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News Report Issue
55
Index
1. Thought for the day - Neil
2. Opinion: Apology Lunacy - Antonia.
3. Opinion: Government running scared - Antonia
4. Opinion: Nanny State madness - Antonia
5. Opinion: Politically embarassing permanent residents -
Antonia
6. Article: The real goal of feminism -
transforming society, Part 1 - Antonia
7. Life Sciences: Europe sees potential in organic foods -
Forwarded by Veronica
8. Feedback: The nexus between Industry and government -
John
9. Feedback: Pentagon study finds China preparing for war -
AGS
10. Feedback: Workplace agreements - Richard
11. Feedback: Tax made easy for you - David
12. Feedback: On economic rationalism - Martin
13. Feedback: GST Issues - Philip
14. Feedback: Environmental settlements.
15. Feedback Contacts:
16. Editorial Policy:
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1. Thought for the day:
"When faith is lost, when honour dies, the man is
dead". (Whittier, Ichabod).
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2. Opinion:
Apology lunacy
Yesterday we mentioned apology mania. Well it seems the mania has progressed (regressed?) to plain lunacy. Deadria Farmer-Paellmann is a 34-year-old lawyer who has made it her mission in life to petition US corporations to apologise for their involvement in slavery in America. After being approached by Ms Farmer-Paellmann, America's top insurance company, Aetna Inc., is considering making a public apology for insuring slaves in the US 150 years ago. The company is also considering increasing sponsorship for black students as restitution. Aetna spokesman Fred Laberge said, "Aetna has long acknowledged that for several years after its founding in 1853, it may have insured the lives of slaves. We express our deep regret over any participation at all in this deplorable practice." (Reuters, 8/3/00). Instead of cowering before the very politically correct Ms Farmer-Paellmann, Fred should have pointed out to her that contrary to the popular myth, it was the Africans themselves who did much of the enslaving, only too happy to deliver their tribal enemy captives to the waiting European ships. One can only wonder at the effect of such information: would she then insist today's Africans also apologise for enslaving their own people? And what about the south Sudanese Christians who are currently being enslaved? Does she care? Then there are all the families in bonded servitude in India. Again, does she care? These activists never seem to have any moral balance. Antonia -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Antonia
I believe that it has something to do with money.
Impoverished Indians or Sudanese Christians are never going to have the sort of
money that makes blackmail of Multinational corporates or morally bankrupt
Western Governments such attractive targets for such adventurers.
Neil
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3. Opinion: Government running scared The federal government is considering a $1 billion package covering health, education, telecommunications and roads for the bush. The bush rightly regards this with cynicism: if the government professes concern for regional Australia now, why did they so ruthlessly gut it with the callous national competition policy in the first place? It's just as we said yesterday: "The government is only paying attention to the bush because it's squawking too loudly as its last pin-feathers are being painfully plucked." . The government fears a voter backlash. The government is in survival mode. Hence the bribe. If there's any principle among bush voters they will not be bought, and they will deliver this government its comeuppance. The Coalition only has to lose 6 seats to lose government, and 14 of its much touted majority are marginal. Roll on the next election. Antonia +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4. Opinion: Nanny-state madness Whatever has happened to common sense? It's certainly isn't common any more. Take education. The Victorian Law Foundation has produced a guide for teachers titled, "Teachers, Students and the Law" because under consumer protection laws, teachers can be sued. The guide says "sensible, careful teaching will ensure that teachers avoid trouble". Trouble might be: * Failing "to provide the level or quality of service expected under the contract" * Failing to identify learning difficulties * Carelessness in duties * Careless careers advice. We used to deride the Americans for their ridiculous tendency to sue at the drop of a hat, and now we've gone down the same road. Readers will be pleased to know that the guide says it's OK for teachers to give encouraging pats on the shoulder or arm. What does it say about our society that teachers need to be told it's OK to physically demonstrate approval by a pat? Or to soothe a hurt child with a reassuring cuddle? Teachers once were regarded as being 'in loco parentis' - in the place of the parent. Antonia +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
5. Opinion:
Politically embarrassing permanent residents Oh dear, how embarrassing. On Tuesday, a busload of people protesting about the GST on the rent of permanent residents in caravan parks arrived in Canberra. They said it was clearly discrimination that while their rent would attract the GST, the rent of people in houses wouldn't. They're right. One man said he pays $78 for his 10 x 14 metre site, and that the GST will add an extra $4 a week (ABC Radio's PM, 14/3/00). The trouble is that globalisation's winners like Graeme Samuel and Mark Patterson simply have no understanding that the loss of $4 a week is important when you're poor. Or if they do, they don't care, and neither response enhances their reputation. It's a very interesting political situation - though I'm sure John Howard wouldn't use that word. There are 160,000 people living permanently in caravan parks, most of them in marginal electorates. The Liberal party member for Kalgoorlie tried to put the best spin on it, though he has 14,000 such residents in his electorate. On PM, he waffled on about how the GST on caravan parks was justified, because most residents are tourists and holiday-makers. And whether he had permission to say so or not, he even said that normal rental rates are expected to rise by 7 per cent, and that consequently caravan park residents ought to be happy that their rents are only going to rise by 5 per cent. Antonia +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
6. Article: THE REAL GOAL OF FEMINISM: TRANSFORMING
SOCIETY
Speech to The Inverell Forum 2000 by Antonia Feitz 12/3/00 (in 2 parts) Thank you Dennis, for your introduction. And thank you to the organisers for inviting me to speak at this Inverell Forum 2000. 1. The problem Ladies and gentlemen, my topic is feminism and some of you may be wondering why, given our country's parlous state. Despite a stream of propaganda claiming that Australia is enjoying record prosperity , we all know nothing could be further from the truth. Now let's be fair, there certainly are some records being set. We've got a record foreign debt, record current account deficits, record all-time low household savings. I could go on, but you get the picture. Australia's allegedly booming economy is nothing more than unproductive mergers and acquisitions, financial speculation, and record consumer spending on credit. For example, according to the Australian (3/2/00), "News Corp is now valued at $78.5 billion, close to twice its value of four months ago." A company doubling its value in four months is hardly productive growth as most people understand the phrase. But there's worse. Our national sovereignty is being destroyed by the the over-riding of our domestic laws and the signing of UN treaties - with no consultation and with no public or even parliamentary debate. So why feminism? Because feminists are at the vanguard of the phalanx of fools, the useful idiots, the ideologues, who are destroying our hard won rights and our national sovereignty. We live in an age of ideology. God has been pronounced dead, and Chesterton's witticism has proven true: when people no longer believe in God, they'll believe in anything. And the post-Christian people of the West are proof, holding beliefs which their grandparents would have dismissed as absolute nonsense, and contrary to all common sense let alone morality. Take extreme environmentalists. Apart from literally worshipping trees, they exalt the welfare of frogs and even insects over that of people. Believe it or not, there's even a Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.(www.vhemt.org). Homosexuals demand their relationships be accorded equal status with marriage, including the 'right' to adopt children. And under the banner of multiculturalism, Australian children are either kept ignorant, or taught to be ashamed of their own heritage and history, while simultaneously being taught to value ethnic and especially indigenous cultures. But arguably, feminism is the most pernicious of the ideologies that plague us, simply because the relationship between men and women affects all of us. I must stress that modern feminists are not the heirs of the suffragettes, who fought for equal rights such as the right to vote and property rights. They're not seeking equal rights for women. They want to transform society, and that's no conspiracy theory because they freely admit it. The sexes must be identical. Take CEDAW. It's the acronym for the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. (You can discriminate against men till the cows come home). This convention's goals are not reformists, but revolutionary. It openly calls for the elimination of traditional sex roles, and the re-writing of text books to purge them of alleged sexual stereotypes. The UN call for the total disarmament of the world's people is embedded in CEDAW's preamble. According to the feminists who constitute the CEDAW Committee, until nations achieve a 50-50 sexual split in everything - in occupations, in public life, and even in the domestic sphere - they are discriminating against women. Now that might sound far-fetched, but article 5 of CEDAW advocates "a proper understanding of maternity as a social function." Note the socialist bullying in the word, 'proper'. This "proper understanding" demands that child-rearing - universally! - should be "a fully shared responsibility ... by both sexes." It also insists that society has an obligation to extend child care services to "allow individuals to combine family responsibilities with work and participation in public life." The message to women is: you will participate in work and public life whether you want to or not. In a now notorious interview with Betty Friedan, Simon de Beauvoir said: "No woman should be authorised to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one." So much for freedom of choice. These bully-girls demand "a change in the traditional role of men as well as the role of women in society and in the family ... to achieve full equality of men and women". Their version of equality is complete identity. It's reminiscent of communist China in Mao's time. The communists (and all socialists ) were all feminists too. Remember? To achieve the goal of sexual identity, article 10c mandates the revision of textbooks, school programmes and teaching methods with a view to eliminating stereotyped concepts. This must be why one of my children's French textbooks showed Dad in an apron washing the dishes while Mum, dressed in a chic suit and carrying a briefcase, waved ta-ta to the baby in the high-chair. A French textbook! Textbooks in all subjects are being used to indoctrinate children in our schools. It's just too bad if individuals prefer the traditional roles when they have young children - as most people actually do. According to CEDAW's Preamble, all nations are "obliged to work towards the modification of social and cultural patterns of individual [my emphasis] conduct in order to eliminate prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on ... stereotyped roles for men and women." These intolerant ideologues who so loudly criticise Christian evangelists are far worse. At least religious conversion is voluntary! But incredibly, the CEDAW Committee has instructed Libya to re-interpret its sacred book, the Koran, in ways that are permissible under CEDAW. The Algerian government was castigated for "using religion as an excuse" for failure to comply with CEDAW. The Committee has also instructed China to legalise prostitution. Whatever happened to national sovereignty? And how hypocritical is the UN? On the one hand it supposedly values the diversity of the world's nations and cultures. But on the other hand, with CEDAW, it demands that the world's nations and cultures must conform to the deranged and frequently immoral opinions of Western feminists who themselves are a minority in their own countries. If you think CEDAW is bad news, the Optional Protocol to CEDAW drafted in March 1999 is even worse. If governments want to maintain any vestige of national sovereignty, they'd better nor sign it. Previously, nations signing or ratifying international treaties could add RUDs - reservations, understandings and declarations. These are statements limiting or modifying the effect of the provisions of a treaty; or of giving notice of matters of policy or principle; or of simply clarifying matters. But true to feminist tyranny, the Optional Protocol to CEDAW will forbid any reservations. But feminists have been frustrated that too many countries included RUDs when they signed CEDAW, precisely to protect their cultures, religions and sovereignty. The Optional Protocol will forbid any such reservations. It is an unprecedented and massive assault on national sovereignty and if signed, will set a terrible precedent for the signing of other treaties. Maybe the ancestor of CEDAW - the 1946 UN Commission on the Status of Women - had good intentions. But those good intentions have been high jacked by CEDAW. Instead of improving the welfare and securing basic rights for women in the poorer nations, CEDAW's main game is transforming society in the West. The Optional Protocol will be used by individuals and NGOs in the West to achieve radical social change that national parliaments would never dare consider, because their members have to face voters. It's through UN treaties such as CEDAW and the UN Charter of Human Rights that homosexual relationships will achieve the legal status of marriage. The most cursory glance over the countries that have signed and ratified CEDAW makes the whole thing a sick joke. The first three are Albania, Algeria and Angola, hardly well-known for their equal treatment of women. Burundi - where people regularly hack each other to death with machetes - has signed. So has Cambodia, of the killing-fields fame. China has signed too, even though it performs third trimester 'abortions' - read infanticide - on unwilling women. Needless to say, Canada and Australia, both of whose governments are heavily feminist influenced, have signed. To its eternal credit, the US has not. So, that's the overall picture. Now let's look at what's behind feminism. ********************** 2. The theory Modern radical feminism is founded on contradictory lies. The fact that they're lies doesn't matter, because truth is always secondary for ideologues. The fact that they're contradictory is no source of shame, because feminists believe that logic is just a tool of the patriarchy to oppress women. The first lie is that men and women are interchangeable, and that there aren't any differences between the sexes apart from anatomical ones. In fact, feminists claim that there aren't two sexes at all, but at least five genders, which are socially constructed. They regard heterosexual men and women as being hopelessly repressed in gender stereotypes forced upon them by society. Their life's mission is to liberate us from these imposed stereotypes. To achieve the interchangeability, feminists at first tirelessly promoted the traditional male life pattern of un-interrupted full-time work as the norm for women. Creches and childcare were demanded to free women from domesticity, whether they wanted to be 'freed' or not. In Australia, groups such as the Women's Electoral Lobby fought to change Australia's tax system from a family-friendly one to a profoundly unjust one where a married man with a family pays virtually the same tax as a single man. They won, and their victory clearly shows the contempt for ordinary women that is the hallmark of feminism. But seeing as ignoring babies doesn't go down too well with most mothers, feminists have changed tack. If they can't force women to be like men, then they'll force men to be like women. The sexes must be interchangeable for their gender theory to work. This is behind the increasingly hectoring calls for men to avail themselves of the 'opportunity' of part-time work and to do more domestic work out of 'fairness'. Australian academic Ken Dempsey deplores the fact that most of the women in his surveys on domestic work perversely fail to see they're oppressed. These people can't even see how absurd, let alone insulting they are to the men and women of Australia. What business of theirs is it how couples organize their domestic life? In any case, their concern is hypocritical: feminist high-flyers don't share the domestic chores as they exhort the lower orders to. No, they employ household help. They don't have part-time work either. No, they have well-paying full-time careers. The first lie was that there are no differences between the sexes. The second and contradictory lie is that women are in fact superior to men. Increasingly feminists claim that maleness is some sort of pathology, in need of a cure. And so there is a widespread demonization of men in our culture, with disastrous effects on young males who are made to feel ashamed of their sex and to scorn the manly virtues. And then politicians, academics and social commentators have the hide to express concern about male suicide rates. Increasingly men are being regarded and treated as second class citizens, being freely discriminated against in employment via affirmative action programmes. Feminists contemptuously dismiss the achievements of Western civilization as the product of 'dead white males'. And they're doing their best to overthrow it and replace it with their own socialist hell where every facet of life will be regimented, even down to doing the housework. It's already happened in one German state. There are some chilling prospects in store for men if they win. For instance the president of the Center for Advancement of Public Policy in Washington DC, has proposed that men's fertility be controlled by mandatory contraception beginning at puberty. Boys would be forced to have contraceptive implants along with compulsory DNA fingerprinting. Doctors would have to report anybody who refused the implants or sought medical attention after trying to remove them himself. This is not sci-fi, folks, this is now. The strategies used to demonize men are stereotyping and disinformation, or in plain English, labelling and lies. Men are so routinely stereotyped as 'violent' now, that the slander is rarely challenged. And the lies keep being disseminated by governments, the bureaucracies, the schools, the media, and even to their shame, the churches. Take rape. Organizing their annual "Reclaim the Night" marches, Australian feminists claim with a straight face that one in four women have been raped. But this is where the lies come in: 'rape' doesn't mean the same thing for feminists as it does for the rest of us. The feminist researcher's definition of 'rape' included women who simply had second thoughts in the morning because they'd been drunk or stoned at the time. As well, only a quarter of the women she regarded as having been raped agreed that they had been raped! Yet Australian feminists continue to feed the media with this arrant nonsense that one in four Australian women has been raped. And the lies continue, though I'm beginning to think they originate in stupidity more than malice. For instance, one feminist academic wrote the following nonsense to me after I politely chided her for slandering all men as violent. She wrote, "The Women's Safety Survey, a national survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (most recently 1996) of 6,880,500 women aged 18 years and over, found that in the twelve months prior to the study almost half a million women had ... ". Blah blah blah. I replied saying: "This defies belief. I doubt that there ever was a survey of "6,880,500 women aged 18 years and over. I think you probably meant to say there was a survey of X numbers of women, from which researchers then extrapolated those figures from ABS statistics. A bit different." She didn't have the grace to reply. Domestic violence is certainly an evil, but the
feminists have both grossly overstated its occurrence and denied the facts of
female violence. For example, it is documented that there is a
high rate of domestic violence among lesbians. Yet all
governments uncritically accept the feminist propaganda that domestic violence
is simply a matter of violent males abusing helpless women and
children. Not so. There is now an abundance of research, including
recent Australian research, which shows that most abusing men are in
abusing couple relationships and that women instigate acts of violence more
frequently than men. Erin Pizzey, the founder of the
women's shelter movement in England, has been saying the same
for years but has been studiously ignored by feminists and
bureaucrats.
Feminists have no interest in the truth. They even
deny it exists. Objective truth, logic, standards of evidentiary
proof, linear thinking are all dismissed as the "White Male
System" of rationality, which is in no way superior to other ways of
knowing.
At the institutional level, feminism has been spectacularly successful. I'd now like to look at a few specific areas. To be continued tomorrow.
Antonia ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
7. Life Sciences:
Europe sees potential in organic foods, JAPAN: March
10, 2000
TOKYO - Europeans see growth potential not in
genetically modified organisms (GMO) but in organic food because consumers want
products grown with a care for the environment, a senior farm official
said.
In recent years, European consumers have become more
concerned not only about the food they eat but how it has been produced, said
Michael Gowen, principal administrator for
International Agricultural Relations of the European
Commission. "With the growth of what we call a green movement in Europe
over the past 20 years, there has been an increasing concern that we are causing
unnecessary harm to our environment," Gowen told Reuters in an
interview on Wednesday. "The move to organic food is part of this move towards
having a lifestyle that is in harmony with the environment and that does not
destroy the traditions which we have inherited," he said.
Organic food is more expensive than conventional food because producers cannot use pesticides and artificial fertilisers, he said. Use of gene modification technology and irradiation procedures are also banned. "But many European consumers, and in increasing numbers, are prepared to pay an additional premium to guarantee they have a food of the purest and healtiest quality," he said. Gowen said the percentage organic food represents in total
food production in Europe was still small but growing rapidly. "We have
100,000 farmers and food processors who are producing organic foods in
Europe. We have 2.5 million hectares under organic cultivation,
and this figure is growing all the time as the demand for organic food
increases," he said.
Gowen was in Tokyo to promote European organic foods at the
international food exhibition this week where more than 2,300 companies from 67
countries participated. Gowen said organic foods are becoming popular among
Japanese consumers as well with products such as organic wine, cheese,
chocolates and olive oil now available on the local market.
CAUTION ABOUT GMO
Gowen said the European Union does not agree with the U.S. view that consumers should accept foods derived from gene modification technology on the grounds no scientific evidence exists that GMOs are harmful to human health. "Our view is that science is just not sufficient yet to reach a firm conclusion. We don't have enough long-term evidence, so we should proceed extremely cautiously," he said. Farmers, especially in the United States, are keen to
increase output of GMOs because of the higher yields and low production for the
crops, into which genes are inserted to boost resistance to herbicide and to
pests. Consumers are anxious about possible health side-effects and the impact
on the environment from such manipulation.
"Technology in agriculture has advanced enormously over the
past 30 years. But we are now saying let's be careful how far we go," Gowen
said. "Let's take a step back and look at what they are doing to the
environment. Let's look at the quality as well as the quantity," he
said.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
Articles Forwarded by
Veronica Griffin Ph.D..
Kerawa Qld.
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8. Feedback:
The Nexus between Industry and Government
"You can fool some of the people some of the time, The "revolving door" - the industrial alignment of public service and
regulatory authorities taken from the Edmonds Institute: http://www.edmonds-institute.org/door.html
David W. Beier . . .former head of Government Affairs for Genentech, Inc., . . .now chief domestic policy advisor to Al Gore, Vice President of the United States. Linda J. Fisher . . .former Assistant Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, . . now Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for Monsanto Corporation. Michael A. Friedman, M.D. . . former acting commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Department of Health and Human Services . . .now senior vice-president for clinical affairs at G. D. Searle & Co., a pharmaceutical division of Monsanto Corporation. L. Val Giddings . . . former biotechnology regulator and (biosafety) negotiator at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA/APHIS), ....now Vice President for Food & Agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). Marcia Hale . . . former assistant to the President of the United States and director for intergovernmental affairs, . . .now Director of International Government Affairs for Monsanto Corporation. Michael (Mickey) Kantor. . . former Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce and former Trade Representative of the United States, . . .now member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation. Josh King . . . former director of production for White House events, . . . now director of global communication in the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation. Terry Medley . . . former administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture, former chair and vice-chair of the United States Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Council, former member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) food advisory committee, . . . and now Director of Regulatory and External Affairs of Dupont Corporation's Agricultural Enterprise. Margaret Miller . . . former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto, . . .now Deputy Director of Human Food Safety and Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office, Center for Veterinary Medicine in the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).* Michael Phillips . . . recently with the National Academy of Science Board on Agriculture . . . now head of regulatory affairs for the Biotechnology Industry Organization. William D. Ruckelshaus . . . former chief administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), . . .now (and for the past 12 years) a member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation. Michael Taylor . . . former legal advisor to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Bureau of Medical Devices and Bureau of Foods, later executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA, . . . still later a partner at the law firm of King & Spaulding where he supervised a nine-lawyer group whose clients included Monsanto Agricultural Company, . . . still later Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the United States Food and Drug Administration, . . . and later with the law firm of King & Spaulding. . . . now head of the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.* Lidia Watrud . . . former microbial biotechnology researcher at Monsanto Corporation in St. Louis, Missouri, . . .now with the United States Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Effects Laboratory, Western Ecology Division. Jack Watson. . .former chief of staff to the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, . . .now a staff lawyer with Monsanto Corporation in Washington, D.C. Clayton K. Yeutter . . . former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, former U.S. Trade Representative (who led the U.S. team in negotiating the U.S. Canada Free Trade Agreement and helped launch the Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations), now a member of the board of directors of Mycogen Corporation, whose majority owner is Dow AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company. Larry Zeph . . . former biologist in the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, . . . now Regulatory Science Manager at Pioneer Hi-Bred International. *Margaret Miller, Michael Taylor, and Suzanne Sechen (an FDA "primary reviewer for all rbST and other dairy drug production applications" ) were the subjects of a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation in 1994 for their role in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of Posilac, Monsanto Corporation's formulation of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbST or rBGH). The GAO Office found "no conflicting financial interests with respect to the drug's approval" and only "one minor deviation from now superseded FDA regulations". (Quotations are from the 1994 GAO report). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet another example of the crooks and the
cops swapping roles and scratching each others backs. Is it any
wonder therefore that the authorities will approve anything the Monsantos of
this world dream up.
Editor ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 9. Opinion:
Pentagon Study Finds China Preparing
for War
By Bill GertzWashington Times, February 2, 2000 -- Strategic writings by China's military and party leaders show that China is making plans for war, according to a new Pentagon study. Some 600 translations of internal Chinese writings by 200 authors reveal China's strategy to defeat a superior foe, using both military and nonmilitary means, such as propaganda, deception and covert action. They also reveal the extreme distrust of the United States by China's military and party leaders. Chinese generals state that the United States intentionally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, last May as part of a long-term strategy to prompt an arms race that will cause China's collapse. The Chinese statements from the mid-1990s through last year discuss issues normally couched in secrecy inside China. They appear in the book, China Debates the Future Security Environment, published last month for the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, the unit in charge of long-range planning. The translations were edited by Michael Pillsbury, a defense policy planner in the Reagan administration who is fluent in Chinese. The official Chinese views from Communist Party and military officials contradict other claims by the Beijing government that China poses no threat to the United States or other nations. Chinese strategists plan to use a combination of Marxist-Leninist doctrine and ancient Chinese tactics against the United States, which is compared in Chinese military writings as a "hegemon" on a par with Nazi Germany. Gen. Li Jijun, described as one of China's most distinguished military authors, states that the United States engineered the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait as a "strategic misdirection" or deception. Other Chinese authors state the United States is working covertly to "dismember" western China, namely Tibet and Xinjiang. The report is a public document, but the Pentagon is limiting its distribution, presumably because of its stark disclosures of Chinese military thinking. According to the book, the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping set the current military strategy for dealing with the world's only superpower in the slogan "bide our time and build up our capabilities." A key debate among Chinese military and party writers is how rapidly the United States will decline, a view based on the Marxist ideas on the collapse of capitalism. The book quotes Gen. Xiong Guankai, the Chinese deputy chief of staff for intelligence, who finished three days of Pentagon meetings last week, as one of China's hard-line theorists. "Any efforts for seeking hegemony and world domination can only result in accumulating contradictions and fermenting war," Gen. Xiong was quoted as saying in a speech at Harvard University. Chinese plans also discuss means of taking out U.S. aircraft- carrier battle groups. Chinese writer Ying Nan says the groups have numerous vulnerabilities... China now seeks to avoid head-on confrontation until around 2030, when the Chinese expect US power to decline significantly. However, a war between China and the United States could erupt over Taiwan, according to the Chinese authors. Strategist Gao Hen wrote a US defense of Taiwan would cause a major war of "global and historic implications." China also plans electronic attacks on computer networks. "We can make the enemy's command centers not work by changing their data system," wrote Maj. Gen. Pan Junfeng. "We can cause the enemy's headquarters to make incorrect judgments by sending disinformation. Full Story: http://www.washtimes.com/national/nation3-02022000.htm AGS
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10. Feedback:
Workplace
Agreements
12 March
2000
The Editor, Toowoomba Chronicle PO Box 40, Toowomba Qld 4350 Dear Sir The latest data on Queensland Workplace Agreements shows clearly how the Federal Labor Party would, if it were in government, destroy the effective use of Australian Workplace Agreements in Australia. Under the Queensland Labor laws, only 16 new QWA’s were approved in the last quarter of 1999. That is less than one employee per week throughout the entire State. That is disturbing evidence of a concerted attempt by Labor to shut out individual agreement making in order to force union agreements and union policies on Queensland workers. These developments expose federal Labor’s agenda on AWA’s. Federal Labor has claimed that the Queensland Labor approach is one worthy of adopting if in government. Union officials like Doug Cameron of the AMWU openly demand that federal Labor must kill off AWA’s, lock stock and barrel. Yet Mr Beazley hides his true intention because he knows that more than 85,000 AWA’s have been made at a federal level – with growth rates of more than 2,000 every month. And he knows that employers and employees are increasingly seeing individual agreement making as a driver to higher productivity and better pay – with BHP being just one of the recent higher profiled examples. But Kim Beazley’s policy is to get rid of AWA’s. He may find it difficult to abolish them altogether, but the Queensland experience shows that the legislative compromise agreed with the Independents in Queensland is just as destructive. Yours sincerely.
Richard J. Wood +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
11. Feedback
Tax made easy for
you!!
You may be interested to know that New
Zealand's IRD (Inland Revenue Dept) are
launching a slick new advertising campaign on March 12th. This is to introduce
the new process of filing and managing your income tax for this year. Basically
it works on the premise of simplifying the tax collection process, but it does
have some important ramifications and hidden pitfalls.
Some of the big changes are :
Warm regards
Nik Cree
Forwarded by
David Storage +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++12. Feedback:
On Economic Rationalism
I live in the country area of Kingaroy to the North West of
Brisbane. The normal wage of a farm worker may be as little as $10 per
hour. There are few unions and people take what they can get or just remain
unemployed. I have worked for as little as $5 per hour picking vegetables.
Meanwhile in the corporatised power station at
Tarong the Manager gets $325,000 per year ($6,250 per week, 156/ hour) after
bonuses. His 2 underlings get some $250,000 each.
Now no doubt they do an important job, which I could
not do (one hopes). However can this person be worth the
eqivalent of 15 farm workers. How is it economically rational to
pay these people so much, but to pay others so poorly? Or is economic
Rationalism just a new word for exploitation?
Martin Essenberg
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
14. Feedback:
GST Issues.
I saw a mention in Alan Esson's Stirrer, that there is a death
or inheritance tax in the GST package.
Has anyone any evidence of this and the details
Philip Madsen
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 14. Feedback:
Environmental
Settlements Dear Sir/Madam
The liability of industrial polluters has been highlighted in a case before the US Courts where a Judge has approved a record settlement against an industrial polluter. This is in reflection of genuine and justified public concern. With yesterday's announcement of "A cluster of new biotechnology companies and multi-million dollar deals", may we also have the assurance that a substantial Security Bond (say $100 million), is being raised and deposited with an independent agency (perhaps the BCC), to insure against the inevitable consequence of subsequent pollution from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, (and its "spin-off companies"), in residential St Lucia? Yours faithfully John Massey Biohazard Action Alliance
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NEW YORK - The U.S. Attorney in Houston said on Wednesday a
federal judge has approved a $30 million settlement - the largest imposed under
federal environmental laws - against privately held energy firm Koch Industries
Inc.
U.S. Attorney Mervyn Mosbacker said U.S. District Court Judge Vanessa Gilmore approved the settlement against Koch, based in Wichita, Kansas, and also ordered the company to fund $ 5 million in environmental projects. The penalties are based upon spills of at least 41,000 barrels of oil and other petroleum, which resulted in more than 300 violations of the Oil Pollution Act of 1999 in six states. The largest single spill was 100,000 gales of crude which resulted in a 12 mile slick on Nueces Bay and Corpus Christi Bay on Oct. 8, 1994. The spills, caused by eroded and broken pipelines and during off-loading activities, made their way into Texas ponds, lakes rivers, streams and shorelines from 1990 to 1997, the U.S. attorney's office said. The other spills happened in Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri. Company representatives could not be reached for immediate comment. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE Forwarded by
John Massey +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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