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Issue No. 168 28 February 2003  
E D I T O R I A L

Abbott�s Rules
Tony Abbott is at it again, with a wicked plan to cut research funding to universities that do not put their workers onto individual contracts.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Agenda 2003
ACTU secretary Greg Combet looks at the year ahead and how a union movement can keep the focus on the workplace at a time of global crisis.

Peace: The Colour Purple
Local communities across Australia are taking stands against war by displaying purple banners. Jim Marr visits one.

Industrial: Long, Hot Summer
As Workers Online took its annual break, the world kept turning � at an increasingly alarming velocity.

Solidarity: Workers Against War
Joann Wypijewski reports on how union locals in the USA are fighting the hounds of war at home.

Security: Howard And The Hoodlums
With all the talk of terror, the Howard Government�s Achilles heel is its tolerance of Flags of Convenience shipping , writes Rowan Cahill

International: Industrial Warfare
Scottish freight train drivers have already acted to disrupt the war effort in the UK with crews of four freight trains carrying war supplies to ports walking off the job, writes Andrew Casey

History: Unions and the Vietnam War
The Vietnam experience steered some unions towards social activism for the first time. Unions are today key players in the anti-war movement, writes Tony Duras.

Review: Eight Miles to Mowtown
Mark Hebblewhites looks at two summer movies that tap into different sounds of American culture - white boy rap and motown blues.

Poetry: Return To Sender
Resident bard Divd Peetz discovers that Elvis has become the latest shock recruit to the peace cause.

Satire: CIA Recruits New Intake of Future Enemies
CIA Director George Tenet announced today that the agency has begun recruiting future enemies for the year 2014.

N E W S

 Report Derails Freight Plans

 Journo Embarrasses Cole

 CASA a Safety Threat

 Howard Shafts Battlers

 Sparks Fly at Sydney Uni

 Unions Target March 14 For Peace

 Tongans Play Shame Game

 Palestinians Question ICFTU

 Neanderthals Roll Back Safeguards

 Keep Vultures out of Culture

 Bloody Noses for Sticky Beaks

 Warning As Barrier Council Turns 80

 Faint Praise for Labor Education Stand

 Staff Bogged Down

 Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Getting On with The Job
Premier Bob Carr chose Trades Hall as the venue to launch Labor's IR policy for the upcoming state election.

Postcard
Justice in Bogota
Sydney lawyer Ian Latham knows how to pick them. He�s gone straight from the Cole Royal Commission to justice Colombian-style.

The Locker Room
Heart Of Darkness
There is a school of thought that there is, in fact, only one World Cup - and it doesn�t involve cricket, writes Phil Doyle.

Politics
Danger Mouse
John Howard's politics have trapped him into supporting an unpopular war. He is in political trouble, Leonie Bronstein argues.

L E T T E R S
 Johnny Goes Marching Off
 Misled Artist
 Penalty Shoot-Out
 More Talk Needed on War
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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Letters to the Editor

Johnny Goes Marching Off


Regarding John Howard, his support for a war with Iraq,

and his critisism of those who are against war.

The first thing to grasp, is that the American economy is bankrupt. It has been bankrupted by deregulation and free trade, the likes which the Howard government has been pushing as hard as it can.

The deluge of imports into America, has caused destruction of much industry and agriciulture, and thus the destruction of millions of good paying jobs, and the US, which was once a producer nation, has become a consumer nation.

The deliberate manipulation downward, of the currencies of nations that export to the U.S., has meant that goods from such countries, which includes from developing countries where labour is very cheap in comparison -- has meant that the U.S. has been living off the rest of the world.

But Australia also, is similarly living off the cheap labour and collapsed currencies of nations further down the ladder, and this has been causing, as in the U.S., the destruction of Australia's Industry, Agriculture and well paying jobs.

Such is the effect of the deregulation and free trade policies which are being pushed globally by the financier elite, who via a global system of think tanks, help write the policies which governments legislate for them, to ensure this all happens.

So in effect, the results of free trade, is the running of nations, businesses, and ordinary people into unpayable debt, or in reality, placing them under the thumbs of the financier elite.

So getting back to the situation in America. The U.S. has accordingly, run up huge trade deficits. This fiscal year alone, such will be near $500 trillion.

These trade deficits are unpayable as the U.S., because of the high dollar value and more, can no longer pay for its imports with physical goods it once produced.

So the U.S. has been saying to nations which export to it: "let us put the U.S. dollars we owe you into our financial markets and we will give you a good rate of return".

So this is what happened and these importers in effect, thus became international investors.

This worked well at the start, the "dollars owed"

were placed into the U.S. financial markets, thus creating the biggest financial debt bubble in human history.

As the stock market indexes soared on account of all this debt being thrown in, the world was told by the elite controlled media, that this was because the U.S. economy was booming. This was a lie.

The truth is that the high stock market index, was a sign that the U.S. economy was collapsing into bankruptcy (for the above reasons).

So in the year 2000, industry profits and other things,

such as the NASDAQ, which had been propped up by the Y2K hoax, started collapsing and the so called international investors started pulling their owed capital out of the U.S. financial markets.

That is the cause of the financial market collapse in the U.S. A similar situation surely exists in Australia -- so be prepared. -- The financial markets in the U.S. are thus, being propped up presently, by the looting of the real economy such as health, education and much more. So the U.S. economy is bankrupt and is beyond saving under the present policies.

U.S. GDP is some 10 trillion and yet the debt servicing in capital and interest is now some 7.3 trillion dollars. 46 out of the 50 states are bankrupt with unpayable budget deficits with California's alone well over $25 billion.

Some states even now have four day school weeks as funds dry up.

So that may give you an idea, as to the real urgent reasons why U.S. insiders urgently want war.

The same deregulation, free trade and speculation policies which Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been pushing has caused the bankruptcy, not only of the U.S. economy, but also of the global financial system with outstanding debt some $400 billion.lion.

These are the real reasons why the war is urgent. The war is required for the coverup and excuse for the biggest financial debt bubble crash in human history which is about to hit us all.

But Mr Howard is also supporting the U.S. President in a war of aggression against another nation. This is in defiance of the U.S. constitution and in defiance of international law.

The Nuremberg trials after World War II sentenced many leaders who did such things, to hanging.

But terrorism also is being used as a tool to justify such a war -- while it is documented quite clearly, how those who are now calling for the war, are the ones who funded and built up the same terrorism on which they are now using for an excuse for the war they want.

The policy for the above mentioned war, was handed down by Richard Perle, on July 8, 1996 to then Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. It spelt out future Israeli Foreign Policy. Richard Perle is now Chairman of the U.S. Defense Policy Board.

The war policy entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," was written for the Jerusalem and Washington based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.

Amongst other things, it calls for the scrapping of the Oslo peace Accords and the elimination of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad as a FIRST STEP towards overthrowing or destabilising the governments of Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

There is much more to all this of course.

You won't read or hear about it on the main media because the main media has vested interests in pushing the war for the elite which it represents and who run it.

Mr Howard surely knows about all the above though, hence his ardent support for the war and his critisism of all who oppose the war.

Much more on all this can be found at

http://www.nex.net.au/users/reidgck

Yours Sincerely Graeme Reid

Victoria


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