The following speech was give at the recently organised CAUSE (Coalition Against the United States Empire) rally held in Adelaide on 5th February. It was given by Eileen Darley, coordinator of PACOA (Port Adelaide Community Opposes AUKUS).
Friends and comrades,
The whole world is in a terrible state of chassis. Those words were written by Irish playwright Sean O’Casey through the mouth of one of his characters in 1924 , relatively early in the era of imperialism and immediately after the war to end all wars that revealed just how destructive inter-imperialist rivalry is to the planet and its people. So the world has been here before but never quite like this where imperialism is hurtling us towards World War 3 in such a seemingly chaotic fashion as we’re experiencing at the moment.
Imperialism is the historical point where competitive capitalism concentrates into monopolies (cartels, trusts, giant firms) . It’s the era when banks cease to be mere intermediaries and become powerful controllers of industry. When instead of exporting goods ,advanced capitalist countries now export capital to less developed regions to secure higher profits. And the globe gets carved up into colonies and spheres of influence making war not just an option but an inherent feature of the system.
Since the end of World War 2 the reigning champion of the world has been the USA. Through countless wars in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia Grenada Panama Iraq (twice) Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, millions of lives have been murdered and wanton destruction carried out. Recently the horrific genocide of Palestinians which they green light and fund with their Middle East attack dog doing the dirty work ,…… And then ,through coups and sanctions in Iran, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia, Congo, Ghana, Indonesia; Cuba where their sanctions and tariffs have sadistically left the Cuban people with less than two weeks oil supply and 11 million people at risk of starvation and dire poverty; and most definitely lets not forget Australia where amongst other stand over tactics they conspired and succeeded to overthrow the democratically elected Whitlam government!
Anywhere that a people exercise their right to sovereignty and attempt to redistribute wealth more justly through reform or revolution they orchestrate regime change, prop up fascist rule and extract trillions of dollars from the resources which rightfully belong to the people of those sovereign nations.
But empires come at a cost and they always fall. And what we’re experiencing at the moment is the accelerated decline of the US. Since they outsourced their manufacturing industry, mostly to their now arch economic rival China, and shifted their production to finances and services they’re up shit creek without a paddle and have become a completely parasitic entity that extracts value from everywhere and make exactly nothing! They have an eye-watering debt of $38 trillion not least of all because of their forever wars which have seen them over-reach both militarily and economically . There are too many fronts for them to fight on which is why we see them lurching their air craft carriers from the Carribean to the Arabian sea and pulling away from the Frankensteins monster they created, NATO, in Europe. Their dollar as the predominant global currency is under severe threat, their competitors in China, Russia and the other BRICS countries are rising rapidly, and they’re getting desperate.
An empire in decline, and lets be clear they are still the dominant threat to the planet and its people, still the largest, most aggressive military force, is both an opportunity and a danger to people around the world including us here.
And so what of Australia? We call ourselves a sovereign state though we’re still formally tied to that British empire who brutally dispossessed First Nation’s people in a genocide that’s still ongoing. But sovereignty is not something you merely state, its something you exercise! And successive Liberal/Labor governments have sold this country’s resources to the highest corporate bidders and allowed them to shape the industrial, political and social landscape of our people, putting downward pressure on wages and robbing the coffers meant for the welfare of all . The United States corporations, who their government rules for, are still the majority owners of Australia in all major aspects of our economy. They dominate all four of the major banks, the mining and energy sector, the defence and military procurement industry; technology, digital infrastructure and data; media, culture and communications; pharmaceuticals and higher education and research funding. There are other considerable foreign interests as well but none as great as the US. Why does it matter? Because this dominance means that Australian governments don’t make substantial decisions about national economic priorities for its people. Those decisions are made in the boardrooms of Washington and NY where their sole purpose is to increase the profits of their shareholders.
Add to that that they pay no tax! The data is overwhelming – Exxon, Mobil, Glencore, Shell Australia, Chevron and so forth – zero tax on billions of dollars of profits because of the Liberal/Labor facilitation of concessions and loopholes for them. Here’s a much cited example: that one Australian worker paid more tax than the combined top 5 corporations put together at different junctures of the last ten years!
The knock-on effect of this to the people of Australia is horrendous and getting worse: there are no much-needed reforms in the areas that really matter for the people: public ownership of significant resources and industries; the housing crisis, public housing, health, education, jobs, the climate crisis! Homelessness and poverty is growing far faster than struggling services can cope; jobs are increasingly casualised because, amongst other things, they killed off our manufacturing industry; and their much-beloved social cohesion begins to break down as some look for scapegoats and creeping fascism rears its ugly head.
So is it any wonder that Australia is locked into a relationship of military interchangeability and interoperability with the US and why we follow them into every war they start. Why our pathetic Prime Minister , Defence and Foreign Affairs Ministers twist themselves into knots refusing to condemn a genocide, inviting a war criminal to our shores, litter Darwin and Western Australia with US bases, host Pine Gap which is central to every military action the US takes; and agree to pay $368 billion of the Australian peoples wealth to prop up a struggling US and UK submarine program. It’s why, incredibly, they have decided to build nuclear submarines in a residential area of Port Adelaide, a place I love and have called my home for more than 45 yrs, and to store their nuclear waste across the road from homes, kindy’s and schools .
But lets be clear, for a long time PACOA and many others have been saying these Nuclear subs are a figment of the Australian political class’ imagination! Many of you would have seen the recent US Congressional report where the top option is to not sell Australia any Virginia Class Subs at all but instead simply bring those ships here to add to their other subs in rotation round the Australian coast , under US command.
AUKUS and the Force Posture Agreements which rotate increasing numbers of US troops and military hardware on Australian soil, so vehemently supported by our governments of all levels, including Malin-AUKUS here, means a hardening of the Alliance with the US at a time when its plans for a war with China are in full swing. And we need to be very clear that means Australia as the launch-pad and primary proxy and so , a target, in a devastating war. Given our proximity to the South China Sea and our utter subservience to the US, its a certainty. That’s the difference this time. It will be on our shores and with our blood they want this war to be fought. I for one refuse to accept that my kids or anyone elses will be sacrificed to the US war machine. It’s going to take a mighty anti-war movement to stop them . Bigger than the anti-conscription movement of WW1, the moratoriums during their war on Vietnam, the valiant resistance to Iraq and Palestine. And really, its time we got started building that movement!
Release Maduro! Hands off Venezuela! Hands off Iran! And Australia the hell out of AUKUS and the Alliance!
