Gough Whitlam dies

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Google him!

 

Don't need to google him. As I said another visionary and advocate of multi cultural Australia. A man of flair and style. Unlike the grey men that dominate the halls of parliament today.

[MARYROSE02]

Greg Sheridan? Right wing? Yes. Liar? No.

 

More like The Beatles dragged OZ into 20 C

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A couple of things in the news today.

Demolition on the house in Kew, Melbourne where Gough was born on the kitchen table started today. It was bought by a foreign buyer (Chinese). I always thought foreigners are only allowed to buy new-builds but apparently they can buy established homes as long as they knock it down and build a new one.

It probably wouldn't worry Gough - he was the first western leader to visit communist China and recognise the government. I was reminded of the anecdote of the meeting between Gough and Mao Zedong. Gough asked Mao "what do you think would have happened if Khrushchev had been assassinated and not Kennedy". Mao replied "well for one thing Onassis would not have married Mrs Khrushchev".

Another thing I heard today was an ex-CIA man talking about the CIA involvement in the dismissal. Christopher Boyce was a low-rank 23 year old working for the CIA. He says he had heard GG John Kerr described as "our man". Apparently the CIA was worried that Gough was a communist sympathizer and that he would close down their spy base at Pine Gap.

 

Not the subject under discussion here but while overseas buyers are supposed to be confined to new builds it is not policed. Not a single conviction regardless of the rorts taken place.

Indeed Gough opened up recognition with China as well as getting troops out of the crazy Vietnamese Civil War. USA all too used to Australia kowtowing to their might, so Gough not popular. Not forgetting his moral stand against the apartheid regime in South Africa, which placed Australia at the forefront of helping to dismantle that regime.

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Greg Sheridan? Right wing? Yes. Liar? No.

 

More like The Beatles dragged OZ into 20 C

 

Vested interests yes. Great friend of America and Israel yes.

 

Beatles to the degree that the young made the oldsters take note as Jane Simplton outraged the matrons wearing an above knee dress.

[MARYROSE02]

He took Australia out of Vietnam War yes but would not allow those Vietnamese who helped the Aussie troops to escape to Australia.

[Sir Les Patterson]

Murdoch sounds like he was getting in some practice with Whitlam, which he'd fine tuned by the time he decided to tell the nation they should hate Gillard http://www.9news.com.au/national/2014/06/28/10/22/murdoch-order-to-kill-whitlam#YoHeceKhOfUJG9bJ.99

 

the photo of the evil old prick in the article sort of sums up his attitude.

[Sir Les Patterson]

Michael Leunig's cartoon sums it up nicely

 

 

and this from Tandberg

 

Edited October 22, 2014 by Sir Les Patterson

[Parley]

I just read a piece by Greg sheridan who reckons Gough was the worst PM Australia has ever had.

 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/busting-decades-of-myths-on-gough-whitlam/story-fnpxuhqd-1227097838305

[Diane]

I just read a piece by Greg sheridan who reckons Gough was the worst PM Australia has ever had.

 

He's not the lead runner in that particular race any more!

[Parley]

I know I would go with Gillard, but Sheridan seems to know what he is talking about.

 

Have a read and see if you agree.

[Sir Les Patterson]

I know I would go with Gillard, but Sheridan seems to know what he is talking about.

 

Have a read and see if you agree.

 

:biglaugh::biglaugh: Sheridan wouldn't know if his arse was on fire

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He's not the lead runner in that particular race any more!

 

Sheridan is a fully fledged member of the Australian/American friendship society or something of similar name which is a little more than suggests and influenced by American policy in his opinions. Hardly as non committed to other forms of thought as some may assume.

[Sir Les Patterson]

Sheridan is a fully fledged member of the Australian/American friendship society or something of similar name which is a little more than suggests and influenced by American policy in his opinions. Hardly as non committed to other forms of thought as some may assume.

as well as his over the top admiration of Israel as you said and his enthusiasm for the Sri lankan regime.

[Parley]

Feel free to rebut any of his contentions if you like with your reasons.

[MARYROSE02]

No chance of challenging the facts when the myths are far more important. What is wrong with being allied to the USA? Aren't Western Democracies supposed to stick together? All democracies in fact hence Japan South Korea and Taiwan also allies with the USA. And even Israel is a democracy the only one in The Middle East which is reason enough for the Lefties to hate it.

 

Anyway it was The Illuminati who brought down Whitlam.

[Ellie 2]

Never was a fan of Whitlam and could never understand why the Labor Party held him in such high esteem. He was only in for 3 years and left a mess. The electorate wasn't enamoured either as he was resoundingly defeated at the election held after the dismissal.

[MARYROSE02]

He was born on the same day as my Dad - 11 July 1916. I wonder if they would have got on together? My Dad was someone who believed in self reliance which is a dirty word in Australia today.

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He was born on the same day as my Dad - 11 July 1916. I wonder if they would have got on together? My Dad was someone who believed in self reliance which is a dirty word in Australia today.

 

Even better he believed in giving a hand up to those that previously had less opportunity to attend university, made a free for all world class medical system, took away the sigma of being different and in fact broadly liberated people. Outward looking and statesman like, giving opportunity and hope in the place of fear and greed with todays present shower.

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as well as his over the top admiration of Israel as you said and his enthusiasm for the Sri lankan regime.

 

Yes to both. Often wondered if out of conviction or payment? Npt a lot to like about either regime as stands at the moment,

[MARYROSE02]

He was just a politician. The Daily Telegraph yesterday was generous to him, contrary to what Murdoch-haters might think. And remember, criticising someone is not the same as telling lies about them.

 

It's an insult to the Liberals' twenty three years in power to suggest that it was a 'Dark Age' finally illuminated by Whitlam.

[Sir Les Patterson]

He was just a politician. The Daily Telegraph yesterday was generous to him, contrary to what Murdoch-haters might think. And remember, criticising someone is not the same as telling lies about them.

 

It's an insult to the Liberals' twenty three years in power to suggest that it was a 'Dark Age' finally illuminated by Whitlam.

 

I can assure you what occurred after December 1972 was an illumination. Growing up here in the 50's and '60s was a very conservative upbringing.

 

 

and sometimes cartoonists have their fingers fair on the pulse

 

[MARYROSE02]

What's wrong with a 'conservative upbringing?' And if it was so bad, why did Australians rush to bring it back after only three years of 'illumination'? We should have only had three years of Krudd, if the independents had not turned traitor to the people.

[flag of convenience]

He was just a politician. The Daily Telegraph yesterday was generous to him, contrary to what Murdoch-haters might think. And remember, criticising someone is not the same as telling lies about them.

 

It's an insult to the Liberals' twenty three years in power to suggest that it was a 'Dark Age' finally illuminated by Whitlam.

 

You would need to be a liberal minded person to appreciate the period of enlightenment promised by the Whitlam election. He certainly wasn't right on every issue but did move Australia towards joining the liberal world and stood for the subjects dear to me. Being film and the arts in general. Putting Australia first hardly radical one would suppose in the area of foreign policy. Putting to sleep the All the Way with LBJ mantra of Holt and being a nation promoting pride in tolerance and acceptance under it's own terms not America's.

 

I would certainly sat that was putting something of a dark age behind, not that I detested Menzies, a man of principle and stood for the little people, something long forgotten by the present shower of Tory born to rule MP's that at present call the shots and selling this country very short.

[Harpodom]

I know Pilger isn't every Australian's cup of tea, but this might be of interest

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/23/gough-whitlam-1975-coup-ended-australian-independence?CMP=soc_567

[h=1]The British-American coup that ended Australian independence[/h]

 

Across the media and political establishment in Australia, a silence has descended on the memory of the great, reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam. His achievements are recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. But a critical reason for his extraordinary political demise will, they hope, be buried with him.

Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution”. Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported “zones of peace” and opposed nuclear weapons testing.

Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to “buy back the farm”. In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain’s colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent’s vast natural wealth.

Latin Americans will recognise the audacity and danger of this “breaking free” in a country whose establishment was welded to great, external power. Australians had served every British imperial adventure since the Boxer rebellion was crushed in China. In the 1960s, Australia pleaded to join the US in its invasion of Vietnam, then provided “black teams” to be run by the CIA. US diplomatic cables published last year by WikiLeaks disclose the names of leading figures in both main parties, including a future prime minister and foreign minister, as Washington’s informants during the Whitlam years.

Whitlam knew the risk he was taking. The day after his election, he ordered that his staff should not be “vetted or harassed” by the Australian security organisation, Asio – then, as now, tied to Anglo-American intelligence. When his ministers publicly condemned the US bombing of Vietnam as “corrupt and barbaric”, a CIA station officer in Saigon said: “We were told the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators.”

Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone. “Try to screw us or bounce us,” the prime minister warned the US ambassador, “[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention”.

Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, “This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House … a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion.”

Pine Gap’s top-secret messages were decoded by a CIA contractor, TRW. One of the decoders was Christopher Boyce, a young man troubled by the “deception and betrayal of an ally”. Boyce revealed that the CIA had infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred to the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as “our man Kerr”.

Kerr was not only the Queen’s man, he had longstanding ties to Anglo-American intelligence. He was an enthusiastic member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, The Crimes of Patriots, as “an elite, invitation-only group … exposed in Congress as being founded, funded and generally run by the CIA”. The CIA “paid for Kerr’s travel, built his prestige … Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money”.

When Whitlam was re-elected for a second term, in 1974, the White House sent Marshall Green to Canberra as ambassador. Green was an imperious, sinister figure who worked in the shadows of America’s “deep state”. Known as “the coupmaster”, he had played a central role in the 1965 coup against President Sukarno in Indonesia – which cost up to a million lives. One of his first speeches in Australia, to the Australian Institute of Directors, was described by an alarmed member of the audience as “an incitement to the country’s business leaders to rise against the government”.

The Americans and British worked together. In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain’s MI6 was operating against his government. “The Brits were actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office,” he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, “We knew MI6 was bugging cabinet meetings for the Americans.” In the 1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that the “Whitlam problem” had been discussed “with urgency” by the CIA’s director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said: “Kerr did what he was told to do.”

On 10 November 1975, Whitlam was shown a top-secret telex message sourced to Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of the CIA’s East Asia division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile two years earlier.

Shackley’s message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia’s NSA, where he was briefed on the “security crisis”.

On 11 November – the day Whitlam was to inform parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia – he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal “reserve powers”, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The “Whitlam problem” was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.

•John Pilger’s investigation into the coup against Whitlam is described in full in his book, A Secret Country (Vintage), and in his documentary film, Other People’s Wars, which can be viewed on http://www.johnpilger.com/

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I was not living in Australia at the time of the coup, but vividly recall the black arm bands that the Aussie barmen wore as a sign of the death of Australian democracy at the Aussie Earls Court pub Kings Head at the time. Indeed there was even a protest outside Australia House in The Strand.