SWIMMING AGAINST THE TIDE
Last weekend (19-20 August), I attended the Conservative Political Action Conference Australia (CPAC Australia) which was held in Sydney. CPAC – see this link - is a non-profit organization that was started in the US in 1954.
Figure 1. Opening of CPAC Australia - Darling Harbour Sydney -19 August 2023
The group describes conservatism as “the political philosophy that sovereignty resides in the person”. It’s a great definition, and in an age of collectivism, one that increasingly is finding difficulty in gaining a platform. In the US, CPAC hosts “the largest and most influential gatherings of conservatives in the world” and the meeting in Australia is an offshoot of CPAC USA, with Australian directors. The first CPAC Australia meeting was held in 2019 and from the start has been vilified by those on the left. An article in 2019 described the meeting as a “talkfest of hate”, presumably because speakers included Nigel Farage and Raheem Kassam, who were key people in the Brexit campaign. At the 2023 CPAC meeting there were about 1,000 attendees and in this Sons of Issachar Newsletter, I will provide some highlights from the conference that I think are relevant for my readers.
One of the main reasons I decided to attend this year because a Senator from the Northern Territory of Australia, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was speaking and I wanted to understand more about arguments related to a major referendum in October (titled “The Voice”) that seems likely to transform the way that Australia operates. Senator Price is an Indigenous politician who believes that a YES vote for a change in Australia’s Constitution will have a detrimental effect on Aborigines and the whole nation and advocates a vote against the referendum proposal.
What Is The Voice?
Australia has grappled for decades with the problem of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders having inferior outcomes to the general Australian population in areas such as health and education, together with higher levels of poverty., crime and incarceration. The “solution” to-date has been to throw more and more money at the problem. Today, government expenditure approaches $50,000 per person, for 500,000 “first nations” people (around 3.2% of the Australian population), which is about double the government funds provided for the general population. I have examined the recent budget papers to try to determine where the funds go, but it is almost impossible to unravel the complexity and the various pots of money for Indigenous Australians. However, I did discover that “$2 million will establish an Ambassador for First Nations Peoples to take Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and experiences to the world” – see this link. One can only wonder at which bureaucrat threw this crazy idea into the budget brainstorming session. It attests to the waste and unscrutinized spending at the heart of the government Indigenous corporations.
The reason for the forthcoming referendum has a long history, as governments of various political persuasions have genuinely attempted to solve the problem of disparate outcomes for Indigenous people compared to the rest of the Australian population. The Institute of Public Affairs, an independent “think tank” has produced a helpful booklet which I recommend for any of my readers who would like to understand this issue more. Here is the link -
The author of the booklet, Morgan Begg, writes that:
“A race-based body as proposed could not merely be appended to our existing institutions, it would reshape and reconfigure how Australian democracy is practiced, in effect operating as a third chamber of Parliament. This is not only incompatible with Australia’s legal and political heritage, but inconsistent with the historical trend towards a race-blind Constitution, as exemplified by the overwhelming support at the 1967 referendum to remove two constitutional references to race.”
Background to The Voice Referendum
The Voice referendum has a long prelude, with the idea of a “treaty” with Indigenous Australians first being proposed by an Australian Senate Committee in 1983. This was followed by the establishment of a Council of Aboriginal Reconciliation in 1991, and a proposal from a conservative Prime Minister in 2007 to hold a referendum to:
“formally recognise Indigenous Australians in our Constitution, their history as the first inhabitants of our country, their unique heritage of culture and languages, and their special (though not separate) place within a reconciled, indivisible nation’ by way of a ‘new Statement of Reconciliation incorporated into the preamble of the Australian Constitution.”
Following a change of government, no referendum occurred but an “expert panel” was set up to consult on the best options for a constitutional amendment. Following this, another committee was established, which published a report in 2015. The recommendation was made that a referendum be held when “it had the highest chance of success”. A range of further meetings were held, and in 2017, delegates were “selected” to attend the First Nations National Constitution Convention at Uluru in May 2017. This meeting resulted in the cleverly titled “Uluru Statement from the Heart”, a long document that has been reduced to a one-page summary. I have been perusing the website and it is evident that there are few details provided about what voting YES for the voice would achieve. It is an emotive site that seeks to persuade people that somehow a YES vote would fix all the problems for Indigenous Australians. It is worthwhile to visit the site and see the millions of dollars that have been spent on propaganda to Australians - see this link. Not even the Australian Prime Minister, who has said that he would implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart,” in full”, has read the complete document. However, it is evident that in seeking to change the Australian Constitution, the proposal will fundamentally alter the egalitarian nature of Australian society and permanently entrench victimhood for an entire race of people. The complete document is frightening to read, and it is unlikely that many of my readers have the time to do so and I imagine that 99% of Australians won’t have the time or interest. However, for voting Australians, it is important to scan the document and here is a link.
Looking back over the historical precedents to the forthcoming referendum, after more than 40 years, one can understand the desire to “do something”. However, the document has been drafted by left-wing activists who want to enshrine a grievance culture in the Australian Constitution and the outcome – a group of indigenous activists who will have the constitutional authority to interfere in the processes of government – spells a bureaucratic morass. At the same time, those needing support will languish in outback communities. Worse still is that there is a socialist system at the heart of the Aboriginal corporations who benefit from royalties related to recognized Aboriginal land. In the various corporations, no individual Aborigines own anything but rely on handouts from the leaders who control very large pots of money. All this does is produce dependence and cronyism.
Senator Price and Her Arguments Against The Voice
Senator Price, in her CPAC speech, noted the extraordinary sums of money that had been spent on Indigenous Australians and wondered where the money had gone. She is pursuing accountability through various formal inquiries via the Australian Senate.
Figure 2. Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price speaking at CPAC Australia on 19 August 2023
She made the following important points:
All Australians are well-meaning towards indigenous people and want to see an improvement in outcomes;
Despite the huge sums of money spent, nothing has been done to improve the lives of marginalized Australians and the current government has no clue how to fix the problem. The key indigenous corporations are very resistant to any investigations into accountability for money spent;
The gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians is more about “place than race”. The gap in education, health etc is largely that between Australians who live in cities and those who live in remote and regional communities, where facilities and opportunities are scarce.
Those who are advocates for the YES campaign want to divide Australians. The campaign is being funded by elites and corporates but Senator Price believes that we need to keep the country together. She said that the campaign to enshrine the Voice in the Australian Constitution was “dangerous, divisive and costly”.
A later speaker put it very simply – we must vote NO. As Australians, we cannot accept a race-based change to our constitution. A YES vote would permanently divide Australians on the basis of race. The proponents of “the voice” have used emotion and the good nature of Australians to try to change the foundation of our nation. Lying behind the proposal are the Marxists wheeling in their Trojan horse of false justice and victimhood. Australians must resist the emotional manipulation of the YES campaigners and realize that what is being proposed will enshrine racism in our Constitution and give rise to another complex and costly bureaucracy.
John Anderson, a former Australian Deputy-Prime Minister has recently released a helpful video outlining four myths about the voice and I highly recommend watching.
The Rising Threat of China
Dr Gordon Chang is a noted commentator and China expert who has spent twenty years in China and has written extensively, including the books, The Coming Collapse of China and The Great U.S.-China Tech War.
Dr Chang also spoke at CPAC and painted a pretty grim picture of the threat to the West from China. He said that “freedom is under attack from its most powerful enemy, the CCP.” Many businesses have looked the other way about the nature of the totalitarian regime and its ultimate designs, as they make deals for cheaper product manufacturing.
Dr Chang thought that the March 2023 meeting when President Xi traveled to Moscow to meet President Putin, as significant. President Xi said :
“’Right now there are changes, the likes of which we haven't seen for 100 years,’ Xi told Putin after a March 21 state dinner. ‘And we are…driving these changes together."
China will be driving change across the world and also in space, which it sees as rightfully theirs. Chang believes that China is not competing with the current Western system but wants to overthrow it. He considers that many of the recent purges in senior personnel in foreign affairs and now in the rocket force (those in charge of nuclear missiles) indicate a more aggressive policy stance by Xi. Those removed are those with some reluctance for war and Xi’s motto is “dare to fight”! Dr Chang provided the following important information:
A few years ago, a senior Chinese official threatened to “annihilate Canberra”;
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was told to “kneel before China”;
China is the country with the most rapid military build-up since Word War 2;
Henry Kissinger has said that war over Taiwan was now “probable”;
Amidst many economic, energy and food challenges, Xi needs an enemy to distract the population from his policy mistakes.
Dr Chang says that it is time to cut trade investment and technology cooperation with China because the Chinese state is looking to do us harm. We need to be prepared to stand with Taiwan. In relation to trade, Australia needs to look for alternate customers. We need to defend our culture and economy. He concluded with a serious warning:
“China will not rest until it has destroyed every democracy in the world. This is not just a fight between freedom and oppression but a fight between good and evil. Freedom needs defenders and warriors”.
Dr Chang’s warning is timely because Australians have sold their souls to the Chinese, and we have looked the other way in relation to human rights abuses as we have exported to China everything we can dig up. It was always dangerous to get into bed with a communist, totalitarian regime and if we don’t get out of bed soon, it will be too late. Unfortunately, the Australian government seems to only be intent on seeking China’s approval. A recent Australian political cartoon captured this very well with a video titled “The Big Red Dragon”
With this background, I read an important substack post this week from Chet Nagle -
He writes about the impending economic crisis in China and also a demographic one, with serious population decline in the coming years. He concludes as follows:
“The unspoken social contract between the CCP and the Chinese people is based on the government providing international and domestic security plus an ever-rising standard of living. The Chinese people’s part of that contract means living under an oppressive surveillance dictatorship. However, the collapsing economy will soon make it impossible for the CCP to deliver its part of the social contract. So in order to maintain its control the CCP diverts its people’s attention from a lower standard of living by blaming it all on America, the nation the CCP has promised to dominate and destroy with its 1999 published declaration of “unrestricted warfare.”
The article has helpful statistics that demonstrate Dr Chang’s hypothesis that with various domestic policy failures, Xi may have no alternative but to contrive a diverting war. Clearly, Taiwan is in China’s sights but it is not a long way from there to Australia.
We can’t say that we haven’t been warned!
There were other excellent presentations at CPAC Australia, and I may report on these in another newsletter. However, Dr Chang’s presentation leads me to another important meeting taking place this week, probably orchestrated by China.
BRICS Summit
Steven Wilkinson wrote an excellent piece on his substack account this week called “Unfathomable Ways” and I recommend reading the article in full - see the link below
His article relates to the BRICS nations summit (called the summit of emerging economies) in South Africa which is taking place as I write this article (August 22-24) and is the 15th such meeting – see this link. BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and the groups present represent 40% of the world population and 25% of the global economy. It has been reported that up to 40 other nations have expressed interest in joining the BRICS grouping. Worryingly, the BRICS grouping is a creation of Goldman Sachs and it seems unlikely that these guys had the welfare of the world in mind when creating the concept.
There has been a lot of recent discussion in various parts of the alternative media about the BRICS grouping seeking to change the reserve international currency – the US$ - to a new currency based on gold. It is interesting that many of these countries have significantly increased their gold reserves in the last year. It also is interesting that Saudi Arabia has sold oil to India recently and that the trade will be in rupees rather than US$ - see this link.
In relation to a change in an international settlement system that cuts out the US$, Stephen Wilkinson writes that:
“The move to some sort of alternative inter-nation settlement system that does not involve the US-Dollar became a necessity once President Biden’s administration’s 2022 nullification of Russia’s US-$ reserve assets in the wake of a broader sweep of - largely counterproductive - sanctions, effectively weaponised the hegemon’s currency. That act all by itself put America’s non-allied global trading partners and competitors on DEFCON 3, irrespective how long or how specifically their plans for a US-$ alternative might previously have been percolating on the back of the stove.”
Later in his article, Stephen writes:
“America will continue to undermine its national wealth by its addiction to debt, its underfunded liabilities and entitlement promises, its poisonous and fiscally incontinent political culture and its (over)emphasis on present consumption over future investment. This they posit will slowly but inexorably weaken the US-$ Gold relationship with all the attendant leeching of influence, status and power that that decline will bring with it. That’s the bet and the BRICS nations do not have to do anything other than build their own secure environment outside of SWIFT and the US Treasury market and wait.”
It seems as though we are seeing a significant restructuring of the international finance system. The U.S. with its current debt of $36 trillion and climbing, thanks to “Bidenomics” (loosely explained as spending a lot of money you don’t have), is on the road to financial ruin. Unfortunately, they will take a lot of other countries with them. However, the BRICS nations are trying to ensure that it isn’t them!
Are COVID Lockdowns Returning?
It seems almost certain that plans are in place for another “pandemic”. There has been a lot invested in the tools for monitoring people and development of “vaccines” over the last three years. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been seeking more power to declare a “pandemic” and a recent article from the Brownstone Institute warns of plans to manufacture and distribute future “vaccines” in only 130 days (normally 5-10 years). The problems that were found from the rushed COVID-19 vaccine development have never been acknowledged. Meryl Nass writing for the Brownstone Institute notes that the WHO may have nefarious purposes because:
“The need to respect “human rights, dignity, and freedom of persons” is embedded in the current International Health Regulations (IHR), as well as other UN treaties. However, the language guaranteeing human rights, dignity, and freedom of persons was peremptorily removed from the proposed IHR Amendments, without explanation.”
Decisions made by the WHO are hidden from perusal and any IHR changes can impact us without us having any input in our own jurisdictions.
With this background, it has then been concerning to find a report from infowars.com that:
“Whistleblowers from the TSA and Border Patrol have raised the alarm to Infowars that the Biden administration is setting the stage for full Covid lockdowns that will begin with incremental restrictions like masking TSA employees in mid-September.”
A number of other publications have raised the spectre of a renewed COVID “pandemic” and certainly there has been prominence given in the last week to new COVID variants. Hopefully, Alex Jones is wrong and any attempt to implement new lockdowns will be resisted by people who are now better informed than when COVID-19 was foisted upon us. However, we need to be vigilant and if it isn’t a new COVID outbreak, undoubtedly other “pandemics” are waiting in the wings.
Iran Close to Testing Nuclear Weapons
Just when you thought that the news couldn’t get any worse, the Jerusalem Post reported this week:
“Iran's fast-moving development of weapons-grade uranium is bringing the possibility of an Iranian first nuclear test closer.”
This isn’t any surprise but shows the incapacity of the West to prevent this shocking event which will have international ramifications. Israel has long indicated that it will not accept a nuclear-armed Iran. Undoubtedly there are plans afoot and one of these must be a pre-emptive strike.
Some Concluding Thoughts
I was struck this week by the definition of conservatism by CPAC as “the political philosophy that sovereignty resides in the person”. Conservatives definitely have a branding problem because those on the left style themselves as “progressives” which sounds a lot more appealing. With the political left’s control of most of the levers of influence - education, politics, media, government, entertainment, finance and even religion - it is increasingly hard to swim against the tide. Deception is rife and what is projected as good is likely to be evil. The importance of “sovereignty residing in the person” is a critical principle to uphold in a world where social media pressure increasingly eliminates personal sovereignty and seeks conformity to the current ideology. Collectivism seems to have gained ascendancy and the dangers of collectivism are not understood by a generation who has never been exposed to the dangers of communism.
A friend spoke to me recently about her experience growing up in the U.S. in the 1950s. At this time, there was widespread awareness of the dangers of communism. Her father, who was a pastor, took the youth group regularly to anti-communist meetings to educate them about the danger of this godless agenda.
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a generation has forgotten the dangers of communism. Some surveys have indicated that as many as 50% of young people are attracted to socialism or communism. Mostly this is because of ignorance, and so we need to reintroduce anti-communist rallies for young people today so that we can help them swim against the tide. Of course, this is an impossible dream in today’s society but hopefully, my Sons of Issachar readers can be influential in their own families to promote the importance of the idea of “sovereignty residing in the person” and the dangers of collectivism.