Right-wing Australian Prime minister and demagogue Tony Abbott just put in in his unsolicited two cents on the Scottish secession vote, saying an independent Scotland won’t do “the world” any good.
[1]
Well it’s not
about doing the
entire world any good, or ill, for that matter. It’s for the
Scottish people. Whether or not it will do
them any good or not, is for
them to decide. And that is the only relevant question. Who asked YOU, Abbott? [BBC radio report 8/16/14 5 am.]
Speaking of doing the world good- how does the world benefit from your cancellation of the carbon tax, Anthony?
Abbott added that those for Scottish independence are not for “freedom” and “justice.” So it follows they must be for enslavement and injustice, presumably.
Speaking of freedom and justice, I would draw Mr. Abbott’s attention to the treatment of the native Australians, the aborigines, by his ilk, in particular by his party. It’s a horrific record of oppression, inhumanity, atrocities, and murder, that continues to this day.
[2]
Here’s how Abbott is doing good for the world: His first act in office was repealing Australia’s carbon tax. Which means more global warming. Thanks, mate!
Abbott decided to meddle in an internal matter of the UK AFTER the Emperor, Barack Obama, opined the U.S. had a “deep interest” is having the United Kingdom keep Scotland.
Abbott put his puny finger on the referendum scale in an interview with the elite ruling class UK newspaper, the
Times of London, owned by the Australian international propaganda czar Rupert Murdoch. Abbott was quoted thusly:
“What the Scots do is a matter for the Scots and not for a moment do I presume to tell Scottish voters which way they should vote.
“But as a friend of Britain, as an observer from afar, it’s hard to see how the world would be helped by an independent Scotland.
“I think that the people who would like to see the break-up of the United Kingdom are not the friends of justice, not the friends of freedom, and that the countries that would cheer at the prospect of the break-up with the United Kingdom are not the countries whose company one would like to keep.”
[3]I guess
very literally that first sentence was true. He didn’t “for a moment” “presume to tell Scottish voters which way they should vote.” It took him MORE than just a moment to tell them how to vote.
What an asshole, talking out of both sides of his mouth simultaneously!
And notice his demonization of people pushing for the “wrong” vote. But what a smarmy way he does it. They’re “not the friends” of freedom and justice, a backhanded way of calling them the enemies of freedom and justice. And he puts them in the company of enemy countries, pariah states, again being smarmily indirect in his phrasing. Like he’s saying No Offense to those I’m smearing! He wants to slip his knife between their ribs without a political cost of causing a backlash which would drive the vote the “wrong” way. (And what he means by “Britain” is the UK government and ruling class.)
This business of smearing and hating people who vote “wrong” is typical of the attitude of bourgeois rulers towards what they call democracy. Voting is fine, as long as it comes out the way they want. This is an old attitude. Nixon was quite cynical in this regard. His top henchman in international crimes and atrocities, put it this way when the voters of Chile had the effrontery to elect Salvador Allende president: “I don’t see why we have to let a country go communist [sic- Allende was a democratic socialist] due to the irresponsibility of its own people.” Therefore IMPOSE FASCISM on the country. Nice.
Abbott also jumped into the U.S. bloc’s push to drive Russia out of Ukraine, immediately branding the accidental shooting down of a Malaysian airliner over a war zone in eastern Ukraine a crime. No doubt he’d be
defending the shooters if they’d been working for the Kiev regime.
Australia has been a source of cannon fodder for both British imperialism and U.S. imperialism, sending troops into U.S. wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Right-wingers in its political establishment, and its secret police, helped the CIA overthrow the Whitlam government when prime minister Gough Whitlam “meddled” in U.S. secret police spy bases in Australia run by the NSA and CIA. (Whitlam actually acted as if Australia were a sovereign nation, and its prime minister had a right to know what was going on inside Australia. The nerve!)
Abbott is conforming sycophantically to the expected role of an Australian prime minister, behaving as a subaltern to his British and American masters. Give that dog a bone!
The vote is September 18th.
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| Ooh, Tony, you're so clever! |
1] I might be wrong about Abbott’s squawking being “unsolicited.” Perhaps the British prime minister, the Tory David Cameron, privately solicited it. But they both obviously want
us to think the remarks were unsolicited; that is, that Cameron didn’t put Abbott up to it. So be it, boys. If that’s what you want me to think, I’ll give you what you want. Not that a subimperialist dog like Abbott needs his masters to tell him when to bark. He can follow their cues like any well-trained dog.
My own position is that the Scots should have the right of self-determination, which they are exercising by the secession vote. It’s up to them to decide. I don’t know if it would be “better” or “worse” for them to become an independent nation. There will be advantages and disadvantages, which are unpredictable, and evaluating which outweighs the others will be subjective to a great deal, if indeed Scotland becomes independent.
The British ruling class obviously wants to hold onto the territory and population. But it’s not a “left” or “right” issue. George Galloway, who most observers would categorize as a leftist, opposes Scottish independence, for example. Nationalism and sentimentality are much greater factors than left or right ideologies are in terms of where people come down on the issue.
2] A good primer to get yourselves up to speed on
the genocidal policies of the Anglo conquerors of Australia is the John Pilger
documentary “Welcome to Australia” [1999]. More recently the aborigines
got an “apology” from an Australian prime minister (not Abbott).
