I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in my
bitch blog... but since it's about resources, here it is.
After the second world war
Menzies was referred to for a while as "pig iron Bob" in reference to his having sold iron to the Japanese before the war.
As you are probably aware, discussions are currently underway regarding the proposed sale of a
Rio Tinto mine in Australia to a Chinese company. It was something of a surprise to me to see an ad on SBS in which
Barnaby Joyce is advising the Government to block the sale, particularly considering how the Howard Government sold off everything that wasn't nailed down. "You sell the milk, not the cow." He realises belatedly.
But this isn't only about milk sales. For decades we've been selling primary produce overseas then buying back the manufactured products. A waste not only in terms of jobs, but also in fuel and pollution trucking shit in laps around the planet in order to bolster someone's profit margin and generate a multi million dollar executive bonus.
What really pisses me off in this case is that we're selling ore no-strings to one of the largest arms producers on earth. The US under Bush was referred to as the
world's most dangerous rogue state, and we have yet to see how the military-industrial complex will fare with Obama. The US pretends to have some limits on their arms sales yet while we are called in to assist in Afghanistan and Iraq, they're actively selling the munitions that create the destabilisation. China is likewise selling guns, planes and ammunition wholesale to countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe. Profit uber alles.
According to the UN, the war in Sudan is about
ethnic cleansing. That means genocide. Like the Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and others in WW2. So we see that China is
actively profiting from and supporting this practise of genocide.
What's worse, we're supplying and encouraging them.
If anyone were killing Jews en masse these days, or even Muslims as in the case of the war in the former Yugoslavian states, there would be outrage. But as in the case of food shortages, no one seems to give a rats that African people are being slaughtered. Sure we get a two minute spot on the evening news if something happens to a Sudanese refugee, but no mention of the arms supply, or Australia's complicity in the genocide.
After the second world war there were trials held and all sorts of repercussions for those who had exploited circumstances and profited from the war. Even today companies like
IBM are mentioned in detriment as having assisted Hitler's evil empire. Without punchcard technology the death camps would not have been able to murder nearly so many people as they did.
Under the influence of "free trade" and the so called level playing field, which has been so charmingly illuminated as a complete wank by the current financial mess, countries, or rather large corporations, could pretend complete moral irresponsibility for the products or materials they manufacture and distribute.
But beyond the mere morality of all this is the fact that we live on one planet. Refugees are coming out of places like Sudan, Burma and Afghanistan, travelling illegally because that's the way refugees always have to travel when there's a fucking war. They come to countries like Australia where they hope they might be able to live in relative peace and quiet. After they've done a turn in a
dog run out in the desert and been consigned to some outer urban slum. They come because they've been bombed, shot at, sometimes tortured and generally had their lives threatened. They come because someone is selling arms to the warmongers who persecute them. They come because someone has sold primary produce to the manufacturers of arms.
What really irks me is the way some retrograde white supremacist Herald-Sun readers get their fur in a bunch about refugees coming to Australia. How dare they not want to live in a war zone. How dare they seek out a life of peaceful well-being. How dare they invade "our" land.
How dare we sell the stuff to build the bombs and bullets that destroy their homes and drive them out.
Next time some Today-Tonight watcher gets going about "bloody reffos", ask them if they've bought anything made in China (clothes) or the US (Ford, Holden) recently.
Labels: activism, culture, politics