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Category: International

07/03/2025

Anti-Semitism- a perspective

6 March 2025

There is currently a rush towards the banning of hate speech and a demand for action on antisemitism, but far less emphasis on Islamophobia.

In Australia, we have been a relatively wealthy country where everyone has had a fair go. With a large number of migrants relative to most counties we have been seen as a relatively tolerant society by world standards.

When I grew up, there were large numbers of ‘displaced persons’ (refugees) who had come from Europe after the war. They were from Greece, Italy, Turkey, the Baltic states, the Balkans and Eastern Europe, as well as ‘ten pound Poms’. Anglo-Australians called them ‘wogs’, ‘wops’, ‘Eyties’, Poms or various other names. There were no anti-discrimination laws, so the migrants mainly copped the abuse and worked hard in their new land so that their children would have all the opportunities.

Australia was welcoming in the sense that behind our tariff barriers everyone had jobs at the level that mostly only the father had to work, though women mostly could if they wanted to. There were few private schools, so most kids went to public schools and grew up together and prejudice mostly died out amongst them because of their common experiences. The government Housing department built whole suburbs of houses and leased them at reasonable rents and later they could buy the houses that they had lived in for years. Some migrants set up ethnic clubs based on their homelands and soccer teams were initially racially based as Australia played cricket or rugby. There was some trouble between Serbs and Croats with a shop in Western Sydney memorably burned down, and Sydney Water knew not to have Serb and Croat gangs in the same depots, but mostly things were peaceful.

Other notable migrant groups have been Vietnamese after the Vietnam war and Chinese after Tiananmen Square, but these were on a lesser scale.

Jews were mostly not noticed, but they set up their own Schools, which sang the national anthem of Israel and hoisted an Israeli flag. They were also quietly active in politics, working against any politician who took a pro-Palestinian line.

I can tell my own story here. I spoke at a refugee rally in Hornsby when I was an Australian Democrat in NSW Parliament and pointed out that terrorism was a political and military technique used generally by the weaker side against the stronger, and who was the terrorist depended on the time and your perspective. The political Zionist movement had grown up in the 1890s and managed to get the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which promised a “national home for the Jewish people” in what was then Ottoman-controlled Palestine. After WW2 there were many displaced Jews and the Zionists did terror raids against the British who had inherited control of Palestine. Famously, they bombed the King David Hotel, killing the British general there and destroying all the records of the Zionists terrorists that were stored there. The war-weary British, having nowhere else to put the Jewish refugees, gave up and let them go to Palestine in 1946, despite the objections of the Palestinians, who did not actually have their own government, having been a colony ceded from Turkey to Britain. The Zionists then organised, and ‘Declared the State of Israel’ in 1948, even though Jews were still only 36% of the population. The surrounding nations declared war on the new state and the UN did not recognise it, but they were well organised, bought some leftover tanks from Romania and repelled their attackers. They also killed some Palestinians causing many others (about 750,000) to flee. This was termed the Nakba in the Arab world and is considered ethnic cleansing and equivalent to the Holocaust. The Israeli government then declared that any unoccupied land belonged to the State and could be given to whomever the State wanted. Palestinian land title was not recognised and land was given for ‘settlements’ to Jews who came to Israel and who were willing to take this land and fight the Palestinians who might resist the loss of land that was formerly theirs. The Palestinians were then termed terrorists, and this nomenclature has persisted in Western political definitions and media ever since, as Israel has progressively taken over land formerly owned by Palestinians.

The Jewish lobby in Australia has been very pro-Zionist. After my speech in Hornsby, at which I said some of the above, I was approached by a person who still posts pro-Israel messages on my FB page. He told me that I was quite wrong, but did not elaborate why.

Some time later, a State by-election was held in Tamworth, a safe National party seat, (rendered even safer by optional preferential voting). A couple of rival local councillors stood as Independents, but without preferences flowing were unlikely to knock off the National. The Democrats had a local candidate, so it was an opportunity to get our name out, so we put her up. We discussed our ‘How to Vote’ card preferences and decided we would put the more favoured of the local rival counsellors, then the other Independents, then the National last. We decided to contact the other 3 independents to decide what order to put them in.

Our ‘How to Votes’ were not going to make much difference, the National was going to get in. We contacted 2 of the independents, but despite our best efforts could not find the third, so we gave up, put him second last and went ahead. The National got in, we got a few percent and the Independent in question got 7 votes.

I was then flabbergasted to see a headline in the Jewish Times, ‘Democrats Support Neo Nazis’. The uncontactable independent had apparently attended an Neo-Nazi rally in Melbourne 20 years before and had not been seen since, and we had put him ahead of the Nationals. But the Jewish lobby had kept track of him as well as my speeches and it was pay-back time.

Another example of their power was in 2003. Both the Sydney Peace Foundation and the Dept of Peace and Conflict studies at the University of Sydney advocated the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israel. The Sydney Peace Foundation awarded the Sydney Peace Prize to Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian who had worked for peace in Israel. The head of the Foundation, Prof Stuart Rees contacted all his sponsoring companies to tell them that he intended to do this to be sure that they did not pull their sponsorship. They all assured him it was up to him to award the prize, they would not interfere. When it was announced the Jewish lobby was very upset and said that he had to withdraw the prize and give it to someone else. Rees refused, saying that Foundation would have no credibility at all if he did this. Bob Carr, the Premier, awarded the Prize, but all the sponsoring companies left. Some apologised, some did not. When Rees stepped down, new Board members ended the BDS campaign. The Dept of Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University was degraded from a Department to a course within the Arts faculty after it also supported Palestine.

The Greens have been relatively pro-Palestine and ran a BDS campaign associated with the local Council elections in Marrickville. The Green candidate for mayor had done quite well and was tipped as quite likely to beat the Labor candidate. They had enough money for a billboard campaign. Zionists defaced all their posters. The vandal was caught, but had a clever lawyer who found some previously unnoticed problem with the billboard and got off on a technicality. Vandalism not terrorism? Labor won narrowly.

The IDF, Israeli ‘Defence Force’ has flattened Gaza to a demolition site and killed an estimated 49,000 Palestinans, and now have been attacking Palestinans on the West Bank. Most recently they are stopping food aid getting into Gaza because the Palestinans want a lasting peace, rather than just a ceasefire extension, which would give the Israeli hostages back, but without a guarantee that the one-sided fighting would not resume.

Hamas fighters are always referred to as Hamas militants; even on the ABC because the Americans have classified Hamas as a terrorist organisation and our government has followed. I wonder if our major political parties would have dared not to. Hamas is the legitimately elected government of Gaza because the Palestinian Authority was justly seen as corrupt and unwilling to stand up to Israel. It seems that the kickbacks from property development in Ramallah were too great a temptation.

Recently we have seen some examples to the Jewish lobby pulling Australian society into line:

Antoinette Lattouf was taken off the air by the ABC 2 days into a 5 day contract because she had done a pro-Palestinian social media post. It seems that there was a tsunami of complaints that went right to the top of the ABC within 2 days! I wonder who coordinated that? The case continues in Court- she will probably win her unjust dismissal case. (ABC News 27/2/25)

The artist selected by Creative Australia for the 2026 Venice Biennale, Khaled Sabsabi was dropped because he had made an artwork in 2006 about the Sept 11 attacks in New York and in 2007 a video about a Hezbollah leader. Artists like to think that they can make political statements as part of their work, rather than Art having a purely decorative function. It seems not. (ABC News 14/2/25)

The Australian Research Council (ARC) has suspended an $870,00 grant to pro-Palestinian academic, Randa Abdel-Fatteh, who was given the money for her study, ’Arab/Muslim Australian Social Movements since 1970’. She had made recent anti-Israel comments. No lesser person than Federal Arts Minister, Jason Clare, contacted the ARC. (SMH 1/2/25)

Two nurses, Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdehon were stood down and charged for allegedly ‘wanting to kill Israeli patients’. It is, of course, not at all in keeping with the medical tradition, which is to treat your enemies the same as you treat your own side. Their social media video came to light and was given publicity by an Israeli ‘social media influencer’, Max Veifer. (SBS News 26/2/25)

The National Gallery of Australia had a display of indigenous art and part of the display including suppressed indigenous peoples had a Palestinian flag. The Palestinian flag was covered after complaints. Some in the arts community were offended by this official censorship. (www.pedestrian.tv/news/nga-covers-palestinian-flags-in-artwork/).

You might ask who kept track of the Independent candidate for theTamworth by-election for 10 years and arranged the story about the Democrats, who pressured the companies to stop sponsoring the Sydney Peace Foundation, who made the phone calls to high places to complain about journalist Lattouf, artist Sabsabi and researcher Abdel-Fatteh, who found the social media post of the nurses and amplified it, and who complained about the Palestinian flag in an indigenous art exhibition at the National Gallery?

Clearly there is a lot of money and effort going into pressuring politicians and civil organisations that dare to take an anti-Israeli perspective, no matter how Israel behaves. There has been not a word from the Jewish establishment in Australia in favour of the Palestinians. Some of my Jewish friends who have urged reconciliation with the Palestinians have been quite outcast from mainstream Jewish society in Australia, and called names like ‘self-hating Jews’. Being a long way from the action, Australian Jewry seems to echo the most militant elements of Zionism, and are quick to play the ‘anti-semitism’ card with politicians, without acknowledging why anti-Israel sentiment might be rising. The Palestinian death toll in Gaza and now the West bank and the International Criminal Court talking of war crimes and genocide seems to make no difference. The Holocaust ended 80 years ago, the Nakba was 77 years ago, but has continued to a lesser extent until this Gaza war which is a real and ongoing problem. Australia’s politicians are very afraid of the Jewish lobby, and as in the US, it may be the case that no party can win without its support. One does not have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that systematic funded interference in the way Australia is governed is likely. Will I be safe after writing this piece? Is a fatal car accident more likely?

Australia’s neoliberalism, which seems determined to keep government interference to a minimum, makes us a relatively low taxing country. So there is not enough money for realistic welfare, unemployment benefits, Gonski’s plan for equality of educational opportunity, universal health care, or building public housing. Yet we subsidise negative gearing for middle class property speculators, private health insurance and private education for those who can afford it, in the land of the supposed ‘fair go for all’. We give tax breaks to religious institutions. Jewish schools raise the Israeli flag and sing the national anthem of Israel. I wonder how a Muslim school would fare if it raised a Palestinian flag? Is there a Palestinian national anthem?

The reason I make the point about our welfare system is because Australia managed to absorb huge numbers of post WW2 migrants because everyone had a job and housing, and nearly all the children went to public schools and had similar early life experiences. There were no anti discrimination laws or commissioners but minimal problems. This assimilation was not merely because we are all nice people and have a nice climate. Social policies promoted inclusion. We have now moved away from inclusive policies to ones that cheerfully tolerate disadvantage and the segregation of society into advantaged and disadvantaged groups, which are likely to be divided by race and religion as well as by economic factors.

There is increasing ghettoisation in western Sydney and pro-Islamic groups are looking at standing Federal election candidates to counteract what they see as pro-Israeli views in the Australian political system. There seems that there is a lot more concern about anti-Semitism than Islamophobia, though this is rising similarly.

It is all very well to pass anti-hate laws and ban Nazi salutes to control extremist political rallies, but to get a harmonious egalitarian society we need to stop subsidising things that divide us, and start paying for things that will lessen division and give equal opportunities for all in a secular society.

02/03/2025

AUKUS- where now for Australia’s Defence Strategy?

2 March 2024

The Chinese incursion into Australia’s area was frankly predictable. Australia has sailed through the Taiwan Strait to please the USA.

China has the fastest growing navy in the World, and wants to be taken seriously as a world power. The way to send us a message is to send some ships through Torres Strait, Timor Sea and Bass Strait. The pathetic inadequacy of our naval defence was there for all to see. NZ got is act together better than we did.

We have dithered about a defence strategy for years, becoming ever more mendicant to the USA and integrated into their anti-China world view as China became our major trading partner and source of wealth. We survived the Global Financial Crisis because China kept buying our stuff, not because our government was particularly clever. The US is declining as a world power. We will have to get used to the idea that China is a growing power and adapt to it.

Our defence strategy has been to put all our money into AUKUS, attack submarines to scare China into not attacking us. Yeah right.
This might be a tiny fraction of a US ‘defence’ strategy, but it is foolishness for us. The US will act in its own interest and protect us to the extent it suits its interest at the time and with the priorities it has at the time.

We might learn from history. When Britain was at war in Europe it did not defend us. It demanded that we keep our soldiers in North Africa and said Australia would be recaptured from the Japanese when the European war was won. Curtin insisted on bringing our soldiers home, but raw recruits, ‘chocos’ (=chocolate soldiers from song of the time) were needed in Papua New Guinea in the meantime. We appealed helplessly to the US. The US came to Australia as an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the assault on Japan. General MacArthur’s contempt for the Australian Army is something historians gloss over.

The US, for its part has always had a strong isolationist streak. It did not enter WW1 until very late and after the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine killed a lot of Americans.

They did not join WW2 until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour.
Since WW2 they have behaved as a global power, putting bases everywhere, but being very selective where they support democratic movements. They let the Indonesians have West Papua and Portuguese East Timor. They have supported appalling authoritarian governments in many countries such as Iran under the Shah, Saudi Arabia, and many South American governments. They talk free trade, but exclude agricultural products, which has hugely disadvantaged Australia. They also want copyright laws enforced, so that their products such as drugs and software can be sold at prices immensely higher than production costs for very long periods.

Their self interest has always been there, it is just more extreme and more naked than it was. The increase in the US national debt and the decrease in their share of world GDP are giving them an unpleasant reality check, Trump’s hubristic bluster notwithstanding.

Trump appears willing to sacrifice Ukraine. Presumably if it suited US priorities, they would sacrifice Australia also, like the British did. Trump is aware of the US deficit, but doesn’t even recall AUKUS.

The new AUKUS ‘deal’ is likely to be ‘We cannot make enough submarines for ourselves, let alone you. You cannot defend yourselves. We will let you have our nuclear submarines in your bases- take it or leave it.’

Which Prime Minister will sit in Zelenskyy’s chair in the Oval Office to sign the deal?

Alternatively, we might recognise that China has no real need to invade us, is unlikely to do so, and probably could not be stopped if they really tried. That is probably the same situation as many countries in the world, so we need to free ourselves from the binary American world view.

We need to junk AUKUS and get ourselves a more independent defence strategy.

C:/Users/chest/Downloads/Extra_Page_38.pdf

14/02/2025

A Visit to East Timor- and New Year’s Eve at the Presidential Palace

2 January 2025

I have always been fascinated by the story of East Timor. It was very much a colonial backwater, a historical remnant of the Portuguese, who had first arrived in 1529 and fought with the Dutch until treaties in 1869 and 1893. Up till 1850, it had been under the Portuguese administration in Macau.

Timor was invaded by the Japanese during WW2, and East Timorese fought with the Australian and Dutch against them, running a guerilla campaign. Between 40-70,000 Timorese were killed as the Japanese seized food supplies and burned villages.

After WW2 it remained a Portuguese colonial backwater with minimal education or infrastructure development. In 1960 it gained the right to Independence, but was still under Portugal. Indonesia, under Sukarno, which was trying to get hold of West Papua specifically stated that it had no interest in East Timor. The small Viqueque revolt resulted in some improvements in education and some Timorisation of the civil service.

There was a revolution in Portugal in 1974 and the decolonisation of Mozambique and Angola speeded the decolonisation process, with a new Governor legalising political parties. Two groups emerged, the left-leaning Fretilin and the Right-leaning UDT (Democratic Timor Union), which was more a party of the elite and initially favoured continuing ties with Portugal. Indonesia had just eliminated the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) in a bloody struggle, so were concerned about Fretilin. Whitlam. the Prime Minister in Australia, who supported the Indonesian takeover of West Papua, was concerned that there would be a non-viable state in the region.

Fretilin and the UDT were initially in coalition, but the Indonesian military made it clear the to the UDT that they would not tolerate a Fretilin government and the coalition broke up. On 11 August 1975 UDT mounted a coup, as they were concerned at the increasing popularity of Fretilin and asked for union with Indonesia and the Indonesians to help them.

Indonesia immediately invaded, and five Australian journalists, who were covering the story in Balibo disappeared without trace. It had been claimed that Fretilin were communists so the Australian and US governments took no action, either against Indonesia or in pursuit of the journalists’ fate. They became known as ‘The Balibo Five’. Only the Australian Democrats supported the right of the East Timorese for self-determination, and some sections of the Left of the ALP, who were held to silence, of course.

Fretilin campaigned in the UN for recognition, particularly Jose Ramos Horta and after 24 years in 1999 and in the presence of an economic crisis the Indonesians agreed to a referendum on self-determination. The referendum result, which was widely expected, favoured independence from Indonesia by almost 80%. But gangs of pro-Indonesian youth, helped by the Indonesian government went on a killing spree. It was estimated that 200,000 Timorese had died during the 25 year Indonesian occupation, many ‘disappearing’; and about a third from malnutrition. But immediately after the vote, the militias killed about 1,400 people and forced about 300,000 into West Timor.

The UN intervened quite quickly with UNMET, the UN Mission to East Timor, in which the Australians were first to arrive and helped stabilise the situation.

Once East Timor achieved independence in 2002, they had the problem of economic survival. Australia held negotiations about where the boundary would lie, which was critical because there is a lot of gas in the Timor Sea and it would depend who owned it. Australia bugged the room where the East Timorese cabinet were deliberating and insisted on the border being very close to their coast. A whistleblower revealed this bugging in 2004 and the Timorese appealed successfully to the International Court.

Australia withdrew from the Court process, but then in 2012 agreed to the border being the midline between the countries, which is the international norm. Thw whistleblower, codenamed Witness K and his lawyer Bernard Collaery, the ex-ACT Attorney-General, were pursued by the Australian government in the courts and convicted of breaching national security.

So I have always wanted to visit Timor Leste, and have finally made it for a10 day trip (not really long enough).

It is a 3rd World country, but seems to have a great sense of hope. It is an hour and half flight from Darwin, and about the same from Bali. There is not much information available to tourists, though a Lonely Planet and some other guidebooks are now available.

I have taken advice from a diplomat friend and will be going in a car with a guide, (the expensive rich person’s way to go that I have always despised) so I will not be giving advice on the cheap local buses that go between the major cities and are quite cheap.

Our guide, Guido (short for Egidio Da Purificatcao Soares of Timor Sightseeing) was brought up on a farm in the western part of the country and recalls as a 14 year old his whole family were threatened by gangs immediately after the referendum. The gang asked his father did he want to go to West Timor or stay in East Timor. He says that he father wisely said that the family wanted to go, because if he hadn’t they would have been assumed to be in favour of independence and massacred on the spot. They had had 14 cows and had already sold some, but took a few in a truck as they went to West Timor. He said that at the border the Indonesians threw them out of the truck as if they were sacks of potatoes, searched the truck then threw them back in in the same way. They sold the cows for a pittance and lived in a tent in Indonesia for 3 weeks until the UN had negotiated with the Indonesians and the ‘refugees’ were allowed to return. He said he was pleased to see the Australian forces at the border.

He commented that in the Portugese times there was no electricity except in small parts of Dili and the Portugese generated their own on their properties. The Indonesians had improved infrastructure and electricity and introduced universal education, but anyone who was thought to support Fretilin or independence simply disappeared.

As we were here on New Years Eve, I wondered what to do and assumed that we would watch the fireworks on the beach. Guido suggested we go to the Presidential Palace. I assumed that this was impossible for a tourist. Not so, the Presidential Palace is open to all on New Year’s Eve. So we went. It has a large concreted area about the size of 3 football fields in front of it, with lawns about twice that size again. There was a stage set up and a dozen life size nativity scenes all the way up the wide drive. The military at the gates welcomed us and said that they would be giving out free food and drinks at 9pm. There were quite a lot of people, but it was not crowded early, with a lot of young families and kids with balloons and flashing lights. The state had popular local singers, with replays on some big TV screens like at a football match. There was a wonderful festive atmosphere. I held my phone up and started to take a video pan to try to capture the atmosphere. As I did so a man came close and thrust something into my spare hand. I stopped filming and looked at him. It was the Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao handing out ham and salad rolls and fruit juice. He had 3 young minders in T shirts merely carrying boxes of rolls and drinks. Naturally I pursued him and asked for a photo, and he very courteously asked me my name and where I came from. The event went on with presentations to people who have obviously done good, and also what seemed like a very long sermon, but of course, apart from the MC breaking into English to welcome foreign visitors, the whole thing was in Portugese. At about 9pm, some military wandered around and urged us to get some of their free food from the trucks near the gates. They obviously have a very good relationship with the populace. The President Jose Ramos Horta arrived with the Cardinal and about 20 ambassadors and made a speech at about 11 followed by one from Xanana Gusmao.

They had a table in the middle of the open area with seats for the dignitaries. At midnight there was the countdown, a lot of fireworks (no, not quite as good as Sydney), and the broke out large amounts of champagne and cut a huge 2025 Fruit cake and gave some to those nearby including us. It was like going back 50 years, where everyone was trusted, there was no security and the largesse was universal.

East Timor is in an interesting time. The population is very young and full of hope. They want to develop tourism and also the Sunshine gas project which is being done by Woodside and the Australians in the Timor Sea. Obviously this will be a financial lifeline, but not good for a warming planet. I asked Guido if we could go to the south of the country where all this is to happen. He said, ‘Yes, but there is nothing to see, it is just coastline at present’. He took some Spanish folk there a short while ago who were doing a feasibility study for a gas platform. So I will see the sights including Balibo and the Museums of the Revolution in Balibo and Dili, which was not open this week. I may revise this post after those visits.

East Timor is currently the least visited country in Asia. This is worth changing.

08/12/2024

Health Insurance Executive Targeted in New York

6 December 2024

A top health insurance executive was killed in what seems to be a targeted shooting in New York’. It seems that he was threatened over ‘health insurance issues’.
Every day I see patients who have their perfectly reasonable treatment requests refused by workers comp or CTP (Compulsory Third Party = Green Slip) insurers. The ‘case managers’ who are grandly titled case clerks have little power and follow protocols dictated by more senior folk in the organisati0on. I am unsure if they get bonuses for cases costing less than some statistical average for that type of claim, but nothing would surprise me. Sometimes it seems that they just refuse treatments because they think that they will get away with it, but the odds are stacked that they will often succeed anyway. The case clerks (Case ‘Managers’) cop a lot of abuse and are rotated frequently, perhaps to prevent their abuse or perhaps to prevent them getting to know their ‘clients’, who some of us would call ‘patients’. The case clerks have very little discretion and the system is very slow and seems designed to ensure that absolutely no one could ever be overpaid. The clerks follow their protocols, and are often unavailable and do not return calls. Most use their first names and a letter (presumably the first letter of their surnames) presumably so that they will not be personally targeted by those whose treatments they are refusing. (One would have thought that as people handing out money to people in distress that they might be very popular). It is as if one side are playing a game with money, but for the other side it is deadly serious.
Given that about a third of the population live from paycheck to paycheck, the fact that insurers have 3 weeks to accept or reject the whole claim, then 3 weeks to approve or deny any treatment, and longer if it is a difficult case, a huge amount of human misery can be created without even stressing any protocols. Governments are keen to keep premiums low and seem keen to support any insurer –suggested legislative amendments that achieves this aim. Interestingly the NSW Parliamentary Committee reviewing the NSW Workers Compensation legislation in 2022 had no input for either patients or doctors or their organisations. Presumably they did not seek such input and there was no publicity for the inquiry.
I see in my practice many distressed people whose lives are destroyed by these treatment denials. Now with the insurers only liable for the first 5 years after injury, if they can delay treatment longer than that, they are off the financial hook and the patients need to be treated by Medicare if that is possible. When I say ‘if that is possible’, many specialists will not do any Medicare work as it pays less than half the private rate. The waiting list is usually over a year for non-emergencies and the specialists are even more reluctant to treat cases that should have been paid by workers comp or CTP insurers. Even that assumes that the patients have Medicare; overseas students or people on working visas do not.
My belief is that insurers want to control medicine and the WC and CTP insurers, now with considerable input from the American Health insurance industry are preparing for the (very soon) day when Medicare is irrelevant and insurers tell doctors what they may do.

The patients whose lives are destroyed by the insurer denials of their reasonable treatments are upset and angry, often shattered physically and by the loss of their homes, properties and marriages do not think through how this has all happened. They are angry with the ‘case manager’ but not those higher up in the organisation who set the protocol that was the basis of their treatment denial.
Years ago, when I went to tobacco control conferences in the USA, there would sometimes be discussions among doctors about how to treat various medical conditions. Amongst the non-Americans, the talk was about what regimes were best. The Americans were usually concerned with what the insurers would pay for to the point that it was sometimes frustrating to have them in the conversations. I won a Fellowship in 1985 to study workplace absence and got some flavour of the way treatments were denied. I now see it all unrolling in Australia.
In the US guns are easy to get. When I saw a US health executive had been shot by an unknown person, I did not find it hard to find a motive, and thought that there could probably be a very large number of suspects. I Australia the case managers do not dare give their surnames, but the top executives are still all on the company websites.
If we continue to let Medicare be defunded because of private health donations to the major political parties and put money ahead of people’s reasonable needs, we will follow the Americans.

Here is the Reuters article in the SMH 6 December 2024

Health executive shot dead on New York street

Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealth’s insurance unit, was fatally shot yesterday outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel in what appeared to be a targeted attack by a gunman, New York City police ofﬁcials said.

The shooting occurred in the early morning outside the Hilton on Sixth Avenue, where the company’s annual investor conference was about to take place. Thompson was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. The attacker remained at large, sparking a search that included police drones, helicopters and dogs.

“This does not appear to be a random act of violence,” New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. “Every indication is that this was a premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack.” The suspect, wearing a mask and carrying a backpack, ﬂed on foot before mounting an electric bike and riding into Central Park, police said. Law enforcement authorities said the gunman appeared to use a silencer on his weapon, CNN reported.

UnitedHealth Group said Thompson was a respected colleague and friend to all who worked with him. “We are working closely with the New York Police Department and ask for your patience and understanding during this difﬁcult time,” it said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to Brian’s family and all who were close to him.”

UnitedHealth Group is the largest US health insurer, providing beneﬁts to tens of millions of Americans who pay more for healthcare than in any other country.
Video footage showed the gunman arrived outside the Hilton about ﬁve minutes be
fore Thompson. He ignored several other people walking by, NYPD Chief of Detectives, Joseph Kenny told reporters.

When Thompson approached the hotel, the gunman shot him in the back with a pistol and then continued ﬁring, even after his gun appeared to jam. “Based on the evidence we have so far, it does appear that the victim was speciﬁcally targeted, but at this point, we do not know why,” Kenny said. The shooting happened not long before the scheduled investor conference at the Hilton.

UnitedHealth Group chief executive Andrew Witty took to the stage about an hour after the event started to announce the rest of the program would be cancelled.
“We’re dealing with a very serious medical situation with one of our team members, and as a result, I’m afraid we’re going to have to bring to a close the event today,” he said.

Police tape blocked off the area on 54th Street outside the Hilton, where blue plastic
gloves were strewn about, and plastic cups appeared to mark the location of bullet casings.
Thompson’s wife, Paulette Thompson, told NBC News that he told her “there were some people that had been threatening him”. She didn’t have details but suggested the threats may but suggested the threats may
have involved issues with insurance coverage. Eric Werner, the police chief in the Minneapolis suburb where Thompson lived, said his department had not received any reports of threats against the executive. The killing shook a part of New York that is normally quiet at that hour, about four blocks from where thousands of people were set to gather for the city’s Christmas tree lighting. Police promised extra security for the event.

“The police were here in seconds. It’s New York. It’s not normal here at seven in the morning, but it’s pretty scary,” said Christian Diaz, who said he heard the gunfire from the nearby University Club Hotel where he works.

Police issued a poster showing a surveillance image of the man pointing what appeared to be a gun and another image that appeared to show the same person riding on a bicycle. Minutes before the shooting he stopped at a nearby Starbucks, according to additional surveillance photos released by police. They offered a reward of up to $US10,000 ($15,500) for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, where the company is based, said the state was praying for Thompson’s family and the UnitedHealth team. “This is horrifying news and a terrible loss for the business and healthcare community in Minnesota,” he said in a statement. Thompson, a father of two sons, had been with UnitedHealth since 2004 and served as chief executive for more than three years. Thompson was appointed head of the company’s insurance group in April 2021 after working in several departments, according to the company’s website.

“Sometimes you meet a lot of fake people in these corporate environments. He certainly didn’t ever give me the impression of being one of them,” said Antonio Ciaccia, chief executive of healthcare research non-profit 46brooklyn, who knew Thompson. “He was a genuinely thoughtful and respectable guy.”
Reuters, AP

There was considerable follow up:

www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/bullets-used-in-us-healthcare-exec-s-killing-had-writing-on-them-20241206-p5kwa6.html

www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/wave-of-hate-flows-for-health-insurance-industry-after-ceo-s-shooting-death-20241206-p5kwcz.html

06/11/2024

The Revolution Has Happened- no one noticed- Just that Trump Won

6 November 2024

Trump won the US election. A convicted felon, who achieved nothing positive in his last time in the White House except perhaps the only boast that was true, ’I didn’t start any wars when I was President’.

Trump will win the dodgy electoral college system, which gives small states more votes than they should have based on their population. Someone said that the US has 36 Tasmanias, which is not a bad simile. But he may also win a majority of the popular vote.

Why? everyone asks. ‘He had no policies’. ‘He was totally inconsistent’. ‘He seemed not to know and not to care that he didn’t know’. ‘How could he be trusted?’ ‘Even those who had worked with him in high positions came out against him’. ‘He was lazy and self-indulgent’. ‘He did a lot of dodgy business deals’. ‘He never paid his contractors’.

The biographical movie, ‘The Apprentice’, (which is still on at the Palace Cinema in Leichhardt) is about Trump’s early years and shows him coming under the influence of an amoral lawyer, Ron Cohn. Cohn won by recording conversations and blackmailing judges, especially gay ones at a time when homosexuality was illegal. Cohn used his methods to get rid of some bills and taxes for Trump and teaches his 3 principles:

Morality is an option,
Truth is whatever you say it is, and
You must never admit defeat because you must believe that you are a winner so that you can convince everyone else that you are.

At the end of the movie, having betrayed even Cohn himself, Trump, unkeen to talk to a would-be biographer states these 3 principles.

So why did people vote for him?

Because there has been a revolution that no one has noticed. People no longer believe that the government can or will help them. Consider this. The rich have been getting richer and the poor poorer and the gap between the two groups have continued to grow. With the world turned into a market, US jobs in the steel industry and the car industry went offshore. Manufactured goods were increasingly imported, while working Americans lost their jobs. The welfare and health system in the US are quite inadequate for a decent life, yet taxes to the rich are cut. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans seemed to care. Bernie Sanders tried to point this out and looked like winning the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016 and even 2020, but the party put in Hilary Clinton and then Joe Biden to stop him. The Republicans did not want Trump, but could not stop his populist campaign. Most of them were scared to speak against him, and when he won the nomination and looked a chance to be President again, they all supported him.

Trump spoke whatever suited him at the time. He used racial scapegoats for the national problems, but still recruited blacks and Latinos, presumably because of his speaking to their economic pain. When he did not win in 2020, he simply accused the other side of cheating- true to the 3 Cohn principles. He principally criticised the Establishment and said that he would change it. That was the key point. He was going to change the Establishment. That was what people wanted to hear. He was right in the key issue. The Establishment had not fixed the problems of declining living standards. The wealthy were getting wealthier. Their benchmarks of economic growth were doing fine, and the mass media and business pages trumpeted their success. But a lot of people were hurting and no one seemed to care. Trump criticised the Establishment and said that he would fix it.

Harris said that the election was about Democracy and Trump’s character. But Democracy is an abstract concept and has not delivered material benefits for them. As far as a lot of people were concerned, if Trump could deliver they did not care about his character flaws.

So there was a revolution. People rejected Government as it has been practised by both Democrats and conventional Republicans. It is just that no one has yet noticed that it was a revolution, and unfortunately the rebels have Trump instead of Sanders to lead them.

31/10/2024

Why Trump May Win

31 October 2024

The situation is the logical consequence of turning the world into a ‘market’. This was always favoured by big business, but it got turbocharged by the idea that competition for markets caused the two World Wars. Thus the object of world political policy was to turn the world into a market, so that the rich could get richer without wars over markets and virtue would be rewarded.

The US had a huge percentage of world markets and a huge say over it all- what could possibly go wrong?

In a hierarchical system, those at the top set the prices and the wages, whereas those at the bottom are in a perfect market of labour, so take whatever prices and wages they can get. Money therefore movies upwards as in a Monopoly game.

The whole situation was turbocharged by a number of factors. As trade became cheaper, goods travelled and workers competed with workers from other countries, so workers in more developed countries were not able to compete on price and the owners of capital moved their industries to cheaper countries, which gave these countries something of a leg-up, but most of the profit went to the owners of capital. Technology also advanced, so fewer workers were needed to produce anything- mechanisation was here. We could produce much more than we could ever consume. Business developed built-in obsolescence, so goods would wear out or become unfashionable, so they needed to be bought again. Marketing became immensely significant, so we were no longer to consider what we needed, but what we wanted.

Increasingly most of the goods being manufactured needed to be sold, but did not need to be bought. Western consumers were actually in the box seat with all their needs met, so needed to be persuaded to consume for status or whim. Marketing was largely up to the challenge. As Dave Ramsay famously put it, ‘We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like’.

Meanwhile the gap between rich and poor continued to grow between countries and within countries, a general recipe for social and international malaise. The residue of colonialism remains. Nigeria is oil rich, yet its resources are foreign-owned and its main employment industry is scamming. South America has had its governments frequently act on behalf of foreign companies. The result of the problem is seen as ‘illegal migration.’

So just as the inexplicable ‘Brexit’ vote was a longing for an earlier time and a rejection of the Establishment and the status quo, so Trump is seen as a disruptor. He wil tell them all to ‘get fu..ed’ That is enough. He speaks to the pain of rust belt Americans who saw their jobs in steel, cars or manufacturing disappearing through no fault of their own and their standard of living falling. He is a demagogue who tells them what they want to hear. The migrants caused the drug problem, and every other problem. If it is not consistent or even coherent, it does not matter; they listen to the shock jock. Again, technology is relevant. Policy is no longer broadcast, it is selectively narrowcast with truth an early casualty. Trump ads tell Jewish voters that Harris is pro-Palestine while other Trump ads tell Muslim voters that she is pro-Israel. Whatever it takes. The country is very polarised and there is even talk of civil war. Marx believed that revolution would happen in an advanced capitalist system because the logical end point of unfettered capitalism was that a few people would end up with all the money and the majority would be unhappy. (We had better not mention who said this).

The American voting system is as bad as its health and welfare systems. The politicians set the electoral boundaries in a huge gerrymander, and the electoral college gives each state the same voting rights, whether they have large or small populations. The Constitution is fossilised, with 36 Tasmanias, states that are declining relatively or cannot pay their way. These are the States that will determine the election.

The polls are neck and neck in these ‘swing states’, but the betting favours Trump, and the betting has been generally more correct than the polls. A financial friend of mine told me that the bond market is behaving in anticipation of a Trump victory.

Things are not always pleasant, but there is usually an explanation.

08/08/2024

A Realistic Assessment of the Middle East Situation

8 August 2024
None of the Anglo Countries will say ‘No’ to Israel.
https://johnmenadue.com/the-awesome-power-of-the-israel-lobby/

04/08/2024

Gains by Rebel Groups in Northern Burma/Myanmar

4 August 2024

The struggle in Myanmar has dropped out of the news, but it goes on.

I visited Myanmar in 2017-18. There were almost two societies. The people said very little and seemed about 80% of the population. They obviously hated the army but no one said so. The army and their ilk seemed to be about 20%. They knew that they were hated, but were defiant and aggressive.

The government was theoretically under the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Ky, the Nobel laureate, but the army had kept all the major portfolios so she could not act much. Arguably the Junta had accepted her 2015 win only because of sanction pressure on the country.

Yangon (ex-Rangoon), was a pretty dirty 3rd world city, with almost no expensive hotels and diesel generators outside even modest hotels, shops and restaurants because of the unreliability of the power. As the old capital, Yangon had a building that should have been the Parliament, but the capital had been moved north 3 hours drive to Naypyidaw, away from the population centres.

Naypyidaw was a very modern city with 6 lane modern roads and almost no people, built largely with Chinese money. You could have played tennis on the main highway. There were a number of big modern 5 star hotels in an enclave away from where the locals lived which were remarkably cheap, around $US25 a night and had almost no guests at breakfast and few lights in the rooms in the evenings. The ‘National Library’ was small, modern and served by a infrequent bus service. There was almost no one there. The staff spoke good English but did not say much beyond information about the library.

In Mandalay, the second city, there is an old and not-well-maintained palace in a large fortified compound complete with moat. Tourists are vetted at the gate by surly military and may only walk up the central drive to the palace- all the rest of the compound is for the military and it is mostly neglected lawn.

They were trying to develop a tourist industry and there were a lot of new vehicles, mostly right hand drive in a country where they drive on the right. i.e. the drivers are on the wrong side. This was apparently because cheap cars were available from Japan. This industry has largely collapsed since.

There was an election in November 2020, which resulted in a huge victory for the National League for Democracy and Aung San Suu Ky, but there was a military coup immediately after. Aung San Suu Ky was arrested on trumped up charges, one of which was having walkie-talkies for her staff that were not able to be eavesdropped by the junta. Some people were killed in ensuring demonstrations but more systematic military resistance has continued ever since. There are a lot of different ethnic groups and unity within the country is a long-term problem that no one wants to talk about, but they all oppose the military junta and are cooperating against it.

www.irrawaddy.com/news/war-against-the-junta/myanmar-junta-surrenders-third-town-to-tnla-in-northern-shan-state.html

07/06/2024

Anglo Democracies- What a Mess. We need a New Constitution

7 June 2024

If a mob stormed Parliament, overcoming the security system, causing great fear, killing one person and injuring others, we would regard that country with suspicion; South American tin pot democracy? If a few of the rioters were charged, but the instigator was not charged 4 years later, we would regard that as a farce. If the instigator then got a fine for irregularity in the bookkeeping of his election funds 4 years later and got a fine that was a tiny fraction of his election budget, he might as well have had a parking ticket. If the instigator then with total impunity stood again for election we would say that the tin pot nature of a quasi-dictatorship was confirmed. Yet this is exactly what has happened in the USA, where Trump will get a non-custodial sentence, i.e. a fine or some charitable work. Photo-op in a soup kitchen perhaps?

The Republicans will win if Biden becomes unpopular because the economy turns down, or he supports Israel too much because of the power of the Jewish lobby, or if the scare campaign on his age is successful enough. This is because there are only two options, Democrat and Republican. The leaders in the Republican party do not want to criticise Trump because if he succeeds their fortunes will suffer and if he fails, they want to run in 4 years. In a Big Party, it is all about climbing up their hierarchy- tough luck about the country’s welfare. Even Nikki Haley, who criticised Trump in a desperate effort in the Republican primaries has endorsed him. So we have a President who is too old and should step down standing against Trump who has a criminal record and for some reason cannot be brought to book within 4 years; his past failures, ignorance and appalling policies almost irrelevant in the scheme of things.

In Britain, with First-Past-the-Post voting, the electoral system is similarly distorted to favour only two parties and the inequities are such that you can almost draw a line across the country. Conservative Blue in the South, Labour Red in the North. Other parties and opinions are a dot here and there, they get far more votes than seats. Post-Brexit the economy has tanked, which is what one might have expected since most their trade was with the EU. The Conservatives will get a caning, putting in the lack- lustre Labour party, the only alternative, of course.

Back, in Australia, Labor is criticised for doing so little and being Liberal-lite. They had agreed not to raise taxes and even to give tax cuts because Shorten had been defeated by scare tactics in 2019, so having no policies was a safer, small target option. The Conservatives rule from beyond the grave.

The problem is that the people have handed the power to a two party system. When Churchill wrote the post-WW2 German constitution he wrote it so that no party would ever get an absolute majority. There would have to be negotiation about forming government and about each piece of legislation; no ‘winner takes all’. The Swiss constitution has 3 levels of government, all but 7 politicians are part-time and limited to 2 terms, with their jobs protected so that when they leave they go back to them full time. This means there are no party hierarchies to climb up and no jobs for the boys and girls at the end. Also there are quarterly referenda where if citizens get enough signatures they can overthrow even Federal government decisions. This is what Australia did not copy when our constitution was written in 1900 (though it was considered). Our 1901 constitution was a heroic effort to stitch 6 squabbling colonies into a nation. It was not all wisdom for all time.

Anglo countries may have been early in creating democracy from autocratic kingdoms, but better things are now known and we need to move up and on.

20/04/2024

Cheaper EVs?

20 April 2024

Here is an article praising China’s Electric Vehicle industry and noting that Apple gave up trying to do EVs and China has successfully taken up the slack.

It also boasts that Chinese EV technology is excellent and that they have not lowered prices, and it warns that trade tariffs to stop Chinese exports will be counterproductive.

More conventional views are that China has a glut of EVs and a coming economic crisis due to their property bubble.

Australia has no tariffs on EVs and is currently paying too much for them. Despite the tone of this article, China must want to dump EVs somewhere.

I am still not sure that EVs are good for the environment in that the carbon footprint from mining and processing their components is much greater than the simpler components of internal combustion engines, and the factories that manufacture them are mainly powered by coal-generated power. It takes many km of petrol saved to overcome this initial deficit. Hopefully this situation will gradually improve in time, but in the shorter term, will Chinese EVs be cheaper here?

What does China’s electric vehicle rise mean for the global market?