Carlo's Corner: Clive Palmer, the CIA and the real extremists ripping us off
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/50473?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Saturday, March 24, 2012
By Carlo Sands
Could this be the wall?
Of all the people infuriated by billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer’s March 20 claim that the Greens are funded by the CIA, it is not hard to image the angriest were heads of the Murdoch media.
Having declared in an Australian editorial in 2010 its intention to “destroy the Greens”, the Murdoch press has worked hard to relentlessly spin a tale of the political party as far left lunatics — old-style commies in green t-shirts.
And in wades Crazy Clive — a representative of the huge capitalist interests on behalf of whom News Ltd is waging its war — insisting it is really Murdoch's beloved United States that is pushing the greenies evil agenda of not destroying all life on Earth.
Palmer probably got a furious call from Rupert himself, shouting: “What the fuck is wrong with you Clive — we said KGB, not CIA! Or did Lee Rhiannon fight both sides of the Cold War?”
Perhaps this is why Palmer was so keen to clarify he only meant the Queensland Greens were CIA tools. They are trying to get their stories straight.
So the public can now know that New South Wales is, as The Australian repeatedly tells us, the home of the KGB-linked Rhiannon and Greens pollies who are fronts for the Socialist Alliance. But go north of the border and they’re all puppets of Yankee imperialists determined to destroy Aussie coal barons.
Talk about exposing the real extremists. Here we have the recently awarded National Living Treasure and the biggest individual donor to the Coalition sprouting to the media a conspiracy theory that comes from the far-right LaRouche movement.
It is this fascist movement, founded by convicted fraudster Lyndon LaRouche and represented in Australia by the Citizen’s Electoral Council (CEC), that claims the environment movement is just a conspiracy set up by the CIA-funded Rockefeller Foundation.
And, behind them, stands Prince Philip. Yes, the senile royal racist Prince Philip, who the CEC accuses of organising a “green genocide army”.
You have to admire the LaRouche-ites determination to invent a truly original mastermind for their conspiracy.
LaRouche must have gathered his cronies for an emergency meeting to come up with that one: “What about the Jews?” “They've been done.” “Freemasons?” “Done.” Catholics?” “Done.” “Giant shape shifting lizards?” “David Icke’s claimed them.”
The irony is this comes only weeks after Palmer furiously denied Treasurer Wayne Swan’s claim Palmer used his wealth to exert undue influence on Australian politics.
To prove his point, Palmer called a press conference the day the government passed its very mild new tax on the mining sector, to reveal to the media the suppressed “truth” about the Greens — and the press all showed up.
The likes of you and I can’t do that. How much of the press would show up to a press conference you or I might call to insist the CIA is, oh I don't know, working around the world to destablise and overthrow foreign governments deemed hostile to US interests, like, oh, say that of socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez? And that one is true.
But we are not worth, as the BRW said Palmer was last year, more than $5 billion.
If you want to get a sense of just how much that is, consider the point made by US academic Michael D Yates in an essay on inequality in the March Monthly Review. He said spending $10,000 a day, it would take 100,000 days to spend $1 billion — or just under 274 years.
So if Palmer earned not one more cent and spent $10,000 every day, he would finally run out of cash sometime around 3382AD.
Keep Clive Palmer in mind next time sometime tries to tell you that the great thing about capitalism is it rewards intelligence and natural talent.
It also puts into perspective the media’s reporting over the nasty fight between the children of multi-billionaire mining giant Gina Rinehart over their inheritance. And remember, that in all the media gossip about this grab-for-more-cash-than-anyone-could-dream-of-spending-in-a-dozen-lifetimes, no one pointed out that no one involved has done a thing to earn one cent.
It is like watching a group of seagulls squabbling over a stolen chip — only the chip is the size of China.
And where does all of this mindboggling wealth come from? Finite resources that, politicians from both sides keep telling us, belong to “all of us”.
In announcing his opposition to Labor’s mild tax, Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett said: “These minerals belong to the men, women and children of Western Australia.”
To test if this is true, all WA citizens should try going to their nearest iron ore mine and taking away a couple of lumps.
The resources don't belong to us: they belong to the Rinehart's and Palmer’s — and to less buffoonish caricature capitalists such as the owners of BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata.
If we want to own the finite resources, we should take them back. Once the enormous wealth belongs to us all, we could use it to help fund the reorganisation of the economy away from the destructive fossil fuel economy the mining industry feeds and towards one that can deal with the looming climate crisis — before it is too late.
Then again, maybe this call for a fair, ecologically sustainable society is just what the CIA is paying me to say.
[Read more Carlo's Corner columns] http://www.greenleft.org.au/taxonomy/term/532
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