Time For Independence From A Crumbling US Empire

By
The Liberal Agenda
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15
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TIME FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM A CRUMBLING US EMPIRE – Murray Horton

The advent of President Donald Trump in the US provides an unprecedented opportunity to take a good, hard look at Aotearoa’s place in the world. And to ask the question – why are we still a loyal member of the American Empire?

As the old saying goes, you are judged by the company you keep.

CAFCA says it’s time for this country to pull the plug, to finish the business started in the 1980s which saw us out of ANZUS; and break the chains – military, intelligence, economic and cultural, etc, etc – that continue to bind us to the American Empire.

Speaker: Murray Horton, national organiser of the Christchurch-based Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA)

When: Friday, April 7, 4.30-6pm

Where: WG126, Sir Paul Reeves Building, AUT University

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15 COMMENTS

  1. Better than being a colony of the organ-harvesting Chinese mega-dictatorship; anyone who thinks otherwise needs their head read, quite frankly.

    • Who is suggesting that we become a colony of China?

      Who do you suppose those organs are harvested for?

      • Don’t worry about him, Brigid, Castro is O.C.D. about China.

        Otherwise he’d be addressing Murray Horton’s blogpost which in itself raises valid concerns about tying ourselves to Mother America’s apron. Especially with the Republican Party breaking apart over it’s freak-leader.

    • Not only is that a false dichotomy, but you are ignoring the very open fact that the same people who want us to be a military vassal of the US are the ones pushing for us to be an economic dependency of China. Horton is advocating independence, while Bill English and co are just trying to juggle things in order to debase themselves before two masters without timetable clashes.

    • Agreed Castro,America is the country that helped Britain and its colonies win the 2nd world war. If Britain had lost we would all be German speakers by now.
      Actually Britain won the war Germany the peace, Germany has prospered with help after the war from Britain.
      Im to old to learn mandarin if China became the option instead of America.We wont have an option to choose unfortunatly.

      • That’s no excuse to perpetuate a Pax Americana, which serves US interests and is hostile to local governments (Chile, Iran, Honduras, Vietnam, Iraq, etc) which dares to run an independent policy. Who can forget US imperialist involvement in the toppling of governments in Latin America, Iran, Chile and elsewhere? The bombing of Cambodia which resulted in the rise of the Khmer Rouge? The dirty war in South America where thousands were bearten, tortured, murdered and disappeared? Is that the American world you want to live in Elle?

        Yes, we do have a choice, Elle, and slavish obedience to gum-chewing, gun-toting, cash-worshipping capitalists from Wall Street is not one of them.

    • I too, can be quite frank.

      Read this.

      Adam Curtis.

      Hypernormalisation.

      Stick with it to the end. It’s quite the giggle.

      https://youtu.be/-fny99f8amM

      Of particular interest and entertainment around the dinner table with the children and pets of an evening was surely what the U$A did to Muammar Gaddafi. They used him, exploited him, scape goat’d him, sucked him in, ripped him off then hunted him down, dragged him out of a storm water drain pipe and murdered him in cold blood AFTER none other than Donald Trump himself gloated about how he ‘ screwed ‘ Gaddafi for tent rental on property Trump owned near the White House after Gaddafi accepted an invitation to attend White House affairs as our Great and Wondrous Leaders of The Free World laughed at a, speaking frankly again, simple minded Gaddafi with what he thought were good ideas at the time. And there’s pictures, for all you Americans reading this!
      From what I saw of Gaddafi via this superb documentary was of a simple minded fellow with a deep and untapped naivety. A sitting duck, one might say.

      John Pilger said there was, I think, 400 or so U$ military bases in the Pacific region. China has 1 . That’s spelled ‘ one’.

      I’m sorry, but I don’t recall the Chinese ever coming up to that level of bare faced aggression on foreign soils? Ok. There’s Tibet. I’ll give you that one. Nobody’s perfect.

      So, you’re argument then, @ CASTRO, is what again?

      Now, having written all that? Thinking we can distance ourselves from the U$A is absurd and a waist of good debating space. They’re not going to let NZ go anywhere. They don’t give one small flying fuck about is few 4.7 m. Every wee beastie comes with a few fleas right?
      Turning away from the U$A and getting all wind-in-the-hair-independent? Forgetaboutit. There’s a higher likelihood of seeing a flock of hogs flying North for the winter. What we should instead be doing is working out how to remain autonomous within the beast. Think 4.7 m hook worms all clinging to a turd down in the bowels of the monster.

      Speaking of organ harvesting? I pity the poor bastard who gets my liver. That’ll learn ‘im.

  2. I agree with the need to withdraw from military & intelligence ties with the US. It should have been done many years ago. I’d like to see NZ promote itself as a centre of conflict resolution expertise. We , at least at the citizen level to begin with , should promote ties with American peace and justice activists such as Code Pink and David Swanson’s World Without War.

  3. While I agree that we need to reassess our position in the world, I can’t see anything related to Trump which would make me question it in a way I didn’t question it under his predecessor. But part of that is realising that bluntly, the UN cannot protect you. We live on a mafia planet, and if you don’t have a street boss, you are in effect terra nullius the moment another street boss wants something you have. We’ve spurned the power of the Royal Navy for the power of the USN, then we’ve spurned them and tried to stand half in and half out. The times briefly made it look like that was viable. That time runs short.

    Either we submit to the USA or China, or we look for other options. Those options would be either 1) a large unaligned bloc who would be prepared to go to war for one another’s freedom. Unlikely to come to pass among countries with little historical affiliation – can you imagine NZ or Chile being ready to face off with China for one another’s freedom on the basis of trade just because Brazil and Argentina said they’d fight if we do?

    Otherwise, Brexit is the indicator of an alternative. Britain won’t just need trade partners, it will need strategic partners. While it is a nuclear power, it’s not the naval power it used to be, and was never a major land power. It will need the Commonwealth. We have history with the Commonwealth. India, South Africa, Canada, Britain – these aren’t just trading partners. We were once part of an Empire which is an Empire no more. It can be a global guarantor of freedom from either the nihilistic hegemony of the USA, or the creeping soft power with a sting in the tail presented by China. Incidentally, this would mean that the Commonwealth would finally become exactly that – a Commonwealth of Nations.

  4. Now this is interesting…

    US President Donald Trump’s fired national security adviser reportedly wants immunity to testify at hearings into alleged Russian election meddling.

    “General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit,”

    said his attorney, Robert Kelner.

    ref: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/327897/fired-trump-aide-michael-flynn-wants-immunity-to-testify-report

    I am reminded of John Dean, one of Nixon’s aides, who also demanded immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony.

    When someone in the US Establishment wants immunity from prosecution, all I can think of is that the rats are starting to jump from the sinking ship – the USS ‘Trump’, in this case.

  5. I don’t know why JK wanted to swing off the coat tails of the USA?

    The Yanks were reluctant to get involved in WW1 and only came into it in the last minute when all the hard work was done.

    In WW2 they only got involved when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, since WW2 and after obtaining the Atom Bombs they have marched around the world like school boy bullies.

    The least we have to do with the USA the better as far as I am concerned.

    • Yes, yes and yes!

      Absolutely bang on.

      I just wish some of these other idiots would understand that…

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