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
“January 29, 2017
“Dear Comrades,
“Happy New Year? We can only hope. Happy Australia Day?
Insensitive.
“The ‘honours list’ hit the jackpot this year when Australia
Post’s overpaid chieftain Ahmed Fahour was gonged for ‘distinguished
service to business’. For destroying a 207-year old institution? For
‘streamlining’ (sacking) 1,900 postal workers? Hope his AO gets lost in the
mail. “In 2014, Fahour was ‘awarded’ $4.8 million salary’, so god knows what
he’s getting now.
“Soul sister Michelle Guthrie is the new ABC CEO who worked
for Murdoch, was named Hong Kong’s business woman of the year and was anointed
by the World Economic Forum where our ‘rulers’ (3000 last year) head to a Swiss
mountain village to manipulate the system to suit themselves. Her appointment
has accelerated the ABC’s decline. Repeats of repeats of repeats, with more
banality, more dreary right-wingers replacing those with something to say.
Radio National on the skids.
“And then there’s Trump, the brassy billionaire. A bull in a
china shop and all over the place, but at least he’s dumped the odious TPPI. A
bit right, a bit left, corporatist, populist and opportunist. Instinctive, not
thoughtful, he doesn’t know the difference between leadership and thuggery, but
when it comes to the ‘Russian hacking tale’, we are being treated like mugs.
Only total morons would accept the official version. That is not the intention.
“Our rulers have created a ‘narrative’ to be run and re-run
throughout the world - the same mob that sold us the ‘Saddam has weapons of
mass destruction’ bullshit. And so on. Like fascism in the 1930s, big lies are
delivered with the precision of a metronome, thanks to our mass media.
“It was Cold War Warrior John McCain who passed the ‘dodgy
dossier’ on Trump to the FBI after receiving it from former UK ambassador to
Russia, Sir Andrew Wood. Its originator was former MI6 snoop Christopher Steele
who compiled the 35-page document on behalf of the US political establishment,
but Ignored is his caveat: that its contents cannot be verified. According to
UK journalist Patrick Cockburn: ‘I read the text of the dossier with a
scepticism that soon turned into complete disbelief’.
“So what we have is a covey of ‘deep state’ operatives
working with the US ‘liberal’ establishment to destroy the Trump presidency,
with the prospect of impeachment already being mooted in Washington circles. Why?
Because the US needs a deadly enemy and Trump is too close to Russia.
“Huge and powerful economic and ideological interests are
tied up in its cold war ideology and we’re talking about America’s gargantuan
defence and intelligence budgets. We’re talking about cold war relic NATO,
along with the justification for its vast network of political think tanks, all
of which are committed to the insane, megalomaniacal idea of the US maintaining
strategic dominance at all costs over everyone everywhere.
“Remember the chilling warning issued by former US President
Eisenhower prior to leaving office in 1960? ‘…the conjunction of an immense
military establishment and a large arms industry is new to the American
experience…we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications…we must guard
against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.’
“Washington’s power-brokers believe that Russia must be
destroyed, including anyone standing in the way, up to and including President
Donald J. Trump. Their job is to prepare the American people for an escalation
of hostilities between the two nuclear-armed superpowers. As Pilger writes:
“ ‘One of the persistent strands in American political life
is a cultish extremism that approaches fascism…reinforced during Obama’s tenure
who ‘expanded America’s favourite military pastime of bombing and death squads
as no other president has done since the Cold War. In 2016 alone he dropped
26,171 bombs (72 a day) on the world’s poorest people in Afghanistan, Libya,
Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Pakistan.’
“Maybe Trump will destroy America, whose election has
propelled millions out onto the streets. Maybe they’re right. But where were
the marching millions when Obama was bombing wedding parties in Kandahar or
training jihadists to fight in Syria or aiding and abetting NATO’s onslaught on
Libya or plunging Ukraine into fratricidal warfare or providing arms to the
Saudis to continue their genocidal war against Yemen?
“Where were they? Taken in by a smooth-talking cosmopolitan
snake-charmer like Obama who talks about personal freedom while unleashing the
most diabolical violence against ordinary people just going about their
business.
“If Hillary had won, the drone strikes would have continued
and the wars would have continued with the spillover ripping the EU to shreds.
With unprecedented clarity, the CIA threw its weight behind her candidacy.
“I always turn to Cuba for relief where leftist resistance
is celebrated, where amazing advances are honoured despite the genocidal US
blockade. Obama apologists will point to Cuba as his success story. Not true.
“Opening an embassy was not gutting the blockade which he
could have done with an executive order. Exports to Cuba (mostly food) have
fallen since restrictions have ‘eased’. Even after ‘restoring relations’, his administration
levied billions of fines against French and German companies for ‘blockade
violations’. Torture hell Guantanamo is on Cuban soil, which he promised to
close and didn’t, and could also have been sorted out by executive order.
“Cuba is genuinely democratic. Anyone can stand for
government. Candidates are all local and usually members of the Communist Party
because they have the best track record of community work. Once elected, MPs
get the same salary as they earned in their previous employment, yet double
their work load. They give regular reports to their constituents and can be
recalled if they are not up to scratch. The ballot is secret and ballot boxes
are guarded by school children in uniform. As people vote they are saluted! Now
that’s what I call democracy.
“Viva!
“Joan Coxsedge”
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