Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

Is Australia your deputy sheriff in the region, Mr President?

“No. We don’t see it as a deputy sheriff. We see it as a sheriff. There’s a difference.” He’s outsourced policing South East Asia to us. What an honour! Umm, but doesn’t that bin our latest insurance premium? Who we gunna turn to, John? Who we gunna turn to?

The occasion of the emperor’s announcement of this enormous responsibility? A closed press conference with seven hand-picked journalists from Australia and the Asian region.

Wild. Just wild. John Howard sort-of-called Australia a deputy sheriff to the Yanks in our region in a 1999 Bulletin interview, then ran a mile from it when the shit hit the fan from our Asian neighbours. Not helpful in the region. Not helpful at all, especially now, when we need cooperation from our neighbours to combat terrorism and don’t need terrorists in our region targetting us. (For reaction in Asia see Asia unhappy with Bush’s sheriff comments and Australia is ‘puppet, not ‘sheriff’)

Howard hadn’t told us about our promotion – as usual he left it to the boss.

It puts Howard’s decision to expel the public from their own parliament when George addresses our representatives in a new light. I’ve never heard of that happening before, but we’ve never been the US President’s sheriff in South East Asia before.

The symbolism is obvious. Democracy has no place in the world of Bush, supreme commander and Howard, sheriff. The world as fashioned by Bush – Howard as echo chamber – is too dangerous for democracy. They’re creating a world in which they wield absolute power. In America, George’s thugs are making sure of that by rigging the voting system with the help of his big corporate mates (All the President’s votes? in The Independent). In Australia, Howard’s put Senate reform on the table and is trying to crush skeptical media voices by handing control of what’s left of Murdoch and Packer’s competition to the big two.

In America, the Democrats and many, many Americans are fighting back hard, led by Democrat presidential candidates General Wesley Clark and Howard Dean, both trenchant critics of Bush’s war. The US Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have just published a piece in praise of Andrew Wilkie, One Person Can Make a Difference. Yet in Australia, Labor opposition leader Simon Crean lies low, popping up only to tell his MPs to applaud Bush even before hearing what he’s got to say to a Parliament from which the Australian people are locked out.

While George was putting the gold star on Howard’s lapel and Crean was dressing down his rebellious MPs, former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating urged us not to put all our eggs in the Bush basket.

United States foreign policy would lead Australia into a “Mad Max world” where the US would shield itself behind missiles, he said. He criticised the US policy of pre-emptive strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan, which gave other countries the signal to walk away from multilateral agreements and treaties, and said small nations like Australia had a vested interest in a rule-based system around multilateral agreements.

“There is every chance that the American policy will lead us into a Mad Max world, while the US seeks to cocoon itself behind a screen of national missile defence,” Mr Keating told the 2003 CPA Australia congress in Melbourne.

He also warned against sole reliance on the US for security and trade. It was not a “smart policy” because China would soon eclipse the US as a superpower. “China is a phenomenon and it’s in our backyard and it is one of the reasons why we should look long and hard at free trade agreements with the United States. Back-lane, backdoor agreements never work in trade. They are always for the stronger party.”

Australia should embrace its own identity and find security within Asia. “We [should] maintain our alliance structure with the US, but essentially make our own luck. We should go to these places not as some kind of vicar of empire, or deputy of the United States, or borrowing the monarchy of another country, rather as a nation confident in ourselves . And that’s not falling in love with every American administration. It’s about fundamentally having a number of relationships at once. “It’s a bit promiscuous, I know.” (Beware Mad Max world of US.)

Simon, please read Harpers magazine’s The revision thing: a history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies. “All text is verbatim from senior Bush administration officials and advisers. In places, tenses have been changed for clarity.” Why should Labor applaud the man who lied to the world about invading Iraq and ignored prescient warnings from experts across the board that it would increase the risk of terror.

Simon, please read this piece, recommended by Scott Burchill:

Iraq War Swells Al Qaeda’s Ranks, Report Says

By Peter Graff

LONDON (Reuters) – War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant group’s will, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Wednesday in its annual report. The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank’s annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance, said Washington’s assertions after the Iraq conflict that it had turned the corner in the war on terror were “over-confident”.

The report, widely considered an authoritative text on the military capabilities of states and militant groups worldwide, could prove fodder for critics of the U.S.-British invasion and of the reconstruction effort that has followed in Iraq. Washington must impose security in Iraq to prevent the country from “ripening into a cause celebre for radical Islamic terrorists,” it concluded. “Nation-building” in Iraq was paramount and might require more troops than initially planned.

“On the plus side, war in Iraq has denied al Qaeda a potential supplier of weapons of mass destruction and discouraged state sponsors of terrorism from continuing to support it,” the report said. “On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al Qaeda’s recruiting power and morale and, at least marginally, its operating capability,” it said. “The immediate effect of the war may have been to isolate further al Qaeda from any potential state supporters while also swelling its ranks and galvanizing its will.”

Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism expert at Britain’s St Andrew’s University, told Reuters the report’s findings would drive home the importance of rebuilding Iraq and other conflict zones. “Military planners and the law enforcement community are fully aware of the consequences of failed states,” he said. “I think it’s probably worthwhile for politicians to keep in mind our responsibility to provide sustained and long term reconstruction in war-torn countries, so they don’t fly back into anarchy or become incubators of terrorism.”

Washington blames al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, for the 2001 U.S. airliner hijack attacks which killed 3,044 people. A crackdown had netted some al Qaeda leaders and deprived al Qaeda of bases in Afghanistan. But it also “impelled an already highly decentralized and evasive international terrorist network to become even more ‘virtual’ and protean and, therefore, harder to identify and neutralize,” the IISS report said.

It said 18,000 veterans of al Qaeda’s Afghan training camps were still probably operating worldwide “with recruitment continuing and probably increasing following the war in Iraq”. Al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden, are mostly still at large and continue to incite followers over the Internet and through pronouncements on Arabic-language television. Because of its extreme religious world view, al Qaeda “cannot be tamed or controlled through political compromise or conflict resolution,” the report said.

But Western countries need to do more to reach out to Muslim countries and their own Islamic minorities to “eliminate the root causes of terrorism,” especially after the Iraq war “almost certainly further alienated Islam from the West.” Efforts should be redoubled to resolve local conflicts, such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so regional radical groups such as Hamas do not fall into al Qaeda’s embrace, it said.

Simon, why won’t you question John Howard about why he’s blindly following Bush down his road to hell? No ticker? Don’t care? Maybe you could donate to the cause of a colleague, former Labor Senator Margaret Reynolds, to ease what’s left of your conscience:

Greetings to all those concerned about the direction of Australian foreign policy! An ad hoc group of people who wanted to make a strong statement about the need for an independent foreign policy have organised a half page advertisement in the Australian on Wednesday 22 October,the day that U.S. President George Bush arrives for a brief visit and speech to the Federal Parliament. Rather than design an advertisement of words we have obtained the generous creativity of a number of national cartoonists, (including Bruce Petty, Bill Leake, Alan Moir and Fiona Katauskas), who can so eloquently present a message which will stimulate debate and challenge some of the assumptions inherent in the Australian/U.S. alliance. We aim to promote serious discussion through the good humour and style of the political cartoon.

We seek contributions to help with the cost of this project which hopefully will gain both national and international coverage as we are not aware that cartoons have been used quite like this before. The message accompanying the cartoon advertisement will simply read:

AUSTRALIANS FOR AN INDEPENDENT FOREIGN POLICY FOR GLOBAL PEACE AND JUSTICE…….

On this occasion we are not using the space to record the names of financial contributors because we want to maximise the impact of the cartoonists’ message. I very much hope you will consider a small or larger donation to help us assert our national identity and desire for independence. Donations are to be sent to:

Now We the People, P.O. Box K941, Haymarket N.S.W. 1240. Any queries please phone me 0418181843. An email indicating the level of support would assist in our planning.

***

Poor fellow, America

by Brian Bahnisch

Early on in the Iraq campaign some writers drew attention to the stress copped by the American people through scarce public resources directed to military ventures. It was suggested that people would die in the US because of failing public services.

It has even been suggested that part of the neocon strategy was to squeeze welfare right out of the system as the war effort sucked in the diminishing tax dollar.

A few months ago I heard a report on the radio that many ambulance officers in the US were having to work two jobs because they could not live on their wages.

Last week I heard an assessment of US domestic readiness for a major terrorist strike. The biggest problem, it seems, is that the frontline services like fire, ambulance, SES etc have been pared back and shredded through Bush’s tax cuts. The US would be less able to respond now than it was on 9/11.

Jay Shaft, editor of The Coalition For Free Thought In Media, has just done a couple of articles on poverty, hunger and homelessness in the land of the free. See Living on the edge of disaster: being a poor working mother in America, published in Dissident Voice on October 9, 2003. It gives brief case histories of single mothers living on the edge and links to Homeless and starving in the Land of the Free: US homelessness and poverty rates skyrocket while billions are spent overseas on occupation. It begins:

As I watch far away images of body bags being filled, I see much closer images of bodies. I went by a local park the other day and it looked like a concentration camp crossed with a mass murder scene.

There were people in rags and covered with filth lying scattered all over the place. At least twenty people were on crutches, had parts bandaged, or with open wounds not even covered. They were all hungry and a large majority were sick.

All around this city I live in, and nation-wide, the level of homelessness and poverty is growing alarmingly. From the last counts and estimates nation-wide, there has been at least a 35-45% increase in homelessness and poverty. The increases have come over the last two years with the biggest increases being in 2002 and especially in the first six months of 2003.

Add to that the barely subsisting or borderline homeless/poor, and we start to see a very alarming trend that shows no sign of going away. Over 30% of Americans are on the borderline of poverty. A lot just do not quite make the cut to receive food stamps or some kind of benefits and live on a razor edge of desperation and starvation.

I’ve recently heard that official poverty in the US has reached 35.7 million. Shaft tells us that about 40 million are “food insecure or hungry or at risk of hunger “. 3.9 million, 39% of them children are homeless, with the biggest increases from single mothers with children. Many more are “precariously housed”.

Things seem to have rapidly gone pear-shaped from about mid-2002, the time the Bushies started to sell the Iraq war to the American people. From other sources it appears that much of this increase seems to stem from the Newt Gingrich-inspired Clinton welfare reforms. Limits were placed on life-time entitlements to welfare. These appear to be cutting in about now.

Nevertheless Bush’s public purse parsimony is amplifying the problem and reducing the capacity of other agencies, both government and non-government, to cope. Charities are working with reduced resources and increased demand. Not all requests, even for food, can be met.

Words truly fail me about all this. I know we in Oz are also creating our own internal third world, but the scale of the problem in the US seems staggering. Shaft again:

If the US spent just three months occupation costs [in Iraq and Afghanistan], they could wipe out hunger and homelessness completely for ten years. However, it does not seem like feeding and sheltering our own citizens has a very high priority.

If the US took just 25% of their annual military budget, it could go a long way to wiping out hunger and homelessness around the world. Just 10% of our military budget spent yearly on America could give every high school graduate a college education for four years.

It seems like it is not a priority to protect our children from starvation and living on the streets.

You would think that Bush does not stand the faintest chance of re-election in 2004. However, given the alienation of the marginalised, together with the cynical manipulation of their fears, you can never be sure. Still it does leave Bush vulnerable to an opponent offering even a modicum of hope.

*

Living on the edge of disaster: being a poor working mother in America

by Jay Shaft

Dissident Voice, October 9, 2003

To be a borderline poverty level working mother is becoming a reality for more and more single, hard working mothers. The edge of financial disaster is becoming familiar territory for millions of women and the families they struggle to support. A desperate scramble for survival is the way a growing sector of the America that is the real backbone of our workforce has to deal with.

These are the stories of five single mothers and the families they are forced to raise all on their own. This is their voices and feelings on the America that has left them behind and seemingly forgotten them. They have all felt the pinch of our economic hard times as a crushing burden they were unfamiliar with until the last two-three years.

Never before has this level of borderline and actual abject poverty existed in America. The disparity between the working class and the ultra rich is becoming more apparent week by week. More companies layoff workers and still manage to give their corporate executives enormous profits and dividends as the low level virtual peasants are discarded by the millions.

Let me take you into the daily lives, the minute-by-minute struggle, and try to get you to live in their footsteps as they walk the path of worry, fear, desperation, and insecurity. Take just a few minutes of your time to read this and maybe you will know what it is like to live as a single mother on the edge of disaster.

Karen is a 27 year-old mother of two who just last year in November was fired from a computer consulting firm where she worked as a mid-level manager. With a degree in communications management she made a very respectable salary. It enabled her to keep her family in comfort and enough luxury to feel a part of the American dream.

Now she works two jobs and has gone hungry many times to make sure that her children have proper nutrition. Sometimes she has even watched as her children missed some meals and went to sleep with empty stomachs and restless dreams of abundant food and a secure home.

“I went from a three bedroom custom built home to a three room studio that I can barely pay for. I have had to juggle my rent, electric bill, car payments, food expenses, and buying decent clothes for my kids. I have had to make the minimum payments on my light bill and had three shutoff notices in a week. I would scrape up $50 or a $25 check from Daystar just to keep my

balance below $200.

“I have not been able to actually pay off my whole bill since January. I know at least fifty other women in the same situation because we all have seen each other going around to all the places like Urban League, Daystar, Salvation Army, We Help, or anyone else that can give us the little checks to keep the lights on. I never thought that something as simple as paying a $200 bill would be beyond my reach.

“I have to pay my rent in chunks every week or so and haven’t been able to make a full monthly payment in over six months. Thank god my landlord has kids and is in the same position I am at times. Only another working mother can fully realize what my life has become. I probably will have to file for bankruptcy as a last resort this month.”

Daria is a 36 year-old mother of one who has lost five jobs in the last ten months. She moved from up north to Florida on word of mouth about all the jobs available. Little did she know before moving that the jobs she heard about were vanishing onto thin air. The factory jobs and manufacturing jobs that were so prevalent just two years ago have been eliminated or moved to other cities or sectors.

All that seems to be available are low income service industry jobs or temporary fill in jobs. What little jobs that become available are sought by hundreds of unemployed workers desperate for any position no matter how menial.

She has struggled to be hired only to be eliminated due to economic setbacks within weeks of getting into the job and setting herself up for some sort of job security. After getting the prospect of financial security and the hope of catching up with her bills, she sees the job disappear and has to start her employment search all over again.

“It’s an exercise in tenacity at best” she sighs. “Thank you George Bush, we ‘re really seeing our bright future and prosperity!” As she puts on a dim and vague smile she describes her worries and fears. You can see her desperation and fear for tomorrow etched in the worried lines of her face.

She has rarely found reason to smile in the last year and the laughs are few and far between. The ability to relax and have a truly enjoyable time has been yanked out from under her and her good times have dried up.

“I have never had to live like this in my life. This never seemed possible to me before I moved down here. I had to live in a motel for two months and in various shelters before I got a permanent apartment.”

She now lives in a two-room studio that is barely big enough for her and her daughter.

“This is no way for my kid to live. No kid should have to go through this. I mean I feel so bad sometimes that I can’t give her more security and the things she really needs. I tried to file bankruptcy after being forced to live on my credit cards rather than be homeless and have my kid out on the street. I am so broke I can’t even afford to pay the lawyer the filing fee for the bankruptcy so the bills keep coming in.

“My neighbors watch out for me and it kind of makes me slightly embarrassed, like I can’t take care of my kid. I never had it where my neighbors have to help me, but I’m not going to turn it down. Everybody has to take help sometimes and it helps me get by with a little extra food to feed my kid.”

Melissa is a 21 year-old mother of one who has been homeless or in emergency shelters numerous times in the past two years. At first her husband struggled side by side with her to provide for their child. After being on unemployment for almost a year and bouncing from job to job, her husband finally just left one day.

Because he left out of necessity she now qualifies for state child care benefits and barely enough food stamps to feed her and her daughter. She has not seen her husband for months and knows if he comes back she will lose her benefits and fall back into the pit of poverty and hopelessness.

“I cannot see my husband anymore and it hurts so bad he had to go away. He is working a great job and saving quite a bit of money. I am even scared to let him mail me a few hundred dollars a month. If it wasn’t for that coming in I would be back on the streets with my three year old.

“I have not been able to really explain to her where her daddy is. She can’t really grasp why we have had to live in overcrowded shelters for weeks at a time. She keeps getting settled in somewhere and then we have to move on to another temporary housing shelter.

“I have kept a single room apartment for three months now, but I am $400 behind in my rent. I manage to pay $80-$100 a week and that just keeps me in the place. I had to live at my friend’s house for a week after the landlord locked me out until I could come up with $200.”

Mary is a mother of four who has never been married and had no problem keeping a well paying secretarial/ data entry job until about a year ago. She fits the pattern of single women losing good jobs and being forced over the brink of poverty.

She has been among the 60% recorded increase in single mothers between the ages of 19-32 becoming newly homeless. This figure is growing everyday as more single mothers are forced onto the street with their children.

She has managed to keep a room in a Christian based woman’s halfway house so she can save up enough rent for an apartment or small house. The halfway house has extended the rule on the length of stay for the 20 women and their 47 children from 3-6 months to a full year upon proven necessity.

“I have four kids between five and twelve. It is almost impossible to clothe them, feed them, and buy the small things they need to be reasonably happy and content.” She sits in a wooden chair and hugs herself as she recounts the woes that have overridden her simple life, and take away any sense of a future with even a small measure of security.”

The tears flow freely down her face as the hurt and anger boil out of her.

“Just to have someone listen to me and try to let my voice be heard is overwhelming. I just feel myself sinking deeper into hopelessness and the worst depression I’ve ever felt. No one wants to listen to me or give me an outlet for my simple worries and let me cry it out.

“My twelve year old daughter knows how close we are to being separated from each other. I have almost had my kids taken from me three times. I love my kids with all my heart and have always been able to provide for them. I want my kids to be able to go to college if they want to get a better life for their kids, if they have them.

I have to move out of this shelter next month. I will have just enough for a decent apartment or small house for a few months. I will have a small window where my rent is paid and I can try to get everything back on track. All I hope for is to keep my place and put my kids back in a good school and give them some stability. If I can make it through the first three to six months it will all get better. That is my only wish right now. It’s that simple.”

Amy is a 25 year-old mother of three. Her story is slightly different, but also all too familiar with the daily struggle increasing with each setback she encounters. She has just filed for filed for bankruptcy and lost her small, prosperous business.

Her house is in mortgage repossession and she is fighting the bank over a $2000 missed payment. She says she has paid almost half of the mortgage and never been late on a payment until a few months ago. Now she has less then a month to come up with the late payment. She must also come up with the next quarterly payment a few weeks after that.

The only comments she had was a bitter tirade against George W. Bush and his “Leave No Child Behind” promise, and all the promises of economic revival and prosperity for the working class.

“I actually voted for that lying asshole and gave that whole scamming party my confidence. I believed the promises and new riches they dangled in front of us like an empty pipe dream. I damn sure will not ever vote for or support a Republican again!

“George Bush ought to try living my life for a week. He should come down from his high horse and bust his ass like most of the people I know. Brighter future my ass. What a sick joke on all the hardworking Americans.

“I had my own business that I built up since I was nineteen. I had a real dream that became my entire life. I was living the promise of the American small business owner. Two years ago I had a huge profit margin and was about o open another small craft and deco boutique. Now I don’t have a pot to piss in and I had to sell my business to a rich guy who is just interested in turning a profit. He doesn’t care about the personal touch that I put into it for years to get my customer’s loyalty.

“All I have to say to theses rich guys that took over our country is that the little people are getting raped and chewed up and spit out. They have no interest or concern for all the drowning real life people that still believe the lies about an economic recovery.”

I could include many more personal stories of single mothers in crisis but the stories are all strikingly similar. All the interviews I did for this article portray a tale of the skyrocketing poverty rate.

Here are some harsh facts about the children that have become the true victims of this great depression that is engulfing our country. Their mothers are slipping below the surface of poverty but they are the ones who suffer without understanding why or being able to fully comprehend the nature of the situation.

18% of American children, almost 15 million, live in poverty, meaning their parents’ income is at or below the federal poverty level. 8% of America’s children, 6 million, live in extreme poverty. 39% of American children, 28 million, live in low-income families. That means that over half of all children in America are facing this growing crisis of starvation, insecure housing, and an uncertain future. (census/poverty, census/income)

3-5 people in food lines and having to use soup kitchens or supplemental food resources are children. 18 million children are estimated to have to miss at least one meal a day. Without the basic services provided by America’s Second Harvest and other food distribution groups, many children would not eat at all.

Now that you have heard some of the voices of the affected single mothers you might be able to feel their desperation and agony. Through their words and the stark facts that are all too real for many, I have tried to take you into the problem. I have tried to let you experience it first hand so that you may have greater understanding.

If you are in similar circumstances you are not alone. If you are one of the Americans still living comfortably with little or no worries, just remember how easy it is to fall into the same trap many are in.

Most Americans are now within a few paychecks of losing their homes and everything that goes with their normal lives. Something as simple as losing a job for even a few weeks is enough to start the long slide into poverty and starvation that is facing millions of Americans.

Maybe together we can change the current trend of disenfranchising even more Americans. It is time for us to take back the control of our destiny and future. If our current leaders choose to ignore our plight they should be replaced with leaders that will ensure the future of America’s children.

The bottom line is that a huge majority of the children are now affected by the crisis facing single mothers in poverty or at the borderline. If we choose to ignore their fate then we truly have failed as a nation.

We are not following the “Leave No Child Behind” promise. We are making sure we leave all of them behind. Leaving them behind to go hungry and live on and off the streets until the state steps in and places them in just as shaky and unstable situation of foster care.

The promise George Bush repeated for months on end is now echoing empty and broken. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of the needy Americans who are raising our very future. They hear all the promises while the children go to bed hungry and not knowing where the next meal will come from.

If this is what America has become then we need a true change. If this is all that we can expect of this once great nation then the dream of all hopeful Americans is now dead.