(c) Copyright 1999: Antonia Feitz, 13th February 1999.
The Opposition spokesman on finance is Lindsay Tanner, an up-and-coming star of the Australian Labor party, touted by many as a future prime minister. He is called an intellectual by some and has just released a new book, "Open Australia" which gives his vision for the future of the Labor party and of Australia. The Australian generously gave him space to promote his book by publishing his summary of the book's message. It's easy to see why.
Tanner is yet another 'intellectual' who has uncritically accepted, learned by heart and now constantly recites the litany of globalist dogma: globalization is inevitable; any alternative is nostalgia; governments must re-define their role as 'facilitators', the nation state is gone; and Australia needs significantly higher migration. Oh, and Labor must find a new path; Bill Clinton and Tony Blair say there is a Third Way, so Australia must follow them and do likewise.
The most striking thing about globalist politicians like Tanner is their overt contempt for democracy. All over the world people are objecting to their governments' economic policies which are bringing economic ruin and political chaos to the world. Australians, Americans, Canadians, the French all protest to no avail. Even the Vietnamese are trying to preserve their own country. While the Hanoi central government is pro-foreign investment, its laws and regulations are meeting resistance in the provinces. So Australia's senior trade commissioner to Vietnam has proposed ways that the various ministries could facilitate foreign investment "without the tedious process of legislative change." The democratic process is a now a "tedious process" to be circumvented.
Tanner would do well to open his mind and see that his 'inevitable' globalization is nothing of the sort. Even George Soros has had a re-think. He has renamed laissez-faire capitalism 'market fundamentalism' - a term with overtones of anti-intellectualism and even of intellectual constipation. Commenting on the unsustainability of the current system, Soros notes that the global capitalist system of the 19th century was more stable because there was a single international currency - gold (real money!) - "and most important, there were certain shared beliefs and ethical standards ... [which] combined a faith in reason and a respect for science with the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition, and on the whole provided a more reliable guide to what is right and what is wrong than the values which prevail today. Monetary values and transactional markets do not provide an adequate basis for social cohesion."
Indeed they don't. In a civilized society people come before profits. Socrates knew it: "I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue come money and every other good of man, public as well as private." Such luminous wisdom is beyond the grasp of greed-driven globalists. They fail to understand that the majority of people do not measure the quality of their lives by how cheaply they can buy a pair of cheap shoes. In fact most people are unhappy to know that their cheap shoes have been made by exploited workers in the third world.
Harvard economics professor Dani Rodrik has also said that a world financial system is inherently impractical. Why? Because "successful capitalist systems are, and will remain, a national phenomenon, each of which exists in a web of social and political institutions. These institutions serve three functions, without which the financial markets cannot survive: they regulate, stabilise and legitimise market operations. That is why every functioning society has regulatory bodies that prevent unfair competition and fraud, monetary and financial institutions that help smooth out the boom-bust cycle, as well as social insurance schemes that help bring out market outcomes into conformity with society's preferences regarding the distribution of risks and rewards. Clearly, none of these structures can, or do exist at the international level, despite the number of international institutions which exist to facilitate the operations of the world's financial system, including the World Bank, the IMF, the OECD and the WTO."
Note he said "every functioning society". Ours is increasingly a dysfunctional society precisely because of economic rationalist policies which put profits before people, and the greed of transnationals before the good of the nation. Economic rationalist policies can never fix social problems because the policies themselves are the cause of the social problems.
Nations? It is an article of faith for globalists that the sovereign nation is no more. According to Tanner, "The economies of developed countries are outgrowing the nation-State." The Australian's International Editor Paul Kelly says the same: "nations must adjust to having less sovereignity". Tanner continues his reciting of the creed: "For a country such as Australia to seek to restore the level of economic autonomy it enjoyed 30 years ago would produce a flight of investment capital, a reduction in the transfer of technology from other developed nations and a slump in exports and consequently in domestic economic activity."
Oh yeah? Tell that to Dr. Mahatir. Though derided by the international community for imposing currency controls, pegging the value of the ringgit and prohibiting overseas dealings in its currency last September, Mahatir has had the last laugh. By battening down the hatches Malaysia weathered the storm which left its neighbours ruined. And guess what? Impressed with its performance, investors are expressing interest in investing in Malaysia, even on Mahatir's terms. After all, despite the unanimous Tannerish predictions of Malaysia's becoming a pariah nation, the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange has risen from a low of 261 in September to 578 on 4th February. Malaysia is in charge of its economy now, not the IMF. It has eased the controls but has locked in responsible behaviour by introducing a graduated levy or exit tax on foreign investments in Malaysian stocks. Funds invested before February 15 will be subject to a levy of 30% if they are taken out within 7 months. The levy falls to 20% if the period is 9 months, and 10% for 12 months. Malaysia has had the guts to discipline the market and Malaysia hasn't swallowed the globalist clap-trap about the demise of the nation-State either.
I wonder what Tanner thinks of it. Probably he longs for a Global Inquisition where heretics like Mahatir could be burnt at the stake before they infect others with their dangerous heresies.
Commenting on the social revolution of the sixties Tanner wrote: "It is time for those of us who fought, and mostly won, the liberation battles of the 60s and 70s to confront the many negative social consequences that have flowed from the immense social upheavals of that period. Our enemies now are loneliness and alienation, not conformism and authority".
It would be almost impossible to find a clearer statement of the arrogance and stupidy of the elites, and the reasons for the current debased state of society. There it is in all its infantilism - their 'enemies' were conformism and authority. It defies belief that a man in his forties has so little wisdom he cannot recognize his rejection of conformism for the entirely normal youthful rebellion it is. But most people grow up. Most people eventually understand that conforming means accepting the responsibilities of adulthood and the personal restraints necessary for a civilized society. We see all around us the results of liberation from those restraints: massive social pathology as evidenced by high rates of divorce, illegitimacy, drug abuse and suicide. Rather than regarding the liberation battles as victories, the likes of Tanner should apologize for their part in them. Only a restoration of traditional morality will alleviate the "many negative social consequences" of the sixties social revolution. Money will not do it and governments cannot do it because the problems are moral, not economic.
Because the only alternative to a society of people who set standards of behaviour - in other words people who conform - is the jungle, it was inevitable that the destruction of voluntary personal conformism would result in a state-imposed conformism, enforced by bureacracies such as the Human Rights Commission and the plethora of anti-discrimination tribunals. Australians lived far freer lives before Tanner and his mates 'liberated' them from conformism. At least back in the bad old days of the conforming fifties people had a choice to conform or not. If they didn't they were 'bohemians' or eccentrics, and most people thought they were pretentious or crazy. So what? At least everybody was happy: the bohemians rejoiced in their notoriety and freedom from bourgeois morality, and ordinary people enjoyed the fruits of that bourgeois morality - a civil society and lives lived with little if any government interference.
Before Australia was liberated by Tanner and his mates, men conformed in such matters as not swearing in front of women, and women conformed in such matters as dressing modestly. Generally the sexes conformed to the traditional roles of provider-husband and childrearing-wife, though some women did work, especially highly educated ones - as today's obituaries of women in their 80s indisputably show. Despite feminist revisionist history and the twee whines of Betty Friedan, most people were content. Certainly on most indicators people were happier than today. As well, in the post war boom, ordinary women were entering the workforce long before pampered middle class feminists started agitating around their kitchen tables. The conforming was not onerous to civilized people.
Nowadays the conforming is onerous and an affront to civilized people. Everybody must conform to the Correct Thoughts on feminism, homosexuality, multiculturalism and indigenous issues. Failure to do so results in being branded a racist, bigot, a sexist person, troglodyte, homophobe, globaphobe, xenophobe or whatever label is appropriate. Even telling a joke about women will land a man in the EEO office for counseling about his 'inappropriate' or 'insensitive behaviour'. This, while feminists freely make malicious anti-male jokes like: "How many men does it take to wallpaper a room?" "It depends how thinly you slice them." Overt resistance to Correct Thought, such as a religious school's refusal to employ a homosexual, results in being called before one of the tribunals. When Spindler's Sexuality Bill is passed it will be an offence not to accept 'bi-sexuality' as a legitimate gender, even though for orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims and many atheists it is nothing but a fancy name for depravity.
The new conformism inhibits free speech; regulates the natural behaviour between adult men and women by encouraging women to be 'offended' by innocent male behaviour (even looking can be harassment!); limits the topics deemed suitable for humour; and even requries people to act against their religious convictions. The assertion that it's no big deal because people still do tell politically incorrect jokes in private misses the point. It's the principle. In a free society governments have no right to interfere at this level. In a free society people have to be willing to be 'offended'. Bad taste should be a social gaffe, not a crime that results in an adult being called to answer for it to a bureaucrat. Such criminalizing of bad taste reduces adults to the status of children who have to be told what's right and wrong.
Tanner's other 'enemy' was authority. What society functions without authority? Ghettos of the underclass come to mind, and they are not renowned for their quality of life, safety or culture. Again, this infantile rejection of the legitimate authority of parents, teachers and policemen has resulted in the imposition of a tyrannical authority over everybody via the HRC and the tribunals. The old authority was a local community authority directed to the proper socialization of children and to the restraining of anti-social people. Good citizens could live their entire lives without coming into contact with it. In marked contrast, nowadays almost everybody is irritated that governments intrude into the most minute areas of their lives as shown above. The mood of society is one of irritable frustration.
The hypocrisy is stunning: Tanner and his mates who helped 'liberate' Australia from the lightness of personal conformism and legitimate authority, have served it back to us in the form of oppressive government interference in our lives and even our thoughts.
Hi Antonia,
I've got to say I'm glad you are on our side! If globalism was a great big cake then your mind is like a sharp carving knife. Cutting through the crap and exposing the nitty-gritty to the cold light of reason. Your expose on Lindsay Tanner is very informative and I have noted that you have pinpointed an identifying "globalist characteristic" namely infantilism.
I have been watching Tony Blair (British PM) for some time, and had noticed a worrying new tendency in this NWO-Elite protogee. Namely the aforesaid infantilism. Previously I had thought that these people would simply pervert good reasoning in support of their globalist argument, as they often had in the past, in the hope that at least a significant majority would fall for it.
Could it be that despite all the resistance, these NWO-perverters now belive their multi-pronged dumbing down assaults on the common man have been so successful that they can risk all by allowing infantile clowns like Lindsay Tanner and Tony Blair every opportunity to insult the intelligence of their listeners.
This put's me in mind of an arrogant statement made by NWO puppet Peter Reith at the height of last years water-front fiasco when he said "Oh look you can't hold up the pace of reform in this country, it's unstoppable now!"
Your article is long and scholarly and I don't think I can address it in detail in my response but you have skillfully exposed Lindsay Tanner as not only a baby, but a hypocrite to boot. You are right to say non-conforming is a natural part of youthfull rebellion, but you also rightly note that many of us in our 40s have already recognised this and adopted a voluntary confirmity, one that facilitates social interaction and even the possibility of mutual understanding.
What Lindsay and his ilk are saying to us is, you who have grown into adults are unsuitable to our new world order, you must conform to our rules, but please do it without a fuss because you might destroy our illusions of ourselves as non-conforming teenage '60s rebels!
Saints preserve us from the intellectual giants of the NWO.
David Morgan.
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