direction which they must be actively persuaded to accept.

“Most important of all is a psychological shift," the report says. "Urgency must replace complacency. The recent decades of tranquillity were not the norm in human affairs, but an aberration. Australia’s holiday from history is over.”

Plenty of fearful reasons for Australian taxpayers to enrich those guys behind Uncle Sam in the cartoon above.

Some have suggested that Australia, not Taiwan, is slated to be the next Ukraine. Others have suggested it could be Japan. 

I haven't seen any polls but I'm going out on a limb and say that the vast majority of people living in these places which are likely candidates to be selected for a proxy war on China do not want that to happen.

But it's clear that the empire thinks it can act with impunity at this point in history. 

Impunity supported by the profound lack of curiosity about whodunit on Nord Stream evident throughout western media. Imperial control 0f that sector is working well with independent media covertly choked by lawfare, financial attacks, shadow banning, and cancellation. I've come to feel that getting authentic information is akin to getting nutritious food -- it's possible, but you have to work at it.

Who else is curious about NATO nuclear weapons and related systems being moved around? I know I am.

Imperial plotters fancy themselves eagles (dark eagles in the service of Dark Brandon, apparently) but the whole world knows they're really more like pigeons.

(The rest of this insightful post may be found at GlobalSouth.Co.)

Where To Get Some Real News -- While We Still Can

This was an informative webinar my husband and I watched yesterday. Chengpang Lee, assistant professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic Uni and Dic Lo, Reader in Economics at SOAS Uni of London, shared information that was new to us. Link to recording is eagerly awaited and will be shared.

Seven years ago I published a list of sources I considered useful for gathering real news as opposed to repackaged Pentagon or State Department talking points posing as news.

The list is much shorter today. Venerables like Democracy Now! have succumbed to the lure of big money and as a result are cheerleading for proxy war in Ukraine. How the mighty have fallen.

With a particular focus on the ginning up of war against China, here's my current list. The link will take you to an article or episode related to the U.S. pivot to Asia, but the whole publication is worthy of attention. In no particular order:

Covert Action Magazine (text)

CaitlinJohnstone.com (text or audio)

Pearls and Irritations (text)

Reports on China (short videos)

Consortium News (text)

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting/FAIR (text)

Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (text)

Organizing Notes (text or videos)

Hankyoreh (text)

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space (videos)

Sydney Criminal Lawyers blog (text)

MintPress News (text and videos)

The Most Censored News/Behind the Headlines with Lee Camp (videos)

 No More Battle of Okinawa: Nuchi du Takara (Life is a Treasure) People’s Association

My list is heavy on text (which I prefer) and light on videos and podcasts (which many people prefer these days). Please use comments to suggest other reliable sources I've missed!

EDITED Feb 12 to include more sources:

The Cradle (text)

Global Research (text)

BreakThrough News (videos)

Multipolarista (text)

Information You Aren't Likely To Read/Hear In Western Media: Pivot To Asia Edition

Source: India and Geopolitics

If imitation is a sincere form of flattery, here is my one-time attempt to imitate my friend JK's terrifically useful mini-digest on Ukraine. Sent via email a few times a week, containing "information you are not likely to read/hear in the Western/U.S. media," its author has identified the need for someone to do something similar for news on the war on China the U.S. is planning aka the Obama-Biden pivot to Asia.

I'm unqualified to take on this project because I don't read Chinese or Japanese beyond the kindergarten level or any other East Asian languages. But, in the spirit of JK's heroic communication efforts around the U.S. war on Russia, here goes.

Item #1

Follow the Puck -- Trends in Geopolitics by SL Kanthan, Indian blogger on "India's role in a multipolar world"  January 31, 2023

(Note from LS: MUST READ! Examines why people in the U.S. believe so many things about China that are demonstrably false.)

Item #2

CSIS advises US to prepare for possible redeployment of tactical nukes to S. Korea by Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent for Hankyore  January 20, 2023

 

Source: CGTN

Item #3

The US-Australia Military Alliance Serves Washington's Interests, Not Ours by Paul Gregoire, Sydney Criminal Lawyers  January 27, 2023

Item #4

War in the Taiwan Strait May Mean War For North, South Korea by Cheong Wook-Sik, Hankoreh Peace Institute  January 31, 2023

 

Item #5

How CNN & BBC trick you about China: Selina Wang and her failed exposé [Length: 11:42] by Andy Boreham, Reports on China  January 30, 2023

 

Item #6

Okinawa Against US-JAPAN Alliance [Length: 12:15] by Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space  February 1, 2023

(Note from LS: MUST WATCH! Discusses how the U.S. with full Japanese cooperation has turned Okinawa into a war base and an obvious target during any conflict with China.)

 

Item #7

Why is Victoria Nuland coming to Sri Lanka? by Shenali D. Waduge, Lankaweb   January 31, 2023

 

Item #8

Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development

February 4, 2022

(Note from LS: MUST READ. It's a year old and long, but well worth your time to understand reality behind headlines like "China, Russia partner up against West at Olympics summit" by Reuters or "Russia and China unveil a pact against the West" in the New Yorker.)

Pivot To Asia Ramping Up Ominously

Source of map: researchgate.net

The only nation that has hundreds of military bases outside its own borders is about to open a new one. 

A huge new U.S. Marine Corps base on the island of Guam was paid for, in part, by Japan. Why would Japan do this? I read that it was part of a deal during the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia" to get Marines out of Okinawa. Locals there despise the presence of gaijin (foreigners) who rape and kill girls and women, and Okinawans have been struggling for decades to get rid of them.

Why export the misery to Guam? The indigenous population of Okinawa understands all too well what it's like to live under Japanese imperialism. And taxpayers in Japan are by no means on board with ramping up military spending and abandoning Article 9 as the U.S. is demanding. 

Source: "Japan's rearmament is a worrying sign" by Jamil Ragland, CTNewsJunkie

Demonstrations against Japan's remilitarization are common in Tokyo and other Japanese cities these days -- but don't expect to read about it in the U.S. corporate media.

Instead, those who consume corporate media should expect to read more ranting from psychopaths like U.S. Air Force general Michael Minihan. He was in the news this week due to a memo (that the Pentagon disavowed, for what that's worth) urging preparations for war with China which he predicted will be underway by 2025.

He ordered his underlings to practice shooting targets in the head to prepare.

He's been quoted as believing that,

“[W]hen you can kill your enemy, every part of your life is better. Your food tastes better. Your marriage is stronger."

No comment on what we're all imagining about Minihan's marriage.

Meanwhile another ex-Marine, weapons inspector Scott Ritter, shared his examination of the shift in U.S./NATO policy toward east Asia and also the "war-fighting domain" of outer space.

A recent statement by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) head Bill Nelson that the US was in a space race with China, when combined with recent moves by both the US and China to militarize space, could send the US on a policy trajectory that transforms established policy regarding space-based activities as being exclusively exploration-driven in nature, to one where conquest and domination become the dominating factors. 

Why do I pay attention to these "coulds" when the clear and present danger of Ukraine escalating into a nuclear confrontation grows daily?

Because weakening Russia and overthrowing Putin is the first stage of the neocon plan to take out China as the U.S.'s only feasible economic competitor. 

"Paratroopers take part in a joint military drill among Japan, the US, Britain and Australia at Narashino exercise field in Chiba prefecture on January 8, 2023. Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP/Getty Images"   Source: "'History might repeat itself': Chinese ambassador warns Australia to be wary of Japan", CNN

But the sanctions that were supposed to cripple Russia's economy have instead strengthened it, and boomeranged on the economies of the U.S. and NATO nations.

Early indications are that sanctions on China are having a similar effect: weakening the dollar, and pushing the targeted nation toward more cooperation with others and diversification of its industrial capacity.

Reporting in The Verge:

[Dutch tech manufacturer] ASML CEO Peter Wennink previously told CNBC that China accounted for around 15 percent of the company’s sales in 2022. 

Wennink has said that any restrictions are unlikely to prevent China from building its own versions of the machines eventually. “If they cannot get those machines, they will develop them themselves,” Wennink told Bloomberg. “That will take time, but ultimately they will get there.”

On the Japanese side, the restrictions are expected to impact companies such as Nikon and Tokyo Electron.

As its old ally Germany has suffered under U.S. leadership from helping to conduct war on Russia via Ukraine, I think it's reasonable to expect Japan to suffer from helping its old enemy conduct a proxy war on China via Taiwan.

Certainly Australians as traditional allies of the U.S. military empire are increasingly concerned about being targeted as a consequence of hosting bases and spying outposts on their soil, and of their economy unraveling if their extensive trade with China is disrupted. And some observers have speculated that neighboring New Zealand saw the recent resignation of PM Jacinda Ardern because she had lost the battle for Kiwis to remain neutral and nuclear-free.

In the U.S. we have half a million people unhoused and at risk of freezing to death this winter. We have 1 in 5 children growing up impoverished and hungry, and the federal government tells us there is no money for universal health care, student loan forgiveness, or to house and feed the people. Yet, at $858 billion for 2023, the military budget is at it highest point ever, and ominously increasing every year.

Historically, wars have caused untold suffering for populations who had little to no interest in pursuing them. War profiteers hijacked their governments and raked in profits while their people starved and died. 

Are we doomed to repeat these disasters?

AUKUS Excludes, Angers France And It's Odd Because Acronym Cries Out For An F

Photo of Bush speech program folder source: @JebSprague (graphic overlay by me)

I've been watching with delight the news that rehabilitated (by the corporate media) war criminal President George W. Bush cannot speak in public without being confronted by veterans and their family members.

W's hecklers reported scattered boos but also complimentary responses from the audience and even police. 

Here is video of me shutting down George Bush last night.

The wars he started in the Middle East damaged the lives of so many. He wasted trillions of $ for nothing.

Meanwhile, he’s made tens of millions of $ in speaker fees since leaving office. Sick!pic.twitter.com/RqV7poonAz

— Jeb Sprague (@JebSprague) September 22, 2021

https://t.co/5ohAdxxBJk

— FREE PALESTINE (@MikePrysner) September 20, 2021

When Michelle Obama tells reporters that she and W are on friendly terms because "our values are the same," this must be inconvenient for the blaring narrative that there are huge, HUGE differences between the Democratic and Republican parties. But in the cult of personality surrounding the chief executive office of the U.S., a good smile for the cameras counts as a "value" I guess.

Fawning over the architect of the War on Terror is likely a needed counterweight to the public's vast dillusionment with the war on Afghanistan coming to an end (sort of). 

source: https://socialistchina.org/2021/09/22/aukus-a-dangerous-military-escalation-of-the-new-cold-war/

And the absurdly named AUKUS rises from its ashes.

The "security pact" to menace China in its own backyard has angered France due to the cancellation of a lucrative contract to build submarines for Australia. The Aussies will now purchase U.S.-made nuclear-powered submarines capable of launching nuclear weapons.

The nonsensical aspect of Australian "defence" menacing its chief trading partner is beautifully captured in this clip from the satirical show Utopia.

This is the kind of international relations we in the U.S. get when our Secretary of "Defense" just resigned and cashed out from the board of Raytheon. (And many of the Pentagon brass arrived through the revolving door from other big weapons manufacturers like General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrup Grumann.)

When President Obama announced a "pivot to Asia" he was hampered by having to operate under the auspices of that belligerent alliance, NATO. China is just so inconveniently far from the North Atlantic. (As was Afghanistan. But, 9/11.)

In the intervening years, the U.S. has bullied Japan into dropping its post WW2 commitment to self-defense only and has continuously built up military bases in Okinawa, South Korea, and Australia.

War as a marketing scheme continues to make its purveyors filthy rich.

War as a lived experience continues to produce corpses, orphans, widows, PTSD, starvation, and massive contributions to climate chaos -- our biggest actual security threat.

Maybe this is why the People's Republic of China does not start wars?