(Right Click here to download Audio - MP3)
Diversions are a part of the course of any war. The general sends two or more groups into an area and hopes that the one that will actually fulfil the aims of the mission is given sufficient time and space to complete it. Diversions are also used in sport when a team is instructed to attempt to lure the opposition away from the main play. So too, in the world of politics and PR, diversions are used regularly to keep us off the scent of the main game.
In these past couple of weeks we have seen a number of diversions obscuring a much larger issue that holds a greater potential for harm. I’m no conspiracy theorist and have certainly never been experimented on by aliens but I do believe that from time to time events converge to assist in having certain issues wiped off the front of the media radar. In our media saturated western world if something disappears from the front page headlines it seems, to many, that its gone for good.
At the start of June the big story taking up acres of print and hours of airtime was the defection of Chinese diplomat, Chen Yonglin. Making accusations that there were up to 1000 Chinese spies keeping watch on Australia’s every move, Chen was simultaneously branded a hero and a madman. While we here in Oz thought it was a local issue the story reverberated around the globe with supporters in the US, the UK and Europe taking to the streets demanding that our government give him asylum. Within a week Chen was joined by two more defectors.
No sooner had the heat gone out of that story we find a Liberal backbencher, Sophie Panopoulos, comes out and drops the “T” word against her fellow party members. Panopoulos, in a display sociologists have identified as being quite common among second generation immigrants, uses terms of derision against those she, and many others of her generation, feel are being offered concessions her generation was not. Not wanting to attack the real issue – the illegal imprisonment of children – Panopoulos attacks her Liberal colleagues. Again, acres of print and hours of airtime were taken up with discussion and debate of what she said.
As I sit and put this together we hear about the release of Douglas Wood. While the government maintains that no ransom was paid, Keysar Trad, spokesperson for the Mufti of Australia Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly, tells the ABC’s AM program that a suitable arrangement was negotiated. No doubt the real amount paid and who it was paid to will remain the matter of conjecture for some time. This development, in turn, wipes the Liberal defections from the front page and news headlines.
Three stories, three important issues in and of themselves. Yet, they are far removed from the real issue being discussed at the highest levels of our government at this time. Perhaps the first story, the defection of Chen, was the closest to opening up the real issue and I’m sure it took some quick thinking by the government and corporate PR teams to find a way out of the potential fix they might have been in. During Chen’s defection the issue of trade considerations was held up as being a potential threat to Chen’s ability to successfully obtain asylum. What was not spoken of was what that trade exactly is. That trade is uranium – the hottest game in town.
For almost 12 months the federal government has been negotiating with the Chinese government over how to legally export uranium to China. With WMC in the throes of a takeover by BHP Billiton the Australian government had to step in and hose down the flack over BHP’s declared course of action in wanting to sell uranium to China. At exactly the same time as the Chen defection story broke, BHP sent out a press release saying that they would be holding their June Board meeting in China. Are you starting to see the connection between “trade” and “defection”. As the say in the ad, “but wait, there’s more!”.
Almost simultaneously the New South Wales premier, Bob Carr announces that he considers we should embrace nuclear power plants in order to, get this, protect the environment. While its gone mostly under-reported, just a couple of weeks earlier, US Senator John McCain had used almost exactly the same sentiments as Carr to argue that the US should restart it’s stalled nuclear power development plans.
The big hurdle the nuclear proponents have to overcome is the well deserved “bad press” nuclear energy has received over the years. In order to counter this they cite such environmental luminaries such as James Lovelock, often referred to as the founder of the modern environmental movement, who recently wrote that if we want to protect the most environmentally sensitive areas we should dump nuclear waste around them because “who would dare to cut down a forest in which was the storage place of nuclear [waste]”.
The big story being obscured by a smoke screen of diversions are the cashed up nuclear power companies. Who are these companies? Well, it may come as no surprise to some but these are the same companies that are making a killing in the war on Iraq and Afghanistan. General Electric, Westinghouse and Mitsubishi are among the companies whose profits have skyrocketed in the wake of the wars. Their sales of conventional weaponry has pushed up their share price and has led them, like fattened bulls, to go on a rampage seeking new milch cows.
The brains within these companies realise that war is good for short term profits. In the long run they, like the rest of us, also realise that war is really a zero sum game. That is there are no returns once the war is over if you’re in the game of building weapons of mass destruction or their delivery systems. So, gathering their collective minds together, they have spent the last few years, and with the blessing of the Bush regime in particular, spruiking for nuclear business. Their biggest victory so far is convincing the Chinese government that they need up to 50 new reactors in the next 20 years. Along with that comes a need to find the fuel. That is where we come in.
While there have been endless stories in the media about the development of China the focus of these stories has been on consumer goods, basic infrastructure such as roads, rail and ports and industry. The undersold real story has been how to power all this. The Christian Science monitor reports that the Chinese have “globetrotted from Russia to Latin America to Canada in an effort to ink new energy supply deals”. The main game being obscured by diversions is the slow but always active play to sell. In this case to sell the most dangerous man made science on earth.
The stories that fill our newspapers and airwaves are not necessarily diversions in and of themselves. Chen Yonglin’s story is as important as Douglas Woods as is the defections within the Liberal party. However, when the stories are arranged in certain ways, like the play in a sports game or the manoeuvres in a military battle, they have the effect of diverting our attention from the real intent of the generals and coaches. The battle that we are engaged in, the one that is being fought out with militaristic discipline, is the everlasting battle for our minds.
The generals who organise these battles no longer wear the uniforms of war. They are dressed in pin stripe suits and meet in the board rooms and behind closed doors in our houses of parliament. They no longer need to “take out” citizens (unless you happen to be in a declared war zone like Iraq). What these generals have achieved is a veneer of respectability and their spin doctors have created an aura of mystique and desirability around their lifestyles. All this is their greatest diversion. What is not acceptable in this diversionary battle is for our minds to not keep our focus on the stories of defectors, whether they be Chinese or Liberals or released hostages. The generals know that without these diversions, important as they are, we may begin to see the cracks in the veneer and to, perhaps, see the dangers lurking as the main game unfolds in almost total obscurity. It behoves us to look beyond the headlines and expose the action taking place while most of our community debates the diversions and fails to engage with the real battle.