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George Hazim's avatar

Here here Jim. Beautifully said!!

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Jim KABLE's avatar

You have said everything I have wanted to say about AUKUS and Albanese and the unholy connection we've had since WWII with the US. Bravo, bravissimo, GH. In fact it would be best that Australia cancels it right now and requests the return of money already expended. As a nation we certainly don't want or need the awkward AUKUS. Drones of the skies and drones in the deep blue are the future. Submarines are already passé. The fact that it was a Morrison "captain's call" and that he is nowadays in the US with his babblemaniac US buddy Mike Pompeo sucking millions into their personal coffers off the back of AUKUS should make it easy for Albanese to cancel!

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Judy Bancroft's avatar

Yes, exactly and don’t forget Pine Gap and the ever increasing numbers of American military in the Northern Territory. The whole AUKUS scenario should have been presented to the public in the first place - not just a shabby Morrison deal, unceremoniously dumping the French, without due process on such a huge long term commitment as AUKUS. Albo shouldn’t have just rubber stamped it either …..

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George Hazim's avatar

Bob Carr was right then and that remains the case today.

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roger hawcroft's avatar

A cogent and apposite post, George. Thank you.

AUKUS is an arrangement into which we never should have entered. Australia had a real opportunity to purchase sound, reliable and immediately usable submarines from the French. That the deal was scrapped, with little or no warning, and who knows how much subterfuge with USA pressure behind closed doors, was a betrayal of our relationship with the French and, as you so rightly point out, yet another sycophantic act of an Australian government far too fond of them.

Only this last week have we had yet another example of the influence of our ex-sycophantic relationship with Britain, when after the vote of no confidence in the Tasmanian Premier, he had to go to the Governor to seek approval for a new election. She then had the temerity not to grant it when asked but to delay whilst 'she' considered alternatives. In the past, I have had discussions and arguments as to the fawning of our elites over the British monarchy - an obsolescent entity that Britain, even, should have discarded long ago. Often a justification (excuse) for it has been given to me that the Governors and Governor-General must act on the advice of the Premiers or Prime Minister respectively. - So much for that. Fraser, with the connivance of the Palace and G-G John Kerr ousted a legitimately elected government which had the confidence of the House and now we have the Tasmanian Governor ignoring, at least for days, the advice of the Premier.

First Britain, perhaps a little more understandably given that Australia was colonised by the British and used as a dumping ground for those they didn't want and then a road to wealth and elitism by the landed gentry or their favourites; and now the USA, which may have seemed reasonable when it truly at least appeared to attempt to be a reasonable contributor to World freedom and an honest ally, also with some generosity, (though always a spin-off), to poorer nations of the developing world.

Surely, it is time for Australia to assert itself, indeed past time, and to make a stand. Penny Wong has made a mild start by calling out a couple of Netanyahu's criminal warmongers but, no doubt, she would have made a much wider condemnation of Israel's genocidal assault on the Palestinian people but has probably been held back by Cabinet, the old fawning sycophancy and the fear of upsetting the USA - the nation most complicit in protecting Israel and in funding and arming its brutal ethnic cleansing and criminal killing of civilians with apparent impunity and the relative silence or pathetic rebukes of other complicit western nations.

So, yes, we have stalwarts, (though not equals), of both major parties in Keating and Turnbull, who have spoken with clarity about the absurdity of the AUKUS agreement. We have an insane buffoon in the White House who cannot be trusted either by friend or foe and who has already demonstrated that he has no compunction about using the USA Military against his own people; claiming the land of other nations; weakening western joint defence capability in NATO and failure to strengthen Ukraine's situation, stop Netanyahu or build peace with Iran and others rather than push the World to the brink of WWIII.

There has never been a better time in our history for an Australian government to assert that Australia will make its own decisions and stop kow-towing to Britain and the USA. We should get rid of the monarchy, become a republic and out Trump and Netanyahu for the travesty they are as 'leaders' and the continual lies they spread about their own behaviour as well as the demeaning and inaccurate criticisms they make of any individual, group or nation which calls them out.

If ever there was a need for the bush spirit that, (deluded as they were however), motivated our young men to rush off to war with Britain, we need that spirit now - but in order to assert Australian independence and refusal to support world upheaval and genocide by the USA and Israel, and submission to USA dictates or those remaining through the monarchy, over how our nation is run and what decisions and courses of action we take.

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George Hazim's avatar

Another beautifully constructed piece of commentary Roger.

The underlying essence of my piece and the theme of your commentary is as a country has been our overwhelming devotion to a nation that bullied Australia and our and all the while enjoy the sickness of being sycophants. We have long participated in the master-servant relationship and been subservient to US governments as we have done with the poms and voluntarily handed over our intellectual cultural sovereignty to failed nations that have delivered us nothing except pain and anguish. Post WWII every war that we have participated in and supported the Americans, we have done so as subservient enthusiastic lap dogs, all the while, sending off the young men and women of Australia to fight and die in theatres of war that have all been predicated on a lie to serve American economic interests and hegemony,

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roger hawcroft's avatar

Thank you, George. I very much value your views and how you articulate them. We need critical thinkers of your style and I sincerely will that many read and reflect positively on all you have to offer.

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George Hazim's avatar

Another beautifully constructed piece of commentary Roger.

The underlying essence of my piece and the theme of your commentary is as a country has been our overwhelming devotion to a nation that bullied Australia and our propensity all the while to enjoy the sickness of being sycophants. We have long participated in the master-servant relationship and been subservient to US governments as we have done with the poms and voluntarily handed over our sovereignty and national self-esteem to failed nations that have delivered us nothing except pain and anguish.

Just look at every war that we have participated in and supported the Americans post WWII. Australia has behaved as subservient enthusiastic lap dogs, willingly prepared to send young men and women of Australia to fight and die in was that have all been predicated on a lie to serve American economic interests and hegemony. But how did sending Australians to the slaughter of battle serve Australia's interests? They never did.

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Feral Finster's avatar

Albo will do exactly the opposite, he will beg like a lover being ditched don't leave me, please don't leave me, I'll do anything, I'm sorry, I don't even know what I'm sorry for, but I'm sorry, please don't leave me!

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F....'s avatar

Nailed it !

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Diane Engelhardt's avatar

Every self-respecting country needs to give Trump and the USA the finger and jump off the war bandwagon!

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Malcolm Robbins's avatar

It's not just Trump though - they're all much the same when you peel back the surface features. Trump just makes the nature of the US empire hard to ignore.

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F....'s avatar

Bingo !

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D’en's avatar

https://redinvertedtriangle.podbean.com/e/conversation-with-wendy-bacon-and-yaakov-aharon-on-the-zionist-lobby-in-australia/

Podcast episode by Palestinian Australian on the influence of The Zionist Lobby in Australia

It’s not about AUkUS but … listen up

⬆️

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Jim KABLE's avatar

Thanks for this link D'en. Brilliant interview of Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon- and confirming everything I have picked up from wide reading and observation! It deserves widespread dissemination to counter Michael Danby, Jillian Segal, Ophir Birenbaum, Ralph Epstein, Mark Liebler - Jewish Board of Deputies, Executive Council of Australia Jewry, the Zionist Federation of Australia - and their offshoots and "hasbara" campaigns - indoctrination of Jewish children in schools and synagogues and via excursion trips to Israel - to Auschwitz...The one thing I did not hear was any discussion of the role of Mossad and of the Zionist Israeli Embassy in Canberra - in the so-called anti-Semitic attacks taking place in Sydney, Melbourne, etc.

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Alec's avatar

The guardian 2014 ~ "Former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr has suggested Julia Gillard’s dogged insistence on supporting Israel in a controversial United Nations vote was because Australian foreign policy had been “subcontracted” to Jewish donors"

the subcontractors will be particularly active in 2025

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/09/bob-carr--gillard-foreign-policy-jewish-donors

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Jim KABLE's avatar

Brilliant piece (I have a vague memory of it)! And your site, too - I like all that I scrolled down...

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D’en's avatar

Sorry that link didn’t work

Try this one 👇🏽

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/red-inverted-triangle-podcast/id1773517506?i=1000712559214

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Jim KABLE's avatar

The previous link worked for me... again - thanks.

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D’en's avatar

If Albo does indeed ‘look back’

he will become - as did Eurydice when Oedipus looked back -

locked into the (United States of American Empire) underworld forever - and thus forgotten

He will hopefully not look back and will walk away with a straight back

But …

If he can’t even say the word Genocide …

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Marianne Neave's avatar

Yes!

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F....'s avatar

The moment he tries he will be replaced by someone even more willing to bend over forward or backwards in order to accommodate Washington's increasingly illogical diktat by yet another inner party coup, guaranteed.

Australia is a US puppet state.

Edit, I wrote increasingly illogical diktat....my bad

Given that Washington's narrative has always been illogical to start with then it cannot increase either.

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James Wilkes's avatar

Go for it Albo, middle finger mate, and good riddance to that clown. 👍

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litoralis's avatar

one correction. you said AUKUS would cost Australians up to $368B.

My understanding is that theres no agreed upper limit. I think that figure is just a rough ballpark one to make it appear theres something more to the agreement rather than paying the american empire whatever it tells us to in exchange for whatever it feels like sending us.

oh and its potentially sending its surplus military equipment to us not for our sovereign purposes but USAs.

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Malcolm Robbins's avatar

Good stuff - as a close Kiwi observer though I suspect Albo will NOT be up to the task. I'm also sad to say our NZ govt these days are equally sycophantic.

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