May 3 election - Don’t leave politics to the politicians!

 Written by: CPA (M-L) on 28 March 2025

 

On May 3 Australians will exercise their democratic right to vote for whoever will next misrepresent them in Parliament.

The vote is important.  It was fought for many years ago.

But actual democracy is largely illusory.

The big end of town, with its money and its media, has powerful means of influencing and controlling public opinion such that the dominant ideas are those of the dominant class.

Whether Labor or the Coalition win the election, there will be no sudden outbreak of independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy. There will be no withdrawal from our role in supporting US plans for war with China.

Whether Labor or the Coalition win the election, there will be no about-turn in economic policy to solve the housing crisis and the cost-of-living crisis. It is not that there is not enough money for governments to act – there is too much money and it is in the wrong hands, at the big end of town. But don’t expect the selfish rich to be made to pay – politicians do not dare touch them.

It is true that Labor has passed some laws demanded by the unions, and that there are differences with the Coalition over nuclear power. Despite the hopes and progressive ideas of many rank and file ALP members and voters, the "top brass" of the ALP in government will deliver more of the same servitude to US domination of Australia. Far better to seek out Independents with progressive policies, or the Greens, than to perpetuate the parliamentary version of the “difference” between Coles and Woolworths. Better still – to rely on our united strength  in people’s struggles.

The proximity of the election to May Day will lead some opportunist elements within the union movement to try to make re-election of Labor the focus of May Day. That would be a disservice to the working class. We must stand for our own independent agenda as a class regardless of which party of capitalism is put into office.

Whether Labor or the Coalition win the election, we must refuse to be sent back to our rooms to play.  We must not leave politics to the politicians. We must make our voices heard in our workplaces and communities, in our social media and out on the streets.

Against Zionism, and for the Palestinian people!
Out of the US “Alliance” - stop AUKUS!
Genuine self-determination for First Peoples!
For an anti-imperialist independence and socialism!

GO NORTH OLD MAN

Written by: Humphrey McQueen on 27 March 2025

 

Trump’s pledge to push the boundary of the United States of America 2,000 kilometres north is not another rush of blood but channels 300 years of imperial rivalries over resources. 

In the grip of ‘now-ists,’ all ‘News’ is fake because it comes from the ‘context of no context,’ a blight made worse by journalists afflicted with the compulsion to accuse anyone able to rub two facts together of running a conspiracy theory. Conventional wisdom around academe passes scholarly myopia off as expertise so that Clinton Fernandes can be chastised for sullying international relations with economics in What Uncle Sam Wants (2019).

 

Take up the contexts of Trump’s annexation of Canada at Britain’s 1759 victory over France at Quebec on the Plains of Abraham, securing barrels of Newfoundland cod to feed slaves on West Indian plantations and the Hudson Bay Company’s monopoly over beaver pelts.

 

Marquis de La Fayette joined the Continental Army (1) in 1777 in the War for Independence against Britain’s Hessian mercenaries. To entice the victorious Americans away from their French backers, in 1783 London talked about handing over Canada. Meanwhile, defeated Tories headed north. 

 

Blockading Napoleonic Europe thirty years later, the Royal Navy stopped other nations trading with its enemy. In response to attacks on U.S.  merchant vessels, President Madison authorised incursions into Upper Canada in 1812, which led to open warfare. The Duke of Wellington pointed to the difficulties of defending its borderless frontier. Two years later, a British force burned down the Capitol Building and the White House.

 

After the collapse of the Spanish Empire and with Britain’s unchallenged naval power after Waterloo, President Monroe in 1823 warned off European powers. His Doctrine soon turned into a land claim, starting with Texas in 1837 before annexing what became the States of Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico, (not forgetting Hawaii in the 1890s). 

 

The U.S. annexation of ‘America’ for its quarter of the Western hemisphere makes Trump’s renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America nothing new. Does anyone around the Oval Office have the faintest after whom the entire hemisphere had been named in 1507, before being reserved for the southern half in 1537? (2) While Trump is at it, he could follow Tony Abbott’s lead and rebadge the threatened annexation ‘Canadia.’

 

Financial panic distracted Washington from the 1837-8 rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada before Congress agreed in 1839 to a $10m. war budget and 50,000 conscripts, reviving schemes to bring Canada into the Union. Continentalists assumed that Canadians would rush to join the Land of the Free, apparent in the accompanying map from 1888. 

 

Lincoln’s campaigns against Confederate independence involved the British whose government backed the slaveholders’ rebellion to secure cotton and to stymie competition from textile mills in New England.

 

Richard A. Preston documented the next eighty years in The Defence of the Undefended Border Planning for War in North America, 1867-1939 (Montreal; McGill-Queens University Press, 1977). 

 

In response to the victorious Union Army’s genocidal expansion westward against the Amerindians, London revived its decades-old plan to bring Ottawa, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick together as a self-governing Dominion.  

 

Within hours of Royal Assent to the British North America Act on March 29, 1867, the U.S. of A. applied pressure from the west by paying the Czar $7.2m. for Alaska. At the same time, it hoped to squeeze from the north-east by acquiring Greenland from Denmark, on which Trump also has his sights for minerals, as in the Ukraine. 

 

The conga-line of High-Tech chieftains at his second coming are after shares of the copper and rare earths to extend their energy-gobbling networks.

In the 1880s, the President of the U.S. Naval War College, Admiral Mahon, surveyed The Influence of Naval Power upon History 1660 and 1783 (1890) through the Royal Navy’s rise to global dominance, attending to its operations in the West Indies and along both the North American coastlines. As a disciple of Mahon, Teddy Roosevelt dispatched the ‘Great White Fleet’ around the world in 1908 as a warning to Britain as much as Germany or Japan.

 

Doughboys landed in France in 1917 with the battle cry ‘Lafayette. We are here,’ suggesting that although they were happy to help France, they had not forgotten who their common enemy had been.

 

No sooner had the U.S. of A. stopped fighting alongside the British Empire, than Washington strategists drew up ‘War Plan Red’ as a contingency for armed conflict against its erstwhile ally. A joint US Army-Navy force would take Halifax to block British reinforcements, seize power plants near Niagara Falls, occupy Montreal, the railhead at Winnipeg and Ontario nickel mines, while the Navy secured the Great Lakes and blockaded its Good Neighbour’s Atlantic and Pacific ports.

 

Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1937 saw Plan Red’s being abandoned since Washington no longer feared that London and Tokyo might combine against it, as Britain and the U.S. of A. had eighty years earlier to inflict unequal trade treaties on Meiji Japan. 

 

Canada became a founding member of N.A.T.O. in 1948, the U.S.-dominated GATT and then WTO, before signing up to a Free Trade deal with the U.S. of A. from 1989 before its extension to Mexico in 1994 as the North American Free Trade Agreement established a continent for a market and a market for the continent.

 

The U.S. wrote the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement which signalled an end to Imperial Preference in trade and installed the Greenback as good as the gold in Fort Knox, which it was until the late 1960s, since when its military-industrial complexes have kept the dollar Almighty, enabling it to flick the switches at the system for international electronic financial transfers, SWIFT. 

 

The U.S. of A. writes the rules for the rest of us to take their orders. Washington is not a signatory to the Law of the Sea Convention yet when China does not accept a ruling it is confronted by the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait.

 

The U.S. of A. withdrew from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in 1986 and sanctions staff of the International Criminal Court.

 

Enforcing the Extra-territoriality of its laws, Washington fined France’s BNP Paribas $US8.9bn in 2014 for trading with Iran, forgetful of Reagan’s Iran-Contra deals of the 1980s.

 

Madison Avenue manifested American destiny by alerting the world’s consumers to our being latent U.S. Americans. For them, there is no ‘other.’

 

In the midst of dismantling its Department of Education, Washington is telling Australian universities that research funding will be cut off if they persist with diversity, inclusion and equality, or in being bribed by anyone but the U.S. corporate-warfare state, above all, by its commercial competitor, the Peoples Republic of China. 

 

On May 14, last year, Biden’s White House quadrupled the tariff on Chinese EVs to 100 percent. To protect the Trump-Biden tariff wars, successive administrations have, since 2019, blocked the appointment of new judges to the Appellate body of the World Trade Organisation. 

 

U.S. diplomacy remains a near-run thing between hypocrisy and mendacity. 

 

Its latest Globalism trumpets what had been true all along in Teddy Roosevelt’s ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick.,’: ‘America’ first!

 

 

Marxist historian Humphrey McQueen's works include A New Britannia, From Gallipoli to Petrov, Suspect History, Australia’s Media Monopolies, Japan to the Rescue, Gone Tomorrow, Framework of Flesh and We Built This City.

 

(1) The Continental Army was created to coordinate the military efforts of the colonies in the war against the British, who sought to maintain control over the American colonies -eds.

(2) The earliest known use of the name America dates to April 25, 1507, when it was applied to what is now known as South America. It is generally accepted that the name derives from Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer. He disproved Columbus’s claim that the West Indies and the South American continent were part of the East Asian land mass and established that South America was a separate continent – eds.

Federal government breaks critical environmental promise

Written by: Leo A, on 25 March 2025

 

(Original image from the Australian)

On February 5, the Albanese Administration’s promise to create an environmental protection agency in the current parliamentary term was finally killed off. One Labor insider admitted to The Saturday Paper that this was due to the government having "the most powerful business interests in the country screaming" over the proposed legislation. 

In our current political system, it is easy for our so-called "leaders" to easily make promises that they know won’t be kept, and face no consequences in the aftermath. Similarly, it is easy for government to follow the will of big corporations and other fundamentally undemocratic forces, again without facing any consequences for betraying the interests both of the working masses and of our natural environments. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young described the decision as "a stunning capitulation to vested interests in the mining and logging lobby". 

The legislation aimed to establish Australia’s first independent national environmental regulator to enforce environmental laws, improve transparency, and enact stronger nature and wildlife protections. This, of course, is within a context of ongoing environmental catastrophe both in Australia and across the planet. And this catastrophe is affecting both well-documented ecosystems and species, and those which have yet to be sufficiently understood. Across the Pacific, the presumed-extinct South American Tapir has recently been sighted for the first time in over a century, and this Hidden Threatened Species is just one of countless examples that demonstrate that even the long lists of wildlife at risk of extinction are incomplete.  

Under capitalism, environmental protection is an uphill struggle, as any promises can be broken and any progress can be reversed. But it is a necessary struggle. For every presumed-extinct species that turns up alive, a dozen more - perhaps even a hundred more - are truly lost forever. Under socialism vast changes to protect these species will finally become fathomable, but we must still do what we can until then. 

 

 

Book Review: Mood Machine The rise of Spotify and the costs of the perfect Playlist

 Written by: Duncan B. on 25 March 2025

 

As Vanguard recently reported, music streaming service Spotify has been accused of helping to destroy the Australian music industry. A new book Mood Machine. The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by US music journalist Liz Pelly, exposes the dark side of Spotify, and the harm it is causing musicians.

Spotify was founded in 2006 in Sweden by advertising industry men Martin Ek and Daniel Lorentzon. Since then, Spotify has grown into a $67 billion media conglomerate.

This wealth has come at the expense of the musicians who whose creations Spotify exploits. The big three companies Sony, Universal and Warner control 70% of the recorded music market. Pelly shows how Spotify serves the interests of these companies, while making it difficult for independent record companies and musicians to get their work featured on Spotify.

Spotify also uses session musicians, and more recently Artificial Intelligence, to create a lot of the music on Spotify’s playlists. This means they have to pay even less for the music they stream.

Payments to musicians for each stream are pitifully low and hidden in an obscure payment system. A figure of $0.0035 per stream is often quoted to show how low payments are. In 2021 musicians mounted a campaign against Spotify, demanding that payment be raised to one cent per stream. They also called for an end to Spotify’s programme “Discovery Mode.” This is where musicians can accept lower royalty payments in return for algorithmic promotion of their music on Spotify.

In 2014 Taylor Swift removed her music from Spotify. She was quoted as saying, “I’m not willing to contribute my life’s work to an experiment that I don’t feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music.”

Another risk from Spotify is the vast amount of data which Spotify harvests from its users. This data is then sold to data brokers for the use of advertisers. Currently, Spotify derives about 13% of itsrevenue from advertising, and aims to raise this to 20%.

Like the other tech companies Amazon, Meta and X, Spotify spends millions of dollars lobbying the US government in order to protect their interests. We are seeing this lobbying in action at presentwith the big tech companies lobbying to get the Trump government to take punitive measures against Australia and other countries which try to impose any sort of regulatory controls, restrictions, taxes or payments on these companies.

In trying to find a solution to the stranglehold that Spotify has on the music industry, Pelly sees the need for musicians to come together to find independent alternatives to Spotify to promote their music. These include community-based streaming services, based for instance in libraries. Here local
artists can make their music available within their community.

She says, “At a time when the music industry has insistently sold the idea of the hyper-individualistic solo creative entrepreneur as the model independent artist—where every artist is meant to act like the CEO of their own little media empire—there’s power in collectives of artists pushing back, and asserting that true independence comes from working together with the people in your community to build an alternative.” As one independent musician told her, “The music industry is not trying to help musicians. It’s going to come down to us, but they’ll do everything they can to break us.”

Australians have been world leaders in music, whether it be classical music, opera, folk music, country music or any of the many genres of pop and rock music. We must not let foreign-owned technological companies destroy this heritage.

Imperialists used religion to justify their actions

Written by: Duncan B. on 25 March 2025

 

Marx wrote about the economic structure of society and of the legal and political superstructure which arises on it. As recent articles in Vanguard have shown, culture is a part of the superstructure. Religion is another part of that superstructure.

For centuries, colonisers and imperialists, such as the Spanish Conquistadores in South America, the British colonisers of America and the British, Dutch, French, Belgian, German and Italian invaders of Africa, India, Asia and Australia have used religion as a justification for their marauding. 

They interpreted passages in the Bible to justify their conquests. (1)  From the 15th century, several Popes authorised and blessed the activities of the Spanish and Portuguese colonisers of Africa and South America with a number of Papal Bulls.

One Bull issued in 1454 allowed the Portuguese to take possession of any land they discovered in Africa, and to enslave any non-Christian inhabitants they encountered. A Bull issued in 1493, after Columbus returned from his first voyage to the Americas, defined the demarcation between Spanish and Portuguese territory in the New World.  This Bull, and another issued in 1529, gave the Spanish ruler the authority to compel the native people to convert to Christianity, by force if necessary. This the Spanish zealously did, while also enslaving or massacring thousands of Azteca and Incas.

Although the Papal Bulls referred specifically to Spain and Portugal, other European nations such as Britain and France, interpreted this “Doctrine of Discovery” to mean that they too had a divinely sanctioned, papal-endorsed right to own any lands they discovered and to colonise any non-Christian inhabitants.

The imperialists also used the so-called “Curse of Ham” as a justification for enslaving black people. In the Book of Genesis, a drunken Noah placed a curse on his son Ham, Ham’s son Canaan and all their descendants, condemning them to perpetual slavery. (2)

From the fifteenth century, religious leaders cited this “Curse of Ham” as justification for enslaving black people, based on a mistranslation of “Ham” as meaning “black-skinned” from the original Hebrew. 

The indigenous inhabitants of the countries conquered by the imperialist powers were invariably seen as being members of “inferior races”, “primitives”, “heathens”, “savages” and “cannibals”. Missionaries sought to “save their souls” and convert them to the missionaries’ particular version of the one true religion. They did not care that the intended converts had their own centuries-old belief systems. This certainly was the case in Australia. At the time of the colonisation of Australia, the spiritual beliefs of Australia’s indigenous people were tens of thousands of years old.

From the 1820’s missionaries set about trying to Christianise, “educate” and assimilate Aboriginal people into colonial society. Indigenous languages and cultural practices were banned at the missions. Children were separated from their parents so that they could not learn their language and culture from their elders. The same happened in other countries that the imperialists invaded. Cultural oppression, along with massacres, enslavement, disease and dispossession were the weapons imperialists used against the indigenous peoples wherever they set foot. A fig leaf of religion covered naked greed.

(1) For example, in the Old Testament, Genesis 1:27 and 28. “So God created main in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he him. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have domination over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Then there is Psalm 2 verses 7 and 8. “Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” A justification for imperialism and its treatment of native peoples if ever there was one!

In the New Testament, St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 13:1 and 2 continues in this vein. “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” This was the fate of any Aztecs, Incas, Native Americans, indigenous Australians or any other indigenous people that resisted the colonial invaders.

(2) Genesis 9:24 and 25. “And Noah awoke from his wine and, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”

Why are we paying $200 million to store torpedoes for the US Navy?

Written by: Nick G. on 25 March 2025

 

(Image source: Australia Pacific Defence Reporter)

 

Two days ago, the Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery, Pat Conroy announced the purchase from the US of $200 million worth of Lockheed Martin MK-48  Heavy Weight Torpedoes. 

Conroy stated that the torpedoes would be “a critical boost to the defensive and offensive capabilities of Australia’s Collins class submarines. The MK-48 will also be used on Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarines.”

He also noted that the MK-48 is the product of a “joint program between the Australian Government and United States Government. This involves the joint development of MK-48 hardware and software...”

The torpedoes will be sent in sections that are assembled and tested at the Torpedo Maintenance Facility in Western Australia, which is also certified to assemble, maintain and test the weapon for use in United States Navy platforms.

This very brief statement did not include the glowing praise for the deal outlined on the US online Breaking Defence website.

According to this website, a spokesperson from the Strategic Analysis Australia thinktank said, “Essentially you can take an RAN torpedo that has been maintained and stored at HMAS Stirling and load it into a US Navy submarine. More Mk-48 torpedoes in Australia’s inventory means we can provide them to USN submarines that are part of Submarine Rotation Force-West .”

So, we are purchasing torpedoes which we helped design and build so that in addition to placing them on Australian submarines, they can be part of a joint, shared inventory at no cost to the US.

The joint US-Australia MK48 project was entered into on March 21, 2003.

It was further defined in a Defense Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Australia signed in 2009. According to this MOU, the two countries were to share in financing the project on the basis of an 85:15 US:Australia ratio. Between 2010 and 2019, Australia agreed to pay US$61.089 million 

The testing of various iterations of the MK-48 have taken place in the US and at the Torpedo Analysis Facility (TAF), located at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) in Edinburgh, South Australia.  More recently, the Australian testing is to be done in Western Australia, as noted above.

Why was the torpedo purchase as a joint warstock inventory of interoperable and interchangeable US and Australia navies not mentioned in Conroy’s press statement?

If the AUKUS arrangements fall apart, as many predict, and the life of extension modifications to the existing Collins class subs do not keep them in service for more than a few years, who has operational control of $200 million worth of MK-48 torpedoes warehoused in WA?

Are we really doing anything more than once again subsidising the US war machine?

We need to break free from our subservience to the US and achieve a genuine national independence and sovereignty. 

 

Trump government tries to turn back time to revive US capitalism

 Written by: Ned K. on 23 March 2025

 

Donald Trump; William McKinley (Getty/Mandel Ngan/National Archive/Newsmakers)

When Trump campaigned for US Presidency under the slogan "Make America Great Again", it was not very clear what period of time of US capitalism he was referring to. Was it the pre- Biden Presidency period, or the Cold War period of the 1950s or Roosevelt's New Deal period before the Second World War?

According to Trump's Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, none of the above!

Lutnick's idea "Make America Great Again" is a 21st Century version of the pre-1900 President William McKinley period. In this period, US corporations were making huge profits supported by a government making revenue from high tariffs and a relatively low portion of revenue from income tax. Lutnick's "modernization" of the McKinley era is to add a $5 million "gold card" visas payment to be made by wealthy foreign business tycoons to live in the United States. According to Lutnick, US allies could choose to be "in or outside the tariff tent" by setting up businesses in the United States or providing the Trump administration and US multinational corporations with whatever they wanted from allies such as the Australian Government.

Hence Trump and his cronies like Commerce Secretary Lutnick expect the Australian to give US corporations primary access to minerals such as lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earths.

The demands of the US pharmaceutical corporations on the Australian government to dismantle the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is also part of the plan to emulate the McKinley Presidential period.

The Australian Financial Review on Thursday 20 March commented that the US demand for complete subservience of its allies was alive and well when Obama was President. According to Joe Hockey, imperialist rivalry between the US and China at the time led Obama to demand that Australian government cease all export of iron ore to China!

At that time and to this day, iron ore exports to China are about 80% of all iron ore exports which amount to over $100 billion.

40% of all exports from Australia go to China.

As imperialist rivalry between China and the US intensifies, the Trump administration is likely to turn the screws on its allies such as the Australian government even more, in order for US imperialism to try and regain its ascendency as an economic powerhouse.

There is a rising tide of resistance to US imperialism's current economic aggression towards Australia. This is reflected even by outbursts from politicians like Jacquie Lambie calling on the Australian government to hit back by closing Pine Gap and cancelling the rotation of US troops in northern Australia.

Both the current Albanese government and the "wanna be" government led by Dutton have been forced to re-define their message about acting in the "national interest". However, the defence minister Richard Marles has quickly chimed in that any counter measures by the government to the current US tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium exports to the US will NOT include any change to Australia's commitment to AUKUS, the nuclear-powered submarine agreement with the US, or the Australia- US Alliance.

People's struggle for Australian independence from US imperialism and its rival China will inevitably grow as people see that the major political parties continue to toe the US line.

 

Condemn the Zionist state’s resumption of genocidal war

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 20 March 2025

 

(Above:before and after the criminal gang's resumption of bombing in Gaza)

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) condemns in the strongest possible terms the Israeli Zionist state’s resumption of its genocidal war to eliminate Palestinians in Gaza.

An initial estimate of 400 killed by Israeli bombing of many areas including refugee camps and health centres, has now been revised by Hamas to as many as 900,  incliding 174 children.

The Nazi-like Israeli state always says that it is targeting Hamas militants but in fact its primary aim is to depopulate both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank so that the governing Likud Party can achieve its stated aim of Israeli rule from the river to the sea.

The resumption of bombing followed Israel’s decision in early March to suspend food, water and electricity supply to Gaza in an attempt to stare the population into submission.

The war criminal Netanyahu boasted that his latest crimes had the full support and encouragement of Trump, and the latter displayed that support with bombing of Yemen’s Houthis.

There is simply no end to the bloodlust of Netanyahu and his Zionist cronies.

He had never intended to honour the ceasefire agreement that took effect last January 19 and could not wait to reopen his war of annihilation of the Palestinian people.

Trump recently approved the delivery of $3 billion worth of bombs, missiles and other weapons to Israel. It undermined the ceasefire agreement by supporting the Israeli demand that the Palestinian forces release all its prisoners immediately, contrary to the scheduled releases agreed upon in the ceasefire agreement.  Trump’s ambition to place Gaza under US ownership and development as a coastal resort for billionaires built over the bones of 60,000 civilians (including 17,500 children) is an obscenity that outrages decent humanity.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine asserted that “the occupation has committed its crimes and massacres in Gaza with prior planning as part of a comprehensive war of extermination.”

The Front called on “all international parties to take immediate action to stop the war of extermination in Gaza.”

We are confident that Australians will support that call. 

We acknowledge the growing protests in Israel against Netanyahu and his policies. Two days ago, more than 40,000 took to the streets of Tel Aviv chanting “The time has come to topple the dictator”.

We condemn Foreign Minister Wong’s failure to identify Israel as the criminal violator of the ceasefire.  She has blamed both sides equally, calling on “all parties to respect the terms of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal”.

The reality is that one side has and one side hasn’t.

Wong contradicted herself within the space of one sentence, following up her call to respect the terms of the hostage deal by saying “Terrorist group Hamas must release all hostages immediately, unconditionally and with dignity.”

She can’t have it both ways. And if she had any integrity, she would apply the “terrorist” label to the Israelis.

Back to the streets comrades!

For the survival of Palestine and Palestinians.

 

DOGE firings may not AID Trump’s survival

 Written by: (Contributed) on 12 March 2025

 

(Above: sourced from thetonymichaels.substack.com)

 

An internal memo from inside the Trump administration in Washington has revealed most of the USAID foreign programs are not scheduled to re-open after their ninety day suspension. It comes as no great surprise for informed observers, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region.

News that about a third of staffers employed by the DOGE have resigned in protest at government cuts, however, was not anticipated; it shows a substantial groundswell of public opinion opposed to the presidential administration and its policies is taking place.

Information contained in a memo has revealed the Trump administration intend to save an estimated US$60 billion from closing about ninety per cent of the present USAID program, cutting 5800 of the 6200 existing programs. (1) The move marks a dramatic shift away from traditional US diplomacy which was based in foreign assistance to safeguard 'US interests'.

With the Indo-Pacific becoming a theatre for aggressive diplomacy against China, the moves, at face value, appear contradictory and nonsensical. They appear to have taken place in an air of right-wing popularism couched in terms of criticisms that the existing programs advance liberal agendas which have been assessed as not being compatible with the position of the Trump administration and its far-right policies.

The aid programs in the region have, historically, been designed to provide assistance to the most needy sections of Pacific Islands, many of which have little, if any, sustainable economic development provision. In the period 2012-2022 the US provided US$1.5 billion with the US-Pacific Co-operation program, together with a further US$810 million for expanded programs. (2)

Pacific Islands' governments have tended to remain dependent upon neo-colonial financiers which invariably exploit the mass of the population. Programs which have concentrated upon food and medical provision together with governance to provide political stability have been a useful contribution for millions of people.

Whether Australia and other countries now move in to occupy the aid vacuum created by the Trump administration remains to be seen; a statement from Canberra has already noted 'it was unrealistic to think Australia – already the Pacific's largest aid donor – could totally fill the gap left by the US … the announcement has left Australia racing to identify the South Pacific's most pressing funding needs … Australia had started auditing which Pacific programs were most at risk, with a view to shouldering some of the burden'. (3)

The moves by the Trump administration have been accompanied by similar developments in the domestic sphere inside the US; planning to literally gut government spending have already taken place, with further rounds planned in due course. (4)

The unease over DOGE cuts has extended to sections of the military. Kelly Hammett, director of the US Space Rapid Capabilities Office, said his organization risks being “inordinately impacted" by workforce reductions underway with the Trump administration. 

In a Mad magazine Spy vs Spy scenario, he revealed that the Space Force has had a secretive, orbital tool that can gather information on China’s own network of sensors that monitor American satellites. 

As a small organization with roughly 50 civilian and 20 military employees, some in at-risk categories like probationary workers, Hammett warned his office could be disproportionately affected by labour cuts that are underway by the Trump administration. He said he was losing staff, but could not “hire people back because we’re under a hiring freeze”.

Rob Joyce, former director of cybersecurity at the NSA, said "Eliminating probationary employees will destroy a pipeline of top talent essential for hunting and eradicating threats”. 

“I want to raise my grave concerns that the aggressive threats to cut US government probationary employees will have a devastating impact on cybersecurity and our national security,” he said.

Oh, wouldn’t it be a shame if the man who tried to incite a coup was overthrown in one by a military determined to maintain its numbers in the face of DOGE cutbacks.(5)

What has received little publicity, however, is that an open revolt has already started against the position of the Trump administration. In late February a third of the staffers employed by DOGE resigned their positions on the grounds that the spending cuts 'endanger millions of Americans who rely upon these services every day'. (6) Despite employees in government departments receiving emails from DOGE a mass movement of government employees have ignored the correspondence or 'downplayed the risks of not answering it', in defiance of the directive. (7) Basic trade union principles are being re-born.

The moves taken by the Trump administration also remain reminiscent of the Thatcher administration in Westminster, over forty years ago. Their initial economic rationalist policies were on the premise that the economy would 'bottom out' following drastic government spending cuts. Their distorted vision was that a new economy would then arise like a phoenix from the ashes, with trickle-down economic advantage for lower socio-economic groups. It never happened. In fact, in common-sense terms, economies do not reach rock bottom but continue to deteriorate indefinitely without responsible government support.

It is particularly interesting to note, therefore, that the statements from the Trump administration have marked a significant shift away from usual bravado and displays of splendour; they have tended to convey a view that the US is already in terminal decline and not able to lead or defend the west. Their costings appear quite drastic cast against a backcloth of hyper-delusion and megalomania.

It is, ironically therefore, a time when the demand for Australia to pursue an independent foreign policy is winnable!

1.     US to cut 90pc of foreign aid packs, Australian, 28 February 2025.
2.     Fact Sheet: US Embassy and Consulates in Australia, 30 September 2022.
3.     Australian, op.cit., 28 February 2025.
4.     DOGE exodus: one-third of Musk's staff resign in protest, Australian, 27 February 2025.  
5.    Details from US online magazine Breaking Defense
6.     Ibid. Doge exodus…
7.     Ibid.

Forget Plan B – just dump AUKUS now.

Written by: Nick G. on 18 March 2025

 

The united front against AUKUS is definitely growing, with retired Admiral and former head of the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) Chris Barrie calling for a Plan B, and former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calling it “a really bad deal”.

These developments are unconditionally welcomed and strengthen the movement against AUKUS.

At the same time, they require genuine anti-imperialists to ensure that the movement is led by people whose view of Australian independence goes further than a re-tweaking of the so-called Australia-US “Alliance”.

This leadership in turn requires the involvement of the working class in the fight to dump AUKUS.

Labor Against War’s letter to all Labor MP’s, and the passage of motions questioning AUKUS by some 150 ALP sub-branches assist in the mobilisation of Australian working people.

The Plan B calls reflect a growing awareness that the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine arrangements are fatally flawed. 

The US Congressional Research Service says the US can’t build Virginia SSNs at a rate needed to transfer subs to us. The UK Infrastructure & Projects Authority says delivery of AUKUS SSN reactors is unachievable. Even the Australian Navy agrees AUKUS is high risk; yet they stumble on. Trump adds to the uncertainty.

But Plan B proponents generally speak from a belief in the continuing value of the “Alliance” and seek better ways to protect it.

For example, Admiral Chris Barrie, calling for a Plan B on March 13, said the “US is no longer a reliable ally”. He said he had previously supported the idea of acquiring nuclear-powered submarines because of their superior capabilities but was worried there was no guarantee they would arrive under the current AUKUS strategy.

However, he did not criticise the “Alliance”.

Likewise, Turnbull’s comments did not advocate independence from the US stranglehold.

The positive message was that “The most likely outcome of the AUKUS pillar one is that we will end up with no submarines of our own.” 

“There will be Australian sailors serving on US submarines, and we’ll provide them with a base in Western Australia.

“We will have lost both sovereignty and security and a lot of money as well. That’s why I say it is a really bad deal.”

Turnbull’s prediction about how AUKUS will be implemented echoed an opinion piece in the US online Breaking Defense journal.

Under the heading "It’s time to ditch Virginia subs for AUKUS and go to Plan B", Henry Sokolski, referring to the Australian Government’s recent gift of $800 million to help pump-prime US shipyards, said “Because the submarine deal is unlikely to overcome budgetary, organizational, and personnel hurdles, that payment should be Australia’s last.”

His Plan B would cancel the sale of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia “in light of Australia’s budget, organizational, and personnel shortfalls.” Instead, “US and UK subs operating from Australia with RAN sailors and maintained by Australian workers would serve as a sufficient deterrent. The first element of a Plan B is already underway, with US and UK nuclear submarines regularly visiting HMAS Stirling near Perth, including conducting maintenance with a visiting US Navy tender.”

This is just what Turnbull was suggesting might happen.

Sokolski then outlined how an expanded AUKUS Pillar 2, with additional partners South Korea, New Zealand and Canada, should develop “innovative projects” like uncrewed systems, AI, quantum computer science, and hypersonic weapons, which “could deliver technologies that provide most of what the Virginia-class subs would offer for Australia.”

Sokolski’s Plan B, with Turnbull’s warning of its likelihood, shows that more than a Plan B is needed.

What is needed is a break with the US and the removal of its military presence in Australia. This movement needs sufficient strength to last beyond Trump’s four-year term of office, and a recognition that whoever or whatever replaces Trump will try and maintain Pine Gap, North-West Cape, US marines in Darwin, nuclear-armed US bombers based at the Tindal RAAF base outside Katherine, nuclear-armed US and UK submarines based near Perth, US fuel dumps, access to satellite surveillance…and the list goes on.

The only alternative to AUKUS, according to former Australian Ambassador to the US John McCarthy on March 6 is Plan A. “This should not be a Plan B but rather a new Plan A – with the A standing for Australia and not ANZUS, let alone AUKUS.”

For us, Plan A means an independent and peaceful Australia that protects its own sovereignty without the aggressive belligerence that both Labor and Liberals are completely committed to. 
 

Duterte’s ICC arrest a victory for the Filipino people, but struggle for justice continues

Written by: National Democratic Front of the Philippines International Office on 12 March 2025

 

The arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte by virtue of a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a victory for the Filipino people, particularly the thousands of victims of his bloody “war on drugs” and his fascist attacks on the revolutionary movement. It affirms what the people have long known – that Duterte is a mass murderer who must be held accountable for his crimes. However, this does not absolve Marcos Jr. of his own blood debts as he continues the reactionary state’s counterrevolutionary war against the Filipino people.

While we welcome the ICC’s move against Duterte, we also reiterate the crimes of the Marcos Jr. administration. The 2024 International People’s Tribunal (IPT) found both Duterte and Marcos Jr., as well as the US government, guilty of grave violations of international humanitarian law. The findings of the IPT reinforce the fact that state terror and impunity persist under Marcos Jr. and that the fight for justice must extend beyond Duterte’s arrest—it must challenge the continuing fascist repression being waged by the current regime.

The ICC warrant focuses on Duterte’s “war on drugs,” but his crimes extend far beyond this. His regime carried out the systematic killing of NDFP peace consultants, aerial bombings of civilian communities, and the torture and execution of captured Red fighters (hors de combat), all in blatant disregard of the laws of war. These war crimes were not just Duterte’s policy—they remain central to the Marcos Jr. regime’s counterrevolutionary war against the Filipino people. Under Marcos Jr., indiscriminate bombings, enforced disappearances, forced evacuations, and extrajudicial killings continue, proving that the reactionary state will stop at nothing to crush the people’s resistance.

Furthermore, Duterte’s crimes were not his alone, nor were they simply the product of local reactionary politics. US imperialism has long propped up Philippine fascist regimes, providing military aid, training and intelligence to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP). The US-funded “counterinsurgency” programs directly contributed to Duterte’s reign of terror. Even now, under Marcos Jr., US-backed military operations continue to target both revolutionary forces and the legal democratic mass movement. The people’s movement must continue to expose and resist the imperialist role in enabling fascist rule up to this day.

We call on the international community to sustain pressure for Duterte’s immediate prosecution. At the same time, the ICC must exert all necessary measures to compel the Marcos Jr. government to surrender Duterte to ICC jurisdiction. The NDFP International Office stands firmly with the Filipino masses in their fight for justice and genuine national and social liberation. Duterte and his cronies must face the full weight of their actions – not just for their past crimes but to end the continuing reign of impunity in the Philippines. 

Duterte’s arrest, or even his potential conviction, will not dismantle the semicolonial and semifeudal system that breeds fascist rulers and US puppet regimes. Only through a national democratic revolution with a socialist perspective, led by the working class, can the roots of fascist violence be eradicated.