Australia's Hard Choice Between China and the US

Trump's neo-isolationism is accelerating a trend that doesn't have to end with Chinese domination. If the United States, Europe, and India join economic forces, China won't be able to push the world around. This is not the time for America to dismantle the post-WW2 world is so carefully help build.

 

We're making life difficult for our close relations, Mexico and Canada.

Canada is on the cusp of making deals with other countries to get away from depending upon a trade relationship with us. I think it's holding off signing the TPP and entering into negotiations for a free trade agreement with China. It signed a free trade deal with the EU.

 

I've worked in the MoD, so I've been there, done that, and got the tee-shirt too.

 

We need to remember that Trump has a significant - albeit by no means full - compliment of the US elite supporting him, so this is not simply driven by him alone.

 

What were you doing there?

 

I was a specialist crypto-telegraphist, working 4 floors below ground level in the MOD Main Building in Whitehall.

 

How interesting. Not so much a bird's eye view, but a view of the MoD underworld...

 

It certainly was; but Fleet Street beckoned with a 3-fold salary and I was outta there before you could say 'For Your Eyes Only'!

 

Good for you. I can imagine how stifling the civil service of those days must've been.

 

No I didn't. Just assumed you were in agreement with the article you posted. AND STILL, irrelevant to my point, but I suspect irrelevancy is where you wanted to go

 

I don't think the elite want Trump to upset world trade and defense relationships.

 

Yes, but as I mentioned, there's not one homogenous elite but factions who compete. However, it now seems evident that the most influential faction are now in control of Trump and it's back to business as usual: war.

 

It really is amazing the sort of stuff some people will believe. I've read the theories & seen the 'proof'. Fanciful, paper thin & deeply insulting to Australians.

Gough Whitlam is one of my political heroes. A man of towering intellect and enduring vision. I would have voted for him had I been old enough and I count a meeting with him when I was in my early 20s a personal highlight. One of our top 5 PMs without a doubt. He was also capable of incredibly poor judgement, arrogance, misplaced loyalty and overconfidence in his own abilities. These all contributed far more to his downfall than any outside factor.

Malcolm Fraser was the most ruthlessly ambitious politician of his generation and is a contender in the 'all time' stakes. By 1975 he had already caused one PM to be removed from office and knifed another leader of his own party to become opposition leader. At a state & Federal level the Liberal & Country parties were convinced that by electing Whitlam the Australian people had made a terrible and foolish mistake. They were convinced he was going to ruin Australia and did everything within their power to remove him. This involved ignoring generations of precedent when it came to replacing Senators and blocking money supply bills.

Sir John Kerr was a vain and foolish man who was far more interested in keeping his own job and sucking up to the 'big end of town' than properly discharging his duties as Governor General. He sought Constitutional advice from people supportive of the Liberal/Country party and conspired with Fraser to remove Whitlam when other constitutional options existed.

These are the key & fundamental facts of the 1975 Constitutional crisis. There is no doubt that America disliked & distrusted Whitlam, but their opinion didn't change a single thing. What happened was always going to happen for domestic political reasons. Had American officials never expressed a view it still would have happened. Malcolm Fraser, Sir John Kerr, Doug Anthony, Joh Bjelke Peterson, Tom Lewis, Cleaver Bunton, Albert Field, Reg Withers, Garfield Barwick & all the others directly involved weren't children waiting for instructions from Daddy in the White House (if you need to google more than a third of the list you aren't qualified to talk on this issue). They weren't empty cyphers awaiting orders or fools being 'manipulated'. They wanted Whitlam gone for their own reasons so they removed him. Legally and constitutionally, but wrongly.

Whitlam lost the subsequent election, as he would almost certainly have done if Fraser had reined in his ambitions for another year or two. He lost again a few years later, so Australians made their decision.

 

Fanciful, paper-thin and deeply insulting to Australians. And uninformed, I might add.

The above post that is.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...itlam-1975-coup-ended-australian-independence

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Marchetti

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-16/gough-whitlam-ordered-asio-to-stop-talking-to-cia/6859734

There is also the transcript of a 5 part Australian radio programme from 1986 in which Victor Marchetti appeared:

http://cia_oz_files.tripod.com/pages/The_CIA_in_Australia_Part_3.htm

Btw, I used to know Ralph McGehee before he retired.

 

That was a tumultuous time. I remember wondering why Doug Anthony leased his flat to a CIA bloke.
I remember the Khemlani loan furore, Lionel Murphy being promoted from the political rather than judicial side and Supply being blocked by the Senate Liberals.
All of my Conservative family harrumphed and said it was a "good thing" that his govt was sacked, but from Whitlam we got Medicare, No fault divorce, got out of Vietnam and recognised China.

 

"War?" What kind of war? A trade war? A shooting war?

I tend to think you're wrong about the elite with hegemony at the moment wanting Trumpto destroy international trade.

Canada just yesterday signed TPP. It already has an edge over us in terms of selling into the EU and now it's added the TPP nations. Canadians are feeling around on a preliminary basis about a free trade deal with China. If you're a corporation with production facilities in this country, are you happy about seeing a business producing in Canada with an advantage in selling to the EU, TPP countries, and perhaps even China? What about your investment here?

If Canada matches our business tax cuts, something a majority government there can do with a snap of the fingers, businesses based in Canada will have a huge advantage, especially if we maintain a free trade deal with Canada post-NAFTA so we don't lose our largest export market.

Business has to be worried, too, Trump will so antagonize the American people that they'll vote in leftwingers who will reverse the tax cuts and install regulations even stronger than those under Obama and Clinton.

 

I'm slightly too young to remember it well, but it was a crazy time. It is disappointing to see all that wonderful and terrible turmoil brushed aside by people who are either ignorant, pushing an agenda or don't want to face up to the flaws of the Whitlam government.

One tiny quibble, the 'got us out of Vietnam' thing is a bit of a myth. The last combat troops left at the end of 1971. The AATV remained in a training capacity until Whitlam pulled them out in early 73, but we were really 'out' by then, and on a US timetable. The Lib/Country government didn't trumpet withdrawing combat forces the way Whitlam trumpeted withdrawing a few trainers because they didn't want to draw attention to the failure of their policies. Whitlam was happy enough the take the credit & they were happy enough to let him.

Its slightly analogous to the way right & left wing Americans & people in media are all happy to go along wiht the 'media & protesters were the reason America lost' narrative. One side gets an excuse and someone top blame, the other gets credit they are happy to take for something they didn't really do......but I digress.

 

Congratulations on one one of the most predictable posts in the history of the internet.

A Guardian article....written by John Pilger. Almost spat out my dinner with laughter when I read that. One of the least credible 'journalists' in the english speaking world, and you cite him in a discussion of history. Talk about bringing a knife to a tank battle. Notice how he barely discusses Australian politics in the article. Reading that you would never know there was a constitutional crisis or why, just that some American puppet called Kerr removed a PM. Par for course with this sort of stuff. Then you throw in Marchetti & just for laughs McGehee. I'm a bit disappointed you didn't use Chomsky or Blum, but I suppose we can't have everything. I'm also a bit let down that there was no accusation that Tirtah Khemlani (off to google again for you) was a CIA plant. Maybe Pilger was a bit busy making excuses for some anti-American dictator to throw that in.

What none of this does is illustrate that the opinion of the US in any way changed the actions of those involved. If I tell you to post poorly written left wing drivel do I then get to claim credit when you do? Of course not. You were going to do that anyway. The players in 1975 weren't doing the bidding of the US, they were doing what they would have done anyway more or less when they would have done it given the circumstances. There were a ton of reasons that have nothing to do with the CIA that perfectly accurately explain why events happened when they did.

I could go into more detail than I already have, but I know it is wasted effort. You already know what happened. Not because you have the slightest understanding of complex events of 1975 - you don't. You never will. In fact, you don't want to because from your POV you don't need to know any more. Someone told you it was the Americans. Someone showed you evidence that they didn't like Whitlam and had connections to some of the major players. That is all you will ever need to know. All that boring detail & deep understanding is just wasted time because you can just reduce all that complexity to the same formula that you use to make sense of the world: America dunnit. All those Australian politicians were just 'doing what they were told/what was expected'. Just like all those two dimensional people in the third world who are incapable of independent action. Of course, this gets dressed up with pretty phrases and pretty theories, but it is no more than blind ideology crushing complex situations, events & people into predetermined shapes. Who needs actual understanding when ideology will suffice.

The funny thing is that ideologues can see the danger of the exact same approach when others use it. I imagine you were very quick to object when Thatcherite ideologues reduced entire communities and regions to a set of equations based on their ideology. I'm sure you could see how wrong it was for America to ignore all the local complexities of third world societies in favor of a Cold War framework simply because some of the people pushing change were socialist. I would like to think that if you wander on to a thread here that lists all the Jews working for big media organizations as 'proof' of some 'jewish agenda/takeover' you would be able to see that for the rampant ideology it is. Yet when you cram the complex history of my society & others into your own ideological framework is has to be 'the truth'. Ideologues are fundamentally the same - lazy & overconfident.

I saw Ralph McGehee him speak when I was in my teens. A small gathering of lefties (myself, family & friends included) nodding solemly as he told us that everything we always suspected was true. It was all America's fault. Everything. Russia, Communism, all unfairly maligned. America was the real threat. We lapped it up. When he told us he'd just been in New Zealand and it was 'full of American spooks' conspiring against David Lange we all walked out expecting that government would fall any moment. After all, this guy was ex-CIA, so he just had to know about this stuff. When ole' Ralph's name popped up in later years I did wonder how it was that Lange went on to win an election & stay PM. I further wondered how it was that New Zealand kept its 'nuclear free' policies even under conservative governments. I mean, with all that US pressure this just couldn't be....right? We all know that once the US gets involved its only a matter of time...right? Ironically Ralph unintentionally helped me find my way to a view of the world based on trying to understand local events in their own terms first & foremost rather than reaching for the simplistic comforts of ideology. You should try it.

 

Trade wars, currency wars and shooting wars are different phases of the same ideology of supremacy. But, in the final analysis I would say it comes down to wars for acquisition and wealth and access to minerals -- and then keeping hold of those gains.

 

Yes, well the less said about what goes on at your dinner table the better, I think.

Otherwise, an enjoyable angry, myopic, political rant though - overflowing with rhetoric, but fact free. However, I especially found it insightful at the way you attacked and degraded everyone involved in the story. It's a great - and ages old - technique for reinforcing zealotry isn't it; he's this, she's that - I know best. Do you always find it best to shoot the messenger? I suspect you usually do.

Besides that it was an amusing foray into your imagined understanding of my own psychology, replete with all manner of projections manifesting and really quite revealing because of that. I get the strong sense of frustrated anger. If I may say so, I also detect the psychology of a drowning man hanging stubbornly on to his manufactured beliefs for all he's worth - who rather than direct his anger inwardly at himself, spits and rages it out at others - who obviously must be wrong. As Jung said, "we have met the enemy and it is us".

Your comments on Pilger are timely. In addition to being an Emmy award-winning journalist who is widely regarded to be one of the best independent journalists in the world, his work has just been archived by the British Library, a rare feat awarded to only the very best. When you can boast of that, I'll begin taking you seriously - but until that unlikely event miraculously arrives I'll continue reading him and take you cum grano salis.

 

Trump is having us retire from the field. He's useless.

If we make common cause with other relatively free nations in Europe and Asia, China won't be able to dominate.

 

Dodges the subject as expected. Another common behavior among ideologues. You know that you don't actually understand the subject being discussed, so just change the subject. If the likes of Pilger & McGehee are your first line of defence then the argument is already lost.

 

I sincerely hope China doesn't come to dominate. On the other hand, there was/is a need for competition. The US experiment as the sole world power since 1991 has been an unmitigated disaster.

 

So, the best you can do is render more shoot the messengers and ad hom rhetoric - but zero when it comes to disputing the facts.

I think you must be woefully unaware of how much has been written on the subject since Pilger broke the story.

For example, QC Jenny Hocking, arguing for releasing the Palace Papers concerning the communications between Sir John Kerr, Prince Charles and the Queen concerning Whitlam's removal. These remain secret at the Queen's insistence until 2027. Thereafter, the Monarch's private secretary has the authority to extend the secrecy in perpetuity if he/she so wishes.

Kerr was in intelligence during WWII, something he publicly denied. He was also a founding member of the Australian Association of Cultural Freedom, the Australian branch of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an infamous CIA front used to channel money to selected political entities. Kerr was also on the staff of Alfred Brookes, the founder of ASIS. He took money from another CIA front, the Asia Foundation. He was also associated with the right wing of the trade union movement who also received the largesse of the CIA and other American agencies. Not least, the CIA resident, Joe Harrison, referred to his the knighted one as "our man Kerr". Another CIA man referred to him as a "CIA flunky". When Kerr removed Whitlam there was a party at Pine Gap. Job done.

Meanwhile, it is a fact that Ted Shackley of the CIA sent a cable to ASIO threatening the suspension of US-Australian intelligence sharing, a threat that rocked ASIO and undermined the UKUSA Five Eyes agreement. The US regarded Pine Gap as their most critical base in the world. It was a security crisis of the most vital kind.

It was, plain and simple, a CIA sponsored coup. Which was why Warren Christopher, US Deputy Director of State, was sent by Jimmy Carter to visit Whitlam to tell him of Carter's intention of working with whatever government Australians choose, and that the US would never again interfere in Australia's democratic process. The Warren-Whitlam breakfast meeting was held at the Qantas VIP Lounge at Sydney airport, on 27 July 1977, having been arranged by Jimmy Carter's close friend, Ambassador Philip Aston.