Political Amnesia and Howard's Ten Years : Melbourne Indymedia

Over the last week or so the mainstream press has been saturated with pieces covering the legacy of the Howard Government.
The pieces have generally followed the following format - they have acknowledged briefly Howard's "divisive" qualities but basically stated that because his Government has supposedly been "good for the economy" we should all be grateful.
I haven't heard or read the word liar or racist been used once in a mainstream context which is incredible given the ten year record of the Howard Government. The only example usually given where Howard's credibility has been strained is on the issue of WMD's and the invasion of Iraq but even this is only given a cursory mention.
Just from the top of my head I can think of the following events which show both this Governments racism, repressiveness
and its consistent propensity for lying to the public
- The "eight billion dollar blackhole" the government discovered upon election to office that meant it had "no choice" but to slash public funding for health, welfare and education.
- the introduction of the regressive GST despite denials before coming to office of their intentions
- the curtailing of Native Title Rights with the "Wik" legislation.
- the lies and secrets surrounding the training of scabs by the military in Dubai prior to the MUA dispute where the PM and senior Ministers lied about their involvement
- the Children Over Board scandal where the Prime Minister and his senior ministers again lied
- the racist treatment of the Tampa and the subsequent establishment of the "Pacific Solution"
- the lies and cruelty that has occurred in the past decade in the running of on-shore immigration detention facilities.
- Howard's implicit support for the ideas of Pauline Hanson through "dog whistle statements" and a refusal to condemn her ideas and then the subsequent adoption of much of her platform
- the wrongful imprisonment and deportation of Australian citizens in Australian immigration detention
- the lies surrounding the invasion of Iraq
- the failure to sign the Kyoto Agreement and massive subsidies to the coal industry. They have also promoted the expansion of Uranium mining and other parts of the nuclear cycle such as reactors and waste dumps.
- the AWB lies
- the introduction of regressive and unpopular IR laws
- ballooning spending on Defence as the Government increasing make the Australian military another division of the U.S. "Foreign Legion".
- the racist scapegoating of Muslims both at home and abroad
- the introduction of draconian and undemocratic security laws which have wiped out centuries of hard won legal rights such as the presumption of innocence and the right to not be detained without trail.

The message from the press on these issues has to play a game of political amnesia. They simply don’t mention most of these events in their analysis. If they do allude to the Governments lies or racism - euphemisms are used at best. The underlying message is that Howard is one of "us" - from middle Australia who represents "our values". Interest rates are low - sales of plasma televisions are up so everything must be right in the world.
This is a deliberate attempt to cover up the fact Howard represents no-one except the elites interests. His racism which is supported by large sections of the population is used as an example of how Howard stands with the "common man" at the same time as he attacks the rights and living conditions of ordinary people. This same divide and rule politics - particularly in regards to Muslims has justified our involvement in the Imperialistic wars of the U.S. Empire to control the oil of the Middle East.
I am not a political expert - the above list is I am sure far from complete - but the absence of analysis of such events by the mainstream press in their "retrospectives" on the Howard Government is pathetic.

Dummy of Steel and the rest aye!

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/107756.php

Business is business and company directors are under an obligation to ensure the owners of the business, that is the shareholders, don't lose their money. It's their job to make sure that the cash keeps flowing in and that the returns are perpetually increasing so the wealthy get wealthier. We don't want disgruntled shareholders turning up at the AGM and causing strife now do we?

The current fracas surrounding the Australian Wheat Board gives us a glimpse into the workings of international business and its ties to government. Now this case is special because the AWB used to be owned by the grain farmers who supplied its primary products. It was a highly regulated, government body that was required to report to parliament and was overseen by the prime minister and a minister from each of the grain growing states. In theory, it was accountable to us, the citizens, via the parliamentary reporting processes.

One of the first moves by the Howard government after it came to power in 1995 was to complete the process of privatising the AWB begun under the Keating government. John Anderson said in 1996 that the AWB could not continue and he was going to sell it off.

Anderson and his colleagues came up with the idea that a dual share type arrangement would be 'best' for the farming community and thus set up the private company as a listed company on the stock exchange. Now under this arrangement there are two classes of shares. As in any class based system one type of share has more 'value' (worth, power) than another. The structure that Howard's men came up with ensures that while farmers make a reasonable return, the major shareholders make an even greater return on their shares as they are the ones whose shares are more 'valuable'.

A quick look at the ASX list of AWB shareholders is an interesting journey to make. Six of the top eight major shareholders are banks or financial institutions. JP Morgan, National, Westpac, ANZ, HSBC and AMP. Historically farmers are large borrowers. They have to find money in hard times to tide themselves over and in boom times are quite able to repay their loans. Of course, a problem arises when long term hard times hit and the banks are 'forced' to foreclose and sell off the family farm. We all know the stories about this practice.

What I find interesting is that the banks, the ones who throw people out of their houses and off their land, are also the ones demanding the board of AWB make them even more money. What is also interesting is the question posed by George Megalogenis in the Australian last week.

As noted previously, historically the AWB was overseen, directly, by the PM and state ministers. They oversaw it and made sure it was abiding by all laws and regulations. If there was any hint of trouble the PM would be directly in the firing line. By outsourcing - privatising - the business the PM and the government could, in fact, claim what is known in PR circles as "plausible deniability". As Megalogenis puts it, the government can call on the "children overboard defence". The government didn't know because it didn't ask and no-one told them.

Megalogenis recalls for us Howard's own words in the parliament only three years ago. He quotes Howard as follows, "The oil-for-food program has been immorally and shamefully rorted by Saddam Hussein, who has used the proceeds of it to acquire his weapons capacity and support it … It has to be said, and the Australian public should be reminded, that we had these economic sanctions because Iraq did not disarm ... Worse still, having through his policies made those sanctions necessary, the Iraqi leader has compounded the sins inflicted upon his own people by rorting the very oil-for-food program which was designed to, in some way, mitigate the impact of the economic sanctions. So he is doubly guilty of betraying his obligations towards the Iraqi people."

Let's expand the circle and see who else is being disingenuous when they say they didn't know anything about the AWB and its "facilitation payments" to quote that great moral leader, Philip Ruddock. At the time the AWB was privatised Alexander Downer was Foreign Minister and Mark Vaile had just replaced Tim Fischer as leader of the Nats and Deputy PM. He also took on the role of Trade Minister, a role that puts him, alongside Alexander Downer, right in the firing line of the Cole inquiry.

We know that a government never sets up or allows the formation of an inquiry that might come up with findings adverse to that government so we find the Cole inquiry nobbled to restrict its investigation. That is nothing new. Governments have been doing it for years. It's 'good' government business practice. However, what will be interesting is to see if any of the major shareholders cop any flack over their greed.

Like Gunns in Tasmania, a business that ruthlessly destroys as much of the natural beauty and amenity of Tasmania as it can, the AWB is mostly owned by financial institutions. It is quite obvious that they are as ruthless and want to maintain their "plausible deniability" of and culpability, as the government.

We must add into the mix here the Washington lobbyists who are at least as rabid as the businessmen running this country. There are thousands of these men and women on Capital Hill whose sole job is to get into the ear of the politicians and use whatever means possible (I didn't say legal) to get the pollie to vote favourably on whatever issue it is they are hawking. We should not forget that the agriculture lobby is one of the most powerful in Washington and is in the top five with the military, pharmaceutical, energy and Christian industries. There are many among our 'closest ally' that would like to put the AWB and Australian grain farmers out of business.

This leads us back to where we began. The lobbyists, the directors and the shareholders can argue quite convincingly that they are only doing their job. So can Howard, Downer and Vaile. "We're only protecting the national interest", they each chime in turn. However, what they can't and must not escape is the culpability they share as ministers of the government and of the people.

They are supposed to know! If we look at Howard's record as PM he has to go down as one of the most uniformed, forgetful or ignorant men to have held the office. He denied any knowledge of the children overboard affair. He denied lying to us about weapons of mass destruction. He lies to us about not knowing anything about the AWB scandal. So does Downer and Vaile. So I pose this question to you. If these men have no idea what is going on in their own departments who does? If they want to sound credible, surely they need to show some leadership and own up to the bribery and corruption they have allowed to take place on their watch.

Howard promised us a ministerial code of conduct and it has been years since a minister resigned. Yet since then we've had Reith and the Patrick affair, children overboard, weapons of mass destruction and now the AWB. The Howard government seems hell bent on proving one thing only. It is not running the country. It is just facilitating business. And why do businesses exist? To make money for their shareholders and who might the major beneficiaries be, again? Those with the most wealth already.

It sounds like Bushism all over again. You see, I live in Bushworld, formerly known as the United States. It was not too long ago that things here made a certain amount of sense, but not anymore.

For example, if some careless hunter accidentally shoots one of his hunting partners, the victim apologizes for the trouble that he has caused the careless one. When the president says that he is spreading democracy, it really means torture, the use of illegal chemical weapons and death.

We have a clean skies act which was passed a couple of years ago. Translation - More pollution.

Your Howard is simply a Bush clone. The name is different but the tactics are the same. Control the media, diseminate propaganda, strip the citizens of their rights (to preserve freedom of course), and the list of atrocities goes on and on.

Welcome to the New World Order folks! No country will be untouched.

Seems odd to have no sources or verification links.

Do a google search on Bush, Howard and Blair!

See how many times you get the keyword War Criminal!

Below is a link to an Australian editorial on Howard's Ten Years. It even states that we dont have a class divide because your plumber has a plasma television

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18262225%255E7583,00.html

The Herald Suns puff piece editorial

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,18325747%255E24218,00.html

Heres one from the Age that again glosses over his lying and only briefly mentions one or two scandals and lists ten reasons for Howards success without even alluding to his crass appeals to racism and nationalism

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/staying-the-distance/2006/02/25/1140670292640.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2

A Sydney Morning Herald Editorial which mentions the scandals but then says Howards legacy is a "more contented" Australia - harsh words indeed!

http://www.smh.com.au/news/editorial/howards-great-achievement-a-contented-country/2006/03/01/1141191730671.html?page=2

A piece by Michelle Grattan of the Age on how history will see Howard that manages to avoid virtually any criticism

http://www.theage.com.au/news/michelle-grattan/he-rates--but-how-high/2006/02/28/1141095737353.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

And so it goes on. I read editorials even in Magazines such as the Big Issue which avoided dealing honestly with Howard's legacy. So Amgine - do some of your research and make up your own mind - I would be pleased to read examples you find from the mainstream press which deal honestly with the littany of lies, racism and class attacks of the last ten years of Howard.