Australian Anti-War Activist Joan Coxsedge's September 28, 2015 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)

"September 28, 2015

"Dear Comrades,

"Hello everyone. The air is a smidgin fresher since Abbott and his deadbeat colleagues got the chop, although some of the most nauseous are still in situ, like some of their nauseous policies, clearly part of Turnbull's deal. Same cargo, prettier captain who's yet to be tested.

"But I’m already a little tired of reading about this wonderful new person when he's just an arrogant, smug, filthy rich merchant banker using brutal Scott Morrison to spruke the same glib slogan of `work, save and invest' to people desperately looking for jobs that no longer exist. London to a brick the big end of town will still bludge on society with one in five of these capitalist hucksters not paying a cracker in tax.

 "And while the rest of the world spends $270bn on renewables, Australia’s contribution to climate change is a miserable $330 million. A different story for defence which gets more than $1.5 trillion a year to buy hugely expensive useless weaponry to kill people on behalf of the US of A.

"But Turnbull’s not a dill. He’s smart and knows how to play the media like a Wurlitzker, leaving Shorten looking like a rooster that's lost its mojo and all its feathers and sounding like a dyslectic robot. Sadly in all the important areas, there's only a cigarette paper between the two major parties.

"One who dares to articulate an alternative to our current rotten system is Jeremy Corbyn, described as the most left-wing leader in British Labour history, a aprty that went to the dogs under Blair, was corrupted by Big Capital and was used to intimidate, degrade and destroy the working class in what is laughably called democracy.

"Ironically, it was Miliband’s reform of the party’s electoral system that was supposed to appease the Blairites by destroying what's left of trade union power by opening up the vote to outsiders that went tits-up. A few Blairites even gave Corbyn enough votes to stand as a token lefty. Jeremy Corbyn has been a member of the Labour Party for 40 years and anyone who hears him knows he is that most endangered of political species, a genuine guardian for the public interest.

"He is a wise, decent man doing his best against the sick ugly rule of Capital to improve the lives of ordinary people while Big Money is doing its damnedest to shoot him down. A serving British Army General even threatened mutiny and a possible coup if Corbyn was elected PM and was only mildly rebuked by the Ministry of Defense.

"The attacks are ferocious and unrelenting, portraying Corbyn as sexist, anti-semitic and unpatriotic, attacks coming not only from the right-wing press but from `progressive' papers like The Guardian which thrives on a reputation for `speaking the truth' and `protecting the vulnerable.'

"The Guardian has shown itself to be little more than a conduit for the establishment with its inner commentariat from Jonathan Freedland to Polly Toynbee ridiculing and insulting Corbyn from the moment he won the vote. Corbyn's victory has not only exposed Labour as a sham alternative to the Conservatives but has exposed the sham of Britain's liberal-left media as a genuine alternative to the Tory press.

"Noam Chomsky puts it this way: ‘What I talk about are the liberal intellectuals, the ones who portray themselves and perceive themselves as challenging power, as courageous, as standing up for truth and justice. They are basically the guardians of the faith. They set the limits. They tell us how far we can go. They say, "Look how courageous I am." But do not go one millimeter beyond that.'

"The election of Corbyn has reaffirmed that for the political and media establishment there are acceptable opinions and there are unacceptable opinions. Corbyn holds many of the latter. Their mission is simple: to kill him off before any serious policy debate can take place. By any means necessary.

"With a multitude of trade deals about to descend on our heads, it's time to take stock. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is holding its tenth Ministerial Conference in Nairobi at the end of this year. As corrupt as buggery, its processes and outcomes have already been decided in advance.

" Karl Marx wrote about the nexus between trade and war in Das Kapital in 1857 showing that under capitalism, production is not for consumption but for trade and kills as surely as guns.

" People mistakenly believe that with the end of colonialism, the Empire ceased to exist. It did not. It simply mutated into a `multilateral neo-colonial system' with the US, Europe and Japan creating the principle weapons of global economic governance--the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO--all busily creating spin-offs such as Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and the TTIP (Translatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). Make no mistake, the World Trade Organization is a war machine.

"Russia is rapidly becoming our latest bogeyman with neocons, war hawks, and a complicit media all beating the preliminary war drums convincing a duped public that the Russian threat is real when the record shows the threat comes from the US, not from Russia.

" A few years ago Washington was frothing at the mouth anticipating being able to bomb Syria into oblivion with the pretext that Assad was using chemical weapons, brushing aside a deal negotiated by Russia in 2012 with Assad agreeing to either share power or step down.

"But the US did not want a diplomatic solution. Its assault on the Middle East has resulted in the biggest refugee crisis in human history as people flee from US bombs and destruction. So who is the aggressor?

"Joan Coxsedge"