The Ties That Bind -- Guest Post

  The 'Australian Financial Review' is a daily newspaper, not perhaps for those in the big end of town, but for those who, like this reader, would like to be.
     It adopts the usual trendy-left editorial stance of daily newspapers everywhere in Australia, pretending to be unaligned but treating any sort of principled position (such as nationalism) with contempt.
     On the inside back page (one of its opinion pages) on 17th November, the 'Fin' published a piece entitled "It's Time to Spell Out the Ties That Bind," by one Josh Frydenberg, who is described as the Federal Member for Kooyong, party affiliation not reported.
     Mr Frydenberg is on about the visit to Australia by the (negro) head of state of our esteemed ally, America. He starts by recounting our shared history, being on the same side in every stoush since World War I, win or lose.
     "For both nations," he lets us know, "democracy is our beacon, commerce is our creed and we share a fundamental belief in the power of the individual" - as long as the individual isn't a self-respecting human being, I suppose.
     He goes on to point out, quite rightly, that paying for "security" in the "Asia-Pacific region" is getting to be expensive for the American taxpayer.
     The article then makes a reference to the latest free-trade deal, before drifting off into frothy generalities.
     This reader is buggered if he can figure out what the 'Financial Review' means by it.
     Is it a warning that the Americans are apt to leave us in the lurch? Does it mean that we had better toe the American line more carefully in the dangerous days ahead? Or is it telling us that maybe we'd better suck up to China a bit, too?
     Maybe, in light of the supposed new defence deal whereby a small number of American marines are apparently to be stationed in Darwin, it is just one more bit of dust kicked into the air, in a futile attempt to confuse the Indonesians and the Chinese about what we would want American troops for.
     Australia pays a heavy price for American protection. The protection is there, no doubt about it. But like the protection of an alcoholic father or a mentally ill mother, it comes at a cost. We have to send troops to every ill-conceived American policy initiative that includes shooting at somebody. We have to accept sick American cultural values like multiculturalism and race-mixing. In this, of course, we are no different from Europe - although Turkey, Israel, Taiwan and Japan apparently do not have to accept racial pollution as a price of American protection. Maybe there is a difference there somewhere.
     Anyway, the story is accompanied by a nice piccie of Barack and Julia strolling arm-in-arm away from a couple of flags - no prizes for guessing which ones. Is there symbolism here? Are they leaving Australia and America behind and strolling into a Chinese future? Buggered if I know.