Thursday, November 6, 2014

Australian Anti-War Activist Joan Coxsedge's November 3, 2014 Letter


(The following letter from Australian anti-war and Latin American solidarity activist Joan Coxsedge—who is also a former member of the Victoria state parliament--originally appeared in an Australian-Cuban solidarity group’s newsletter)

"Dear Comrades, 

"Goughs gone and left a hole in many Old Labor hearts.  Not without flaws - think of East Timor and his embrace of State Aid which has led to a criminal imbalance between rich private schools and the public variety - but he made up for them with vision and courage in pushing ahead with a range of strong progressive policies after decades of Menzies-style stagnation. It became a matter of pride to be an Australian, unlike now.

"Media dills scoff at conspiracy theories regarding Whitlams untimely dismissal, when there is an abundance of evidence to prove that the CIA was up its filthy neck in killing off his government.

"Do these idiots seriously believe that an outfit that since its inception has rampaged around the world to create profitable investment climates for multinationals, organised coup detats in more than 30 countries and unknown numbers of secret wars, subverted democratic processes with massive illegal funding of political parties and trade unions in cahoots with leading Mafias, established murder squads and torture centres and plotted to assassinate Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba, Rafael Trujillo and other heads of state and ran the murderous Phoenix Programme in Vietnam, would ignore a new reforming Labor prime minister?

"Especially one which briefly transformed Australia into an independent state, reversed its foreign policy status towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported Zones of Peace and demanded to know whether the CIA was running Pine Gap, who sacked ASIO head Barbour and ASIS head Robertson, and then poured petrol on the fire by stating that the CIA had funded Australian political parties would not have been targeted by the CIA?

"Of course not.

"The Nixon White House loathed Whitlam and sent `coup master' Marshall Green and other CIA heavies to destroy his government. Whitlam knew this. The question is whether any duly elected reformist government will be allowed to govern in the future. What is at stake is whether the people who seek change and reform are ever again to have confidence that it can be achieved through the normal parliamentary process, he said on 29 October 1975, at the ANU, just days before he got the chop, a question thats never been acknowledged, let alone resolved. Governor-General Kerr played a vital role in the dismissal, shattering our dreams for a more independent Australia.

So why against all advice did Gough appoint this drunken buffoon?  Kerr was known to be anti-union with long-standing ties to British and American intelligence which started in WW2 when he worked in the hush-hush Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs. A prominent member of the invitation-only Australian Association of Cultural Freedom, founded, funded and run by the CIA, Kerr also served two terms as president of LawAsia, another CIA front. The CIA paid for his travels, coughed up whenever he asked for money and `told him what to do,' according to a CIA Deputy-Director.

"Kerr made a complete galah of himself whenever he appeared in public with his striped trousers, tails and top hat. His chief mentor was another charmer, Sir Garfield Barwick, who promoted tax avoidance, advocated against Labors Banking Act, defended Menzies Communist Party Dissolution Bill before the High Court and handled ASIOs case before the Petrov Commission. 

"Whitlam fell and democracy fell with him, but another future PM was sinking in the boot. Hawke made regular trips to the US Consulate in Melbourne calling Whitlam politically crazy with the message that the ALP was always happy to keep Washington in the loop. Since then? A downthill run, with both parties in thrall to US imperialism.

"We live in a democracy were told, but genuine democracy means peoples power so how did we bugger up such a noble concept and turn it into a global system run by corrupt oligarchs and plutocrats, puppet masters for our rulers. Everywhere, from east to west, north to south, these crooks have transformed democracy into a toxic form of governance threatening the survival of our planet.

"Way back, Mark Twain wrote: If voting made any difference, they wouldnt let us do it,' a quote that could have been written for today. A vote implies real choice and we have none. It used to be a sacrosanct civic duty, but now it's a fake system to give the illusion that voting matters when the real power lies with unelected bodies like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Oranization, the World Economic Forum and other powerful non-government outfits and think-tanks.

"These mobsters dictate global policies and draft secret treaties like theTransatlantic and Transpacific Trade and Investment Partnerships affecting billions of people. These agreements, conducted in unprecedented secrecy, give US corporations more rights than theyve ever had in history, allowing them to flout the laws of sovereign countries in which they do business.

"If a `sovereign' nation attempts to enforce its laws against an American corporation, it can be sued for `restraint of trade.' Those agreeing to these partnerships are fully paid-up agents of US corporations.  If youre not outraged then you bloody well should be!

"Always a relief to turn to Cuba. While most of the world tightens its borders and runs away from the problem, Cuba has opened a new chapter of solidarity by sending 255 doctors and nurses to West Africa to deal with the Ebola outbreak, once again giving the world a lesson in internationalism. The latest group of Cuban medicos will not receive the privileged medical evacuation that other doctors have received, but will be treated in situ like the local population.

"Compare Cuba with the US which sent soldiers and Australia which sent no-one, but the root problem for Sub-Saharan Africa is that its medical systems were weakened by the imposition of draconian policies by agencies like the IMF. These inspiring words from a Cuban-Argentinian doctor to his children about how a revolutionary should always be capable of feeling, in his deepest self, any injustice anywhere in the world.    Viva Cuba!

"Joan Coxsedge."

                                                                                                      

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