Since the last Federal election, people have been shocked at where Australia seems to be heading. So where is Australia heading? Towards fascism? There are straws in the wind.
The Collins Dictionary defines fascism thus: n 1 any doctrine, system or practice regarded as authoritarian, militaristic, chauvinistic or extremely right wing.
Expanding on this, a fascist government: has a strong leader or small group of leaders with psychopathic tendencies; rules by fiat and slogan; has a culture of lying; defines and maintains an underclass while redistributing wealth and power to an elite; filters information so that the government only receives advice it wants to hear; controls the media; is nationalistic and militaristic; is a poor world neighbour; takes over industry and commerce.
Let us see how the Abbott Government stacks up on these criteria.
A strong leader or small group of leaders with psychopathic tendencies
A fascist leader is obsessed with power and control for its own sake and will do whatever it takes to grab and maintain power. This suggests a strong streak of psychopathy. Psychologist Lyn Bender asks in Independent Australia, 13 May, 2014, “What if Abbott and his cronies are just a bunch of psychopaths?” She makes a startling case that they probably are, mentioning indicators from Abbott, Joe Hockey and Scott Morrison. http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/what-if-abbott-and-his-cronies-are-just-a-bunch-of-psychopaths,6472
Psychopaths are commonly described as lacking empathy and compassion, as exhibiting no guilt or remorse, given to seeking revenge, compulsive lying, seeing the end as justifying the means and narcissism.
Abbott has shown himself lacking in empathy and compassion on several occasions. In October 2007, he accused dying asbestos victim Bernie Banton’s public protests against James Hardy as “a stunt”. During a visit to Afghanistan in February 2011, his comment on being told the details of how an Australian soldier had died was “shit happens.” When a Channel 7 reporter questioned Abbott on this comment, his reaction was utterly bizarre, glaring at the reporter, jerking his head for a full 28 seconds, remaining silent. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wT9XS_TvzQ
Laurie Oakes said these and other “flat-footed comments will surely call his leadership of the Liberal Party into question … and he will pay dearly for it.” They haven’t – not yet. Later on talk-back radio, when a grandmother complaining about the budget said she was forced to do telephone sex work to make ends meet, Abbott smirked and gave the radio host a sleazy wink.
Rules by fiat and slogan
The following is attributed to Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels: “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” And this is exactly how Abbott had conducted his campaign, with mindless slogans such as “stop the boats”, “repeal the carbon tax”, “earn or learn”, repeated ad nauseam. No explanation, no justification.
Political debate in a democracy has parties standing on different platforms. Come election time they argue their case with evidence and logic, taking apart their opponents’ policies and arguments accordingly. Certainly candidates hurl insults at each other but they are the exhaust pollution that comes from a working engine. Prior to and during the last Federal election, however, Tony Abbott made the pollution of insults the engine, bringing political debate to an all-time low in Australia:
Such slogans pre-empt discussion of how those ends are to be achieved or reflection on possible consequences of achieving them.
A culture of lying
Fascist governments survive through a culture of lying. Joseph Goebbels again: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
In Independent Australia, 26 April 2014, Alan Austin defines political lying not as broken promises, which happen in all parties, but as “a knowingly false statement by a politician, expressed with the intention to deceive”. http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/is-australia-run-by-compulsive-liars-part-two-abbotts-astonishing-30-lies,6398 Here is the lie score of recent political leaders: Kevin Rudd 1, Alexander Downer 7, John Howard 15+, Tony Abbott 30, other recent leaders of all parties, including Julia Gillard, 0. The Federal Liberals are thus by far the most mendacious of all other parties, and Abbott worse than other Liberals.
In this interview Kerry O’Brien tries hard to pin Abbott down on lying. It is as telling as Abbott’s 28 seconds of furious nodding silence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc5ljcri6Nk
Defines and maintains an underclass while redistributing wealth and power to an elite
Fascist governments on gaining power take the country in a radical, new and unpleasant direction. Pre-election Abbott promised no surprises, steady as she goes; post-election we were in for a big surprise.
First, Abbott destroyed virtually every positive initiative established by Labor – apart from Labor’s own cruel initiative in sending asylum seekers offshore. Labor’s social justice initiatives – Gonski, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, gambling reforms, superannuation tax relief for low income earners, the NBN and much more. The decks had been cleared for big changes.
The Budget gave the new game away. Australia has a Triple-A credit rating, 22 years free of recession, a strong health care system, and one of the lowest debt to GDP ratios in OECD countries. Yet the Abbott Government claimed that in view of Australia’s economic crisis (a lie) a really tough Budget was necessary (another lie) and that all Australians would have to do the heavy lifting (yet another lie). Unemployed 23-year-olds stand to lose 18 per cent of their disposable income, an unemployed sole parent with an eight-year-old child would lose 12 per cent. By contrast, a high-income couple with a combined income of $360,000 a year would lose nothing they might notice. The “heavy lifting” is to be done by those least able to lift.
People under 30 would not receive any benefits at all if they lose their job leaving them with nothing to live on. Family Tax Benefit would be restricted to those earning under $100,000 and payment stops when their child reaches six, previously 16. With youth unemployment around 20 percent across the nation and higher in Tasmania, young Tasmanians were told to leave the state to get a job: “earn or learn” or you are cut off the Newstart unemployment benefits for six months. “Learning” means going to university where uncapped fees could in some faculties triple. With higher HECS interest rates, repayments could take decades to clear. What low SES youth would buy into that? That’s assuming they had the ability and the interest in going to university. Students with parents wealthy enough to pay fees will not be saddled with a long term debt, giving them an enormous lifelong advantage.
The $7 co-payment and increased pharmaceutical fees in the health budget are the first step in dismantling Medicare and setting up a more privatised health system along US lines. Yet the US spends 17.7% on GDP on health for a far worse and inequitable system than ours, whereas Australia spends 9.5% on health, including Medicare, for a much superior health service: a difference largely due to the fact that if people don’t go to the doctor the later consequences can be expensive. The Budget intervention on health is not about economics or efficiency of service, but a deliberate hit at the poor. The $20 billion medical research fund, impossibly financed by the medical co-payments, is an obvious furphy that won’t do anything for the poor with their present health problems.
The Government has gutted Gonski with its egalitarian intent, giving more and more largesse to independent schools. $245 million has been allocated to finance untrained chaplains to provide ideologically tainted support for students while removing professionally trained social workers and psychologists.
Abbott is putting future generations at risk by cutting science on all fronts. He abolished a Minister for Science which has been there since 1938; has savagely cut $140 million from the CSIRO; the tertiary sector by 20 per cent but uncapping the fees universities may charge; all the instrumentalities set up by Labor for climate change and renewable energy have been abolished. If climate change is real, and there is very strong empirical evidence that it is, all this is psychopathically irresponsible. Future generations will not thank the Abbott Government.
The Budget and the Coalition’s tax policies see that the already rich become richer and the poor poorer. The super payments of those on $35,000 pa or less, once tax free, will be taxed at 15 per cent, but Labor’s plan to tax the richest retirees’ super funds will be abandoned. Family trusts and other tax lurks worked out by tricky tax consultants will not be addressed. Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme as originally proposed was to the enormous benefit of rich double income families while child minding facilities of essential value to poor parents and especially single mothers were cut.
But there is meaning in this madness. Fascist governments need an elite and an underclass. That is what the Budget is helping to create.
The planned redrafting of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act is another tactic in defining an underclass. Currently 18C makes it unlawful for a person to act in a way likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” someone because of their race or ethnicity. The change proposed by Attorney General George Brandis would replace these words with “vilify”. Thus, it would no longer be an offense to offend, insult or humiliate anyone of a different ethnicity. And not to be discriminatory, it would also be okay to offend, insult or humiliate anyone of the same ethnicity – a bogan, perhaps, or a Greenie.
Asylum seekers, demonised by Howard as child murderers, have become a target for community hatred, fear, and contempt. There is even a whisper, just a whisper, of a parallel with the demonising of certain minority groups by the Third Reich.
Filters information so that the government only receives advice it wants to hear
A fascist government does not want to entertain information or to consider possibilities it doesn’t want to hear: “the truth is the greatest enemy of the State”, as Goebbels had said.
Abbott has stacked all committees and inquiries he has set up with far right wingers and climate change deniers, the review of the national curriculum, the Royal Commission into pink batts and the National Commission of Audi being recent examples. Clearly, he is not interested in seeking balance and fairness but in obtaining the advice he wants.
SBS and especially the ABC are accused of left wing bias, although most ABC panels have representation from left and right. Both are in for heavy cuts and possible merging.
Controls the media
As part of information filtering, a fascist government controls the media. No dissent allowed. That is not the case in Australia, but perhaps there is little need. News Corp, which backs the government 100 per cent, owns over 140 papers and magazines and is far and away the most widely read.
Robert Manne writes in The Monthly (November 2013): “Murdoch’s domination of the metropolitan press has two main consequences for our democracy. First, any government, no matter how worthy or unworthy, is now vulnerable should News Corp decide to target it in the way it targeted the Gillard government more than two years ago. Second, while News Corp retains its present dominance, mainstream debate about certain fundamental ideologically sensitive questions – how to respond adequately to the climate-change crisis; what levels and kinds of taxation are needed to develop the welfare state; the trajectory of foreign policy during the rise of China; Australia’s Middle Eastern policy; and, of course, media reform – is effectively ruled out in advance.”
Anthropogenic climate change is rubbished in all News Corp publications. 97 per cent of the columns appearing in the Herald-Sun were sceptical of human-caused global warming, an interesting symmetry to the 97 per cent of scientists who conclude the very opposite. This is irresponsibly dangerous – but perfectly in line with Abbott Government policy.
Is nationalistic and militaristic
The militarisation of Operation Sovereign Borders was entirely unnecessary, turning what should be a humane rescue operation into a military exercise with tight security clamps on information. Its handling probably reflects Scott Morrison’s militaristic fantasies as much as Abbott’s. A general was appointed in charge of Operation Sovereign Borders, now replaced by Australian Border Force. Is appointing another general as Governor-General of Australia a straw in the same wind?
In this time of supposed financial crisis, defence spending is increased to $122.7 billion for the four years to 2018, which amounts to 2 per cent of GDP. Then there is the purchase on 58 F-35 strike fighters for $12 billion. The F-35 is regarded as a lemon in military circles with performance and safety problems. Oddly, it is designed for attack not for defence. Arming for defence makes sense, but who are we going to attack?
Is a poor world neighbour
Being a good world neighbour means at least signing human rights treaties and adhering to them and to international law. Australia has signed 12 such, including treaties on refugees, torture, rights of children and of people with disabilities. Many of these treaties have been broken with regard to aborigines (as in John Pilger’s 2014 film Utopia) and in past and current asylum seeker policy.
Abbott’s treatment of asylum seekers breaks several signed treaties: separating children from parents, keeping legal asylum seekers in ignorance of when their claims will be processed, the foul and dehumanising conditions in the offshore detention centres under conditions that have been damned by the UN and Amnesty International and that amount to torture. Abbott has disbanded the Immigration Health Advisory Group, the only body to give independent advice on the physical and mental health of asylum seekers and to deny them access to legal aid.
In order to “stop the boats” the government had to make coming by boat (but not by plane) as nasty as the nastiness from which asylum seekers were fleeing. When boats of hopeful disbelievers in Australia’s nastiness kept coming, Abbott and Scott Morrison resorted to extraordinarily silly expediencies: buying Indonesian fishing boats in Indonesia so that none would be available to come to Australia; towing the people-smuggling boats back into Indonesian waters; packing asylum seekers into lifeboats and sending them back to Indonesia. All violate Indonesian territory and relations with our most important neighbor have been seriously damaged. Stopping the boats also involved Abbott in praising Sri Lanka’s murderous regime, presenting President Mahinda Rajapaksa with two patrol boats in order to help stop any Sri Lankan asylum seekers leaving for Australia. Such tactics have severely damaged Australia’s reputation internationally.
The environment sees Abbott at his worst as a world neighbour. Australia is per capita the largest carbon emitting country in the world. We are obliged to do our global bit. Not according to Abbott. He has axed or intends to axe carbon pricing, the Kyoto agreements, the Climate Change Advisory Committee, with $10 billlion cut from renewable energy investment. One such cut is totally irrational: that of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), which arranges investment in renewable energy and low emissions projects. The CEFC, chaired by financier Jillian Broadbent, obtains private sector investors to invest in renewable energy projects: some $3 billion since last July. These projects not only decrease carbon emissions but make big money in the long term. Environmentalists want it, the big end of town wants it. Win-win all round you might think. But unfortunately the CEFC was created by the Gillard government. The bill for dismantling it has been passed by the House of Representatives twice, but the current Senate isn’t cooperating. So far.
Abbott’s unthinking ruthlessness on achieving his ends has damaged foreign relations with Indonesia, with China, and with East Timor by defrauding Timor Leste of oil rights in favour of Woodside’s interests. His foolish resurrection of Royal titles was done without proper consultation with Buckingham Palace. Even more damaging in the long term has been an $8 billion cut in foreign aid to impoverished countries, lowering foreign aid to .29 per cent of GDP, compared to England’s .7 per cent. Twenty per cent of all cuts in the recent budget has been borne by the poorest countries in world.
Abbott’s international image will not be enhanced with this video, played on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight show on Abbott’s first visit to the US as Australian PM.
Takes over industry and commerce.
In fascist countries the state owns industry and the means of production. This is not so in Australia. Here it is rather the other way around: corporate power owns the government. The results for us however are much the same.
In Australia, company tax rate is 30 percent but few pay that. The average rate is 22 per cent for companies, but Westfield paid 8 per cent last financial year, and through a loophole, Apple and Google pay virtually no tax at all despite enormous profits made in Australia. Labor tried to fix that but when the Abbott government came to power the Labor initiative was dumped.
The mining tax on 2011 rates would now be yielding about $60 billion pa but after a ferocious campaign by both mining corporations and the Liberal Opposition, PM Gillard watered it down so much it yielded nothing in the first year although it will raise around $3.8 billion over four years. Now Finance Minister Matthias Corman wants to abolish it altogether claiming through a convoluted flow-on argument that it would save $13.8 billion. Believe it or not. The diesel fuel rebate cost the government $5.4 billion in 2012-13, which the Australian says is “fair” (10 May, 2014).
Abbott’s dismantling of renewable energy projects is at the behest of the mining and fossil fuel industries. Abbott’s Direct Action policy is ineffectual with regard to reducing emissions, but very effective in giving large handouts to the worst polluting industries.
The Great Barrier Reef is to be a dumping ground for dredged silt, World Heritage nominations are to be dropped, marine parks around Australia have been scrapped, the “greatly endangered” listing of the Murray-Darling Basin has been removed, the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement is to be ripped up, and all environmental assessments for development projects are to be in the hands of the states, who want the royalties from development whatever the environmental cost, as in Queensland and West Australia.
The damage isn’t being done only for the benefit of Australian based corporations. The proposed Trans Pacific Partnership would include an Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause into the agreement, which is only available to corporations. Philip Morris tobacco is claiming compensation for loss of revenue, against the Australian Government’s legislation for the plain packaging of cigarettes using an ISDS clause contained in an earlier trade agreement with Hong Kong. The fact that this law was made by a democratically elected Parliament and had been deemed legitimate by the nation’s highest court is irrelevant under the proposed TPP legislation.
One tribunal judge reportedly said, with regard to the ISDS clause:
It never ceases to amaze me that sovereign states have agreed to investment arbitration at all … Three private individuals are entrusted with the power to review, without any restriction or appeal procedure, all actions of the government, all decisions of the courts, and all laws and regulations emanating from parliament.
(The Guardian, 5 November 2013).
The government’s stated policy of “small government”, deregulating, and allowing market forces to prevail means giving open slather to the corporate world, even to international corporations who are not at all interested in the welfare of Australians.
So is the Abbott Government fascist?
The Abbott Government would no doubt defend its policies and radical change of direction as simply implementing their neoliberal agenda, which they would say they were elected to do. The public’s highly negative reaction to that agenda post-election suggests that they were fooled.
Neoliberalism leads to the adoption of most characteristics of fascism, except for the role of government itself. Neoliberalism’s so-called “small government” just hands control and the destinies of citizens to the corporate sector, which as Joel Bakan’s film The Corporation (2003) sees as manifesting all the symptoms of full blown psychopathy.
Whether we ordinary people are being bullied by psychopathic fascist governments or by equally psychopathic corporations, it’s not nice to be at the receiving end. Worse, we seem to lack the power to do very much about it. As Richard Cooke points out in “A class of their own” (The Monthly, June, 2014), political accountability is a myth. The values and decisions of political and economic elites are basically unaffected by the needs and values of their constituents. A majority of people want less privatisation, more spending on health care, social welfare for the poor (certainly not for the rich) even if all these mean higher taxes. Neoliberal governments give exactly the opposite to what a majority of people want – and tragically for us they seem to be getting away with it. Neoliberalism is undemocratically grabbing power across much of the Western World; it is a juggernaut that must be stopped.
To answer our question: yes, the Abbott Government at least has strong fascist tendencies. That is what hard line neoliberalism does. It is itself a form of neofascism.
The good news for us Australians, as John Oliver’s little doco points out, is that Abbott and his mates are being so kack-handed about it they’ll self-destruct, to peals of international laughter.
• Attack on Australia’s universal healthcare system must be blocked, says TasCOSS
• Guardian: Climate unity dealt blow as Australia and Canada put business first
• John Green: Freedom of Speech? HERE I have now discovered another nasty little trick in Abbott’s budget. All community legal centres have been forbidden from taking part in any law reform activities or any kind of policy activities upon threat of their funding being cut. They have been explicitly banned from criticism on the Commonwealth government or any of its agencies. One of the major purposes of community legal centres is to develop a policy to improve the law and make proposals for law reform. It is clear the Abbott government opposes freedom of speech and is determined to stop all voluntary bodies from criticising it if at all possible.
THURSDAY June 25, 2015 …
• phill Parsons in Comments: On the criteria put forward in June last year we have to look at the Abbott government’s performance. They struggled right up to May this year and it was only when they rediscovered Nationalism and Militarism in the form of the terror scare that they have returned to appearing like a government. Of course this masks a series of allures in addressing threats to the nation such as a stalling economy; a trade deal the productivity Commission criticizes; global heating and climate instability and their imposts on the economy; failure to foster the growth industries in a transition to a sustainable energy economy; social division with cuts to health,to education and to vilifying certain groups of Australians. Everyone should be able to make up their own mind on the views of Zac Mallah but instead the control over the media is feeding everyone with the idea that he is a terrorist when he was not convicted of same and now works against ISIS promoting the Free Syria movement, a movement the British and the US support. It is strange that Ciobo knew Mallah and was ready for him. You can readily conclude Fascist … as they meet the criteria.
• Mike Bolan in Comments: Nicely researched and well put together John. Interesting that some seem to imagine that lack of gross violations (such as may have occurred in mature fascist governments) indicates that the LNP feds aren’t fascist. It takes them a while to get everything organised so that they can exercise unbridled power (e.g. get rid of Triggs, change laws, empower security agencies, weaken the majority with cuts and austerity programs). It certainly appears that psychopaths tend to create fascist/totalitarian type regimes – it seems that their lack of empathy leads them to such structures. …
John Biggs
June 10, 2016 at 1:43 pm
Thank you Chris for filling in the gaps so precisely. It is scandalous that a thriving community could be rendered so dysfunctional so quickly by so few. Demoted from a semi-autonoums state to a suburban council! And all for nothing!You can see the thinking of a neoliberal bureaucrat behind this.
This should be made an example of what a neoliberal government and its attendant bureaucracy can and will do. Would that this could become an election issue — in the circs now you must have an MP who would want to be re-elected. Can we rustle up a Green or an Independent. Too late for a Justice for Norfolk Island Party for this election but maybe a thought for the future?
john ward
June 10, 2016 at 3:48 am
This sad mob of small minded shop keepers, would never have built the Snowy Mountains Scheme or the ANU at the same time.
When the Labor party under Chifley took the long term view, Menzies chose to rant about the expense, yet was happy to open them up, for the glory after he became PM.
Now is the time to borrow money and turn the Burdekin River and look to irrigate the inland; keeping money in Australia.
Every $1million we send overseas to buy things we should build here, each mill exports, about 40 jobs with it.
Bob flaming Menzies stopped the CSIRO from working on computers, when we were one of the leaders in that field, and told the teams of scientists to work out how to make ‘it’ rain.
During the first world war Menzies joined the Melbourne University Regiment as an Officer, because he could serve without going overseas. When the time came to send the Officers overseas because of the high casualty rate, he resigned his commission declaring ‘my brain is too valuable to waste on the battlefield’.
When the first world war broke out, our Constitution forbade the armed forces to fight overseas, they were meant to defend Australia. The Parliament declared the Empire was in peril and called for Volunteers to form the Australian imperial Forces. At the end of that conflict we had Five divisions fighting as a singly force under Australian Command.
Menzies of course, became a big noise in the failed conscription movement,but eventually conscripted my generation and the Vietnam Veterans.
Menzies was always devoted to Mother England in fact he ensured, that the flag ACT of 1954, that the Union Jack was available as a right to any Australian resident to fly it in preference to and in a superior position ahead of the National Flag. That changed in 1968 when the British objected to our war ships having their navy Ensign in our (Menzies) Vietnam War. So we quickly created the White Ensign you see today.
This cringeworthy behaviour was no more apparent than in the first months of world war two, when both Menzies and Churchill decided to send the Second Australian Imperial Force’s Eighth Division to Malaya to protect Singapore. The Sixth Division defeated the Italian Army in Libya and Menzies agreed with Churchill to send that division split in halves to Greece and Crete where they were made POW’s by overwhelming numbers of Nazis.
Our Ninth Division fought Two famous battles that became the turning point of the war at Tobruk And El Alamein.
The seventh Division fought against the French Foreign Legion in Syria and then were rushed back to Java and Timor and when they got off the ships they found their weapons and ammo was coming in the next convoy. They therefore joined the Eighth Division as prisoners of the Japanese.
If Menzies had been working for Mr Hitler he would have earned an Iron Cross with Diamond Clusters.
The Ninth finally came back to join the reserve CMF (Chocolate Soldiers who had held the Japanese) on the Kokoda track in New Guinea to then Push the Nips back. They were the One Division that formed our last fighting force left standing out of Four divisions from the second war.
The Ninth Division survived Menzies and the only thing that saved them from defeat and Churchill’s order to sail north to Malaya and the japs, was the ALP’s PM John Curtain ordered the fleet to return to Australia and we looked to the American for protection and away from Churchill who was prepared to leave Australia to the Imperial Japanese Army, to be ‘regained after the war in Europe was won’.
Don’t let the Liberals tell you what god like leader, Menzies was , he was a Tamperer and a small minded egotist, who only cared for himself and saw the men he sent to die, as the Scum of the Earth. With the advent Cold War and the post world war intelligence agencies of Britain, the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia forming a collaboration known as ‘the five eyes’. Australia, has been told how to think ever since. So Australia had to take our share of Nazi fanatics out of the wreckage of Germany, to bring their knowledge and skills to the task of defeating Communism. The influence of this hidden body of war-criminals in our intelligence community and political class still resonates in attitudes and influence that were once foreign to our culture.
By 1950 we still had German Italian and Japanese prisoners in custody and Menzies let the Germans stay who wanted to, Italians went home and most applied to come back. The Japs went home and we thought they would be our enemies, deep in our hearts forever. Nazis and Japs were hated universally, for their cruelty, the people that hated them are mostly dead, a handful forgave, the baby boomers were protected from the horror of war, until the fathers succumbed to PTSD.
Kim Peart
June 30, 2015 at 11:28 am
Re: 146 ~
I was shocked to read an academic report only this year that the economy and politicians are working a system that requires around 5% unemployment, to keep the wheels of growth turning.
This criminal activity has been on the move for decades and as a result, there are some people who get totally disempowered, especially when their heads hit the brick wall of mean tricks like it being better to stay unemployed than join the working poor and lose money by working.
I say “real work with real pay for all able workers”, with the key being “able”.
If we were to get the nation back on track as a full-employment society, we would also need to work with people who are unable to work for whatever reason. They may need inspiring to get their bounce back. A full-employment society would offer plenty of inspiring and appropriate work for each participant.
If a person is or has become disabled, then they must be cared for, but offered a pathway back into work if or when they can.
The buzz in a fully employed and healthy society would buoy many along who sink in the current treatment of people.
Humiliating people does not inspire.
The current unemployment regime is a carefully crafted policing exercise that controls, disciplines and humiliates.
It is a system of abuse that can lead to homelessness.
It is a reverse form of the convict system, aimed at creating unemployment and keeping a percentage of the nation under-employed and poor.
The system includes training for work that does not exist and puts the unemployed into debt through training.
Why would our government actively participate in such abuse?
Only when an aspect of this putrid system gets too much on the nose, is some action taken.
The action that is avoided is shifting to a full-employment society, because that would disturb the current economy and growth.
“This is basic maths: 657,407 young people plus another 1,197,057 underemployed and unemployed adults 24 years and older looking for work minus 149,900 job vacancies equals not enough jobs. Assuming one job per person, this means 92 in every 100 of these people won’t get a job vacancy. Competition is fierce.†~ Muir, Powell and Butler ~
http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/weblog/article/help-saving-australia/
“About 2.5 million Australians are living below the poverty line, according to a Salvation Army report.” ~ Salvation Army.
603,000 (17.7%) of children in Australia living in poverty ~ ACOSS.
Thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are homeless in Australia ~ ABC Radio National.
Kim Peart
Steve
June 29, 2015 at 11:38 pm
#144; I appreciate the point you are trying to make Kim, but where in your philosophy is the concept of “unemployable”?
Full employment is not, and is unlikely ever to be, achievable in Australia. I once had a very interesting discussion with someone from Switzerland. They knew all about unemployment problems but had a real problem in understanding the concept of people who simply weren’t interested in working.
The simple reality of Tasmania is that there’s a portion of the population who have never worked, who will never work, who’s parents never worked, who’s children will never work, and who will use every ploy they possibly can to avoid being put into a position where they might have to work.
We are an island State where re-locating is an expensive process; this, and things like baby bonuses, ensure that our unemployment statistics will gradually grow. The reality is that anyone who wants to work, displays basic work ethics and is generally interested, should have no problem getting a job in Tasmania.
I might be wrong in this but I get about a bit and the general thing I hear is that people are struggling to get employees.
William Boeder
June 29, 2015 at 8:34 pm
#144. Yes Kim I cannot dispute your comments. We all must understand that there is a high level of bogus honesty rife throughout the halls of Australia’s parliament, in fact the Liberal party have actually cornered the market and are possessed of the bulk of this controversial marketable product.
Then we see the Liberal party fund-raising vehicle, known as the Millennium Forum, a suspicious sounding entity that seems to be an all devouring beast of an institution that seeks the company and the purses of the bent, the crooked, the parasitical businessmen and also the greed besotted persons across our land, even the villainous hopping Cane-toads corporates from over the seas.
Each and all are welcomed to the hearth of the Millenium Forum.
I still wonder why I haven’t yet seen a profusion of light-flashing roadside boards advertising ‘integrity for sale’ please contact the Millennium Forum for all your private needs. For that is their stock in trade.
The former Liberal PM, John Winston Howard, was I believe the only friend that George W Bush has ever known and vice versa, for they were each a well matched couple of nasty spider-like persons, each able to proffer to the other their own breed of people-shafting toxins.
One can only wonder what favour Howard sought from his mate George W in place of committing Australia’s troops into their participating in America’s targeted war-mongering’s.
I again refer to Australia’s Banks, in that they possess the freedom to act only for themselves, without any regulatory intervention to bother their endless stream of unconscionable profits.
This illustrates another showing of this country’s Liberal party standover actions, for they are covertly Iron fist ruling over Australia’s financial regulatory authorities.
Wherever and whenever you spy a Liberal party politician loitering about quickly grip your fist tight around your wallet or purse, for these are the persons that thrive upon ‘other people’s money’ this fuels this pompous lot of blathering hucksters to maintain their loathed status as a registerted political organization.
Please note that I do not make any reference here to the Nationals party nor their ministers, in that the Nationals in that former time were inveigled by Howard to become the Liberal National coalition.
Kim Peart
June 29, 2015 at 1:16 pm
Re: 143 ~
If honesty were popularised by the people, as a personal choice writ large by popular demand, then politicians would follow the demand of the people to earn the votes and business would follow suit, or suffer loss through being abandoned by the consumer.
Honesty could begin with working for full-employment, by people in community deciding that it was the right outcome and accept nothing less from politicians and the economy.
In an honest society, all citizens would receive a fair share of the national pie.
Unemployment and homelessness are created by greed-driven dishonest economics and politics that requires around 5% unemployment, at least, to keep the wheels of growth turning.
Running workers in and out of fiscally driven unemployment is dishonest and cruel.
Anyone deciding there should be full-employment, coild help create real work with real pay for all able workers.
This would be revolutionary, but would also create a much healthier, wealthier and stronger nation.
This would solve the under-employment problem, by creating real full-employment.
This would solve homelessness, as work will deliver housing.
Poverty would be sent into history in Australia.
And the banks would be forced into a state of honesty.
Kim Peart
William Boeder
June 27, 2015 at 8:58 pm
Thank you John Biggs for presenting your very revealing article.
There is every show of the Liberal party evidences during their electioneering, schemes and plots, (many of these were contained in a large wagon, full to the brim of cobbled up lies and deceptions) then add to this the voluminous Labor party vilifications that were heaped upon the electorate, these are the tactics that had enabled the Abbott government to gurgle their way above their own fetid flotsams and led them to an un-earned victory to establish themselves as the leadership party of Australia.
Please recall the words of a former respected Liberal Prime minister, the late Malcolm Fraser, he had given his qualified opinion as to why he had resigned from the despotic confines of the then Abbott Liberal party government.
I myself am a strong believer of the Malcolm Fraser forebodings, he well knew what the Liberal party had in store for the Australian people even then being prepared for their journey to become the evil essence of today’s Liberal party.
One of the most serious crimes of today’s Liberals, was committed by their Senator Mathias Cormann, being to deny the claim for a Royal Commission into Australia’s largest Bank.
The breaches by the CBA and especially by its executive board toward their Australian Banking Licence and their mandatory Codes of Conduct, had continued beyond the announcement by this pompous and arrogant Senator who had clearly aligned himself with this Banks directors, (or the CBA had aligned themselves to him) in order to crush the Senate recommendation report and its call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry.
Let us not forget this Bank’s incestuous relationship held with the ASIC Commissioners during the past number of years, top of the list was the covert pigeon-holing of a Commonwealth Bank Senior Appointed person’s submission to ASIC.
This Bank had not even taken any notice of this employee’s insider information as he had presented to the hierarchy of the CBA.
Thus this newly self-elected whistle-blower, had rightly determined that he had to become the whistle-blower to lift the lid from this now nefarious multi-Billion dollar profiteering Bank.
The link below is to do with this Bank’s
regulatory compliances.
http://www.boq.com.au/uploadedFiles/Code_Of_Banking_Practice.pdf
Thus we were to observe how this Liberal party Senator had thrown his party support behind the executive board of this Bank.
This next link is toward the known ‘but not admitted failures’ between this Bank and the revelations presenting the culpability of the then ASIC commissioners.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/cba-under-fire-at-asic-inquiry-20140410-36evj.html
This comment is a testament to the sly and snotty workings of today’s Liberal party government and their secret services given to Australia’s defaulting Big Banks, no, not my own allegations but simple verifiable delivered facts.
Of further interest will be how the Liberals will address the similar shortcomings as were discovered recently, (that had lain ever so silent) within the Macquarie Bank, the National Australia Bank, then the ANZ Bank.
Expect more of the same by these non-bona-fide Abbott led Liberal government ministers and quite a few of their religion-belching Senators.
Chris B
June 27, 2015 at 6:33 pm
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/david-pope-20120214-1t3j0.html
Chris B
June 27, 2015 at 6:33 pm
#139
Sad but very very true.
Dr.John R.Wilson
June 27, 2015 at 3:31 pm
Reflecting on #138:
Amen …
Kim Peart
June 27, 2015 at 1:45 pm
Reflecting on 134 ~
Imagine what Australia would be like if we respected our obligations to Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states in point one ~
“Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.”
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#atop
The other three points are also worth reading.
Instead of maintaining that core value of a Fair Go, politicians and the people have gone along with creating a shifty economy that requires around 5% unemployment to keep the wheels of growth turning, so that the well-off can grab a larger share of the national pie.
This percentage can be expected to grow, as the dawning robot revolution is predicted to take away half of current paid work over the next couple of decades.
Politicians drive this expectation of fiscally driven unemployment, but only with the support of the voters.
This is like a pact with the devil ~ and by the time we realise the terms of the contract, it may be too late.
The unemployed get blamed for being forced to be unemployed and called ugly names.
If we were to wake up to reality, if we wanted to know the truth, we would see that the powerful in this nation are the biggest “leaners” of all in a system of politically orchestrated theft from the unemployed and the homeless.
If the nation were to wake up and demand real work with real pay for all able workers, billions of dollars in benefits would be saved, crime will be reduced, Centrelink would shrink, the job network would vanish, poverty would be history and the nation would reap more taxes through wages.
Do we want a full-employment society?
Are the people of this nation prepared to fight for full-employment, in town hall meetings, at the ballot box, in parliament and by working together to create work for all citizens?
It is so sad, so depressing, how the status-quo just shuffles on.
Maybe people will start to wake up when the unemployed and homeless are taken in the dead of night, or broad daylight, to work camps.
If anyone thinks that can’t happen, look at how we treat refugees now.
It’s not Abbott we should be looking at.
We should be looking at all the people who go along with fiscally driven unemployment and fiscally created homelessness.
If we can imagine what Australia could be like with full-employment, would we like to live in that nation?
I suggest that we would then treat refugees quite differently.
We would also be setting an example that the whole world could follow.
It all depends on what kind of world we would like to be living in.
Currently, Australia chooses to be a nation of Abbotts.
Kim Peart
Chris B
June 27, 2015 at 1:13 pm
Doug Quoxote on Table Talk.
A very newly discovered scroll, perhaps not part of the Dead Serious Scrolls:
“It came to pass in the third year after Kevin 07 that the ALP discovered that their Messiah had feet of clay.
The false messiah was thrown down by orders of the great and the good, and it was seen that the woman stood forth.
And in those days, the false messiah did stick around, like unto a very bad smell; he was deceased yet knew it not.
Thus it was that the woman, once known to all as the heir apparent did inherit instead the mantle of Lady Macbeth.
For it was thought by the masses that the false messiah was still a true and noble leader; it came to pass that he became a martyr, St Kevin of Nambour.
Now whilst St Kevin clamoured for his resurrection, there had arisen a foul and despicable creature, a gollum-like beast. But the beast was perceived truly by very few.
The few who perceived the beast clearly were denizens of the Table Talk, a most disparate and eclectic foregathering.
In these days Rupert the Dark Lord did dominate the presses and the airwaves, and backed the beast to such effect that Labor were sore afeard.
So sore afeard were Labor that they overthrew the woman their leader, Julia of Gillard, lately cast as Lady Macbeth.
And resurrected was the false messiah, St Kevin of Nambour; but this was a false dawn indeed, a brief excursion into the light for one who was truly dead, but knew it not.
So it came to pass that the beast was elected Prime Minister, and for Labor there was a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of teeth.
Thus had the forces of darkness seemingly triumphed and the creature of the Dread Dark Lord strode forth, or shambled, rather.
But in the days that followed the beast showed some of its true colours, and those of its cronies, and the people saw it and were not gruntled.
The beast shambled and stumbled and knighted its horse, and declared solemnly that no-one was the suppository of all wisdom.
The people had the scales fall from their eyes and were sore dismayed; but the Dread Dark Lord and his minions of the Murdia did quell the unrest.
The Murdia and its subsidiary the ABC in those days ran interference, and lo and behold diverted the public attention away from the beast.
And so it shambled and stumbled and dithered some more, even as the Murdia concentrated upon the newly arisen Labor leader, trying to shorten his lead . . .â€
(here the scroll breaks off)
Simon Warriner
June 27, 2015 at 11:54 am
Peter, one characteristic that stands out in my reading on narcissists is that they are very good at managing their relationships, and if they want to impress someone they will, but if you are their victim/target your life will be made a living hell. Sometimes the OTT efforts to impress are “off” and a warning signal to those that are aware.
Was there anyone your diagnosed co-worker had issues with, most likely at a lower rank? Vague put downs, constant “issues” with them and their performance and endless excuses for not involving that person are clues as to what is going on, particularly if that person is not present at the time and if you are not directly involved with the victim it can be very difficult to detect the impact it is having on them. Generally there will be a victim, somewhere. It may not be in the workplace, it may be at home.
Justa Bloke
June 27, 2015 at 3:27 am
The strangest thing in this whole thread is Jenny’s use of the phrase “reputable newspaper”. Is that something like a square circle?
Peter Mackenzie
June 27, 2015 at 1:32 am
Simon @ #133
Interesting thoughts and observations.
I worked with someone who was diagnosed as being narcissistic, and they were mostly okay, and quite generous and kind at times.
On the the hand, another employee was likely undiagnosed, but a compulsive liar (pathological liar?), and as far as I am concerned, potentially dangerous (certainly reckless).
Mike Bolan
June 27, 2015 at 12:20 am
#125. You’re so right Geoff. The PM doesn’t respect the refugee conventions, the AG doesn’t respect the statutory office of the Human Rights Commissioner, and none of them appear to respect the human rights of refugees, or people accused of terrorism.
If we all took them as our example there’d be chaos!
Simon Warriner
June 26, 2015 at 3:50 pm
re 131, re narcissism, that particular disorder of the mind is best identified from the experiences of those impacted by it, given that narcissists are compulsive liars and manipulators. Therein lies the insanity of our current mental health/anti-discrimination regime.
You cannot overtly manage narcissism once you have identified it in a workplace because it is a disorder under the DSM and to do so would, most probably, amount to an act of discrimination, according to an email I have from the office of the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner.
Under the privacy provisions of the mental health act it would seem that a mental health practitioner would be taking a very large risk if they, suspecting narcissism, approached the narcissists close associates seeking information that would confirm their tentative diagnosis. Information a narcissist themselves would never willingly provide because to do so would reveal the true nature of the damage their behavior does to others.
This perhaps explains why HR managers fail to effectively deal with narcissists in the workplace and where that particularly loathsome activity is present there is a high level of workplace stress, dysfunction, sickness and staff turnover. Competent managers present in the moment just fire the narcissists arse and deal with the consequences. HR managers see a problem and try and fix it, to everyone elses detriment.
My apologies to HR managers who do not take this approach, but I am yet to meet one of you.
A technique for avoiding that situation for any prospective employee is to do throrgh research about staff turnover in the workplace at interview. Where a single individual has remained while all others have moved on over a period of several years, be very wary, avoid taking the job if you can and if you cannot, get a very good discrete recording device and be prepared to use it covertly. Document everything that happens, especially those subtle changes in the instructions you are given that make it look like you have not done your job properly. The return on the investment will be enormous. That bit of knowledge has been acquired at huge personal cost to my family. I particularly recommend any prospective employee of the Tasmanian Government follow it.
It does not help us eliminate the problem but it will keep some individuals safe and that is a start.
The presence of the legislation that acts to protect narcissism and other borderline personality disorder sufferers whilst placing the public good and the well-being of others as a secondary concern is a problem that needs to be fixed. There are many situations where individuals suffering from this type of disorder have no place. Any profession where lives are at risk should be out of bounds. Even within back office roles they can produce life threatening situations. Placed in senior public roles their potential for chaos and mayhem is unlimited, and if that is what floats their boat god help us all.
I was reading Douglas Reed’s “The Controversy of Zion” at the same time as I was researching narcissism in relation to a workplace dispute/injury matter involving my partner. Reed describes in some detail the history of the Judean religion from its inception to the late 1940’s. What struck me was that the behavior of the Pharisitic cult behind Judaism which has become modern day Zionism was very narcissistic in nature, and that narcissistic character had been transmitted through time.
A cogent argument can, I think, be made that this cult holds enormous power behind the scenes in modern global politics, and much of the action on the ground in global international politics resembles very much that which takes place in an environment which is being manipulated by a narcissist. Australia’s very conflicted position toward China is a classic example of this. On one hand we applaud the economic relationship, while on the other we are siding with the Yanks in actions that have the very real potential to start a shooting war. This confusion is typical of an individual who has come under the influence of a narcissist, and it is extremely confusing for the party on the receiving end of it, as China is.
Something to think about.
Dr Buck Emberg and Joan
June 26, 2015 at 3:11 pm
According with the definitions in the article, the Abott government is certainly fascist.
Peter Mackenzie
June 25, 2015 at 10:05 pm
Hi Mike
Re your last para on MRI test for psychopathy.
That alone is a fairly scary thought. But if we added in a test of the main men and woman in NGOs, peak bodies, corporations, and indeed all managers and supervisors, I think the results would be quote frightening.
Of course we should include tests for narcissism, dissonance, delusions and disconnections, pathological lying etc and the results should be truly amazing.
Mike Bolan
June 25, 2015 at 7:09 pm
Nicely researched and well put together John.
Interesting that some seem to imagine that lack of gross violations (such as may have occurred in mature fascist governments) indicates that the LNP feds aren’t fascist.
It takes them a while to get everything organised so that they can exercise unbridled power (e.g. get rid of Triggs, change laws, empower security agencies, weaken the majority with cuts and austerity programs).
It certainly appears that psychopaths tend to create fascist/totalitarian type regimes – it seems that their lack of empathy leads them to such structures.
There is now an authoritative MRI test for psychopathy. What would happen if we petitioned for all politicians and senior bureaucrats to be so tested so that the voter could decide if they really wanted to hand over power to someone who has no empathy for anyone else? Can they even represent the rest of us given that they are not representative?
Kim Peart
June 25, 2015 at 2:15 pm
It is amazing that we still don’t know when PM Abbott surrendered his British citizenship, so he could now be an Australian politician and Prime Minister legally.
Without such simple facts, we are left wondering if he is still a duel citizen, in parliament illegally and pulling the wool over all our eyes.
Until we stop being so gullible and begin demanding answers on such basic facts and constitutional law, we really deserve whatever “ist” Abbott is.
If we could focus on truth in the shaping of our nation, then we would see the need to hone in on whether any of us have a right to work, or not.
What kind of politics do we allow that takes away our right to work?
And yet that is exactly what we tolerate, when around 5% unemployment is needed to keep the wheels of growth turning, so the well-off can grab a larger share of the national pie.
This pie grabbing is simply politically orchestrated theft, stealing from the under-employed, the unemployed, the poor and the homeless, making the powerful of this nation the biggest “leaners” of all.
Why have we collectively allowed politics in this land to take our nation to the cleaners?
If we ever decided that truth matters, we will wake up and demand real work with real pay for all able workers.
This would in turn lead to politicians being elected who really do serve the needs of the nation, not simply the “leaners”.
Australia will have to become a fascist-like state to control the over 2 million people bulldozed into poverty, to control, blame and humiliate them, which is what happens now to the unemployed and the homeless.
This fascist nightmare will get worse, with the robot revolution set to remove half of current paid work over the next couple of decades.
On current trends, we can look forward to a police state future, where the unemployed and homeless are whisked away to slave-labour camps in the dead of night.
Look at what we do to refugees now.
Is it too late for true blue Aussies to rediscover the Fair Go and begin building a real nation of citizens in this Great Southern Land?
Kim Peart
Dr.John R.Wilson
June 25, 2015 at 12:34 pm
I don’t want make too light of all this, but isn’t it just a little bit funny that the Abbott Government MP on the Q&A panel on Monday night who wants to deport the middle-eastern-looking guy in the audience because he supports ISIS fighters who cut people’s heads off over in Syria was himself on U-Tube talking about “slitting the throat” of former Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard not so long ago (www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVVZaJmYOGo), and now Prime Minister Abbott has called for “heads to roll” at the ABC …
phill Parsons
June 25, 2015 at 12:07 pm
#126. Mea culpa. Allures should read failures, it fits better. My typo.
Some other meaning of allures work but failures would be clearer in meaning.
phill Parsons
June 25, 2015 at 1:49 am
On the criteria put forward in June last year we have to look at the Abbott government’s performance. They struggled right up to May this year and it was only when they rediscovered Nationalism and Militarism in the form of the terror scare that they have returned to appearing like a government.
Of course this masks a series of allures in addressing threats to the nation such as a stalling economy; a trade deal the productivity Commission criticizes; global heating and climate instability and their imposts on the economy; failure to foster the growth industries in a transition to a sustainable energy economy; social division with cuts to health,to education and to vilifying certain groups of Australians.
Everyone should be able to make up their own mind on the views of Zac Mallah but instead the control over the media is feeding everyone with the idea that he is a terrorist when he was not convicted of same and now works against ISIS promoting the Free Syria movement, a movement the British and the US support.
It is strange that Ciobo knew Mallah and was ready for him.
You can readily conclude Feascist … as they meet the criteria.
The one thing missing is the declaration of an emergency after a fire followed by the suspension of elections and in our system the formation of a National government.
The way the labor Party is supporting a government that doesn’t deserve the blind support it appears to get on national security and asylum seekers allows you can imagine Labor unquestionably supporting such a government.
It’s still the Riechstag fire of 1933 in the terms above and resistance must be stepped up.
Geoff Wilson
June 23, 2015 at 3:40 pm
This is so ridiculous its not funny. There is no longer respect for government and laws.
Peter Bright
April 9, 2015 at 9:54 pm
Your evaluations at #123 are splendidly expressed, John. I agree with them.
I believe that Obama knows he’ll be ah, removed, if he does not yield to certain evil US influences, offshoots of which are extant here. He effectively moderates the most loathsome of them by staying where he is for he knows that if he is ah, removed, then his influence for what good he can do will go with him. Then what?
But as I ponder evil-doers’ motives as I wonder how long they will have to enjoy their ill-gotten “gains.”
It’s increasingly obvious to me that what they see as gains are actually millstones around their souls.
Life is a blink – better to do no harm at all.
John Biggs
April 9, 2015 at 3:04 pm
#122. Thanks for that link, Peter. Very interesting take on what Pilger calls “post-Nazi” fascism. He wants to retain the term in order to concentrate people’s minds as to what is happening in the world. His focus is on US imperialism, pointing out that of the 69 countries in the UN the US has attacked overtly or covertly one third of these countries, most notably in S. America and the Middle East. The reason for US aggression is almost always getting control of fossil fuels, and finds it intolerable that independent countries possess oil. The aim is to make them dependent on the US one way or another: Libya, Iraq, Venezuela and so on. The characteristics of what the US has been doing (and still is) are: seeking global power, disregard of human rights, the Big Lie to justify aggression, media control (unless the media itself is calling the shots).
IF these pointers critically define neo-Nazi fascism then global power lets Abbott of that particular hook. Instead he cuddles up to the US and like Howard unilaterally sides with US aggression.
Certainly we have had our homespun versions of the big lie, disregard of human rights. But Pilger makes global domination a key characteristic and certainly US based multinationals are hell bent on that. Australia’s small fry in that context.
Anyway read the article, food for thought. I found his treatment of Obama over the top. He sees him as the arch villain: I see him as basically a good guy but weak in the US power structure and therefore manipulated by real arch-villains. But that’s another story.
Peter Bright
April 8, 2015 at 11:15 am
You can hear John Pilger speaking about fascism here ..
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41481.htm
Christopher Nagle
April 1, 2015 at 2:41 pm
Thanks for that John.
You are right that the rise of fundamentalist religion (not just Islam) is in the lap of the Gods (pun not intended). But it is on the menu for us and our children to deal with. And how we deal with it is critical to that outcome. We need to do more than just defensive reaction.
The rise of fundamentalist religion is a symptom of our own condition. It is not some arbitrary force that has come out of nowhere. And to some extent the feedback it is giving us is legitimate, even if its own particular values and methods are not.
We need a social commons and traditions that operate within it that reflect our own history. But to construct such a commons requires a disciplined effort to make choices about how much we can port of our past into our future.
We face issues about our future that are just as difficult and pressing as the advance of modernism was on all previously extant social and economic systems. We cannot take everything. We have to be portable and flexible in our choices.
Above all, we have to have a realistic critique of modern society that enables us to make those choices sensibly and sustainably.
And this is why this discussion has become both animated and heated. Much of it just doesn’t address the issues before us.
Late capitalism and the neo-liberalism that underpins it is coming to the end of its trajectory. Growth and destruction are its siblings. It just can’t help it. It is the nature of the beast. We may be able to carry bits of capitalism with us as a way of creating a new order that has resonances of its past to give security and familiarity to what undoubtedly will be a dark and unfamiliar world.
We can construct notions of wealth building that address our social and existential software rather than the hardware economy that we have grown up with. Our system of social reproduction could easily be treated as an ‘industry’ which is regulated, accounted, audited, trained and managed to standards that we would expect of anything else we have ever produced. We do not have to tolerate a laissez-faire order that we would never countenance in anything else that we do.
We seculars need to get our existential and social software back into some sort of order, and fast, or we will be overtaken by people who will do it for us. Late secular modern societies are in danger of collapsing before the religious fundamentalist push just as Rome did before Christianity.
Neo liberalism isn’t going to go away until it has run its course. But we can start to construct alternative ways of doing and being that will enable us to take on the post-modern antagonists that we can already see in front of us.
As latter-day capital moves into its final period the arguments will become less about it and more about the visions of the future that are going to replace it.
John Biggs
April 1, 2015 at 11:46 am
I agree with you here: “Civil society has been systematically eroded over the last 70 years and social control has moved from the administration of social institutions into marketing ones. The consumer society has replicated itself into the mass consciousness to the point that it has virtually wiped out our social software and replaced it with production drivers and consumer responders.”
The Abbott government more than any other, has facilitated this process (or tried to but it is so inept it is backfiring on them).
As to point two, the rise of Islam in the face of a morally barren West. You could as you do I think see this as an irreversible paradigm shift or you could see it as the wheel of history. Islam rose previously and ran out of steam and this is likely to happen again; this time because of pressure from within as most Muslims don’t want this style of extremism. But this is guesswork of course.
That’s something we can’t control except by unacceptably hideous military means, but hopefully we can do something about the stranglehold neoliberalism has over our political systems.
Christopher Nagle
March 30, 2015 at 11:26 pm
Continued from last post
On top of that, there is another layer to this conundrum. When the Soviet Union collapsed, neo cons declared the end of ‘history’. Capitalism had won, so it was thought. But almost immediately a new force appeared in the form of the Ayatollahs in Iran and Mujaheddin returnees from the Afghanistan anti Soviet war. And the message that came out of that was quite new: screw the modern world. 9/11 was the ‘Pearl Harbor’ moment, when this new force formally declared war, not just on imperial America, nor just ‘The West’, but the entire modern project, in all respects and in all theaters. (See next post for the conclusion).
This movement is not merely an irrational and serendipitous blast from the past. This is a fundamental challenge to the legitimacy of the modern project. It is a profound judgment that that project is a corrupted and off message perversion of human society. And in the absence of any secular movement that could conceivably transform this defective product, the fickle finger of history has handed its transformational tools to the only real opposition left standing; Islamic fundamentalists.
And what drives them into a violent frenzy of enthusiasm is that they can see not just an unlegitimate behemoth, but one that is profoundly weakened on the inside and self defeating in its ‘unnatural’ fundamental dynamics. They can smell its disease and the prospect, albeit a long way off, of victory and divine providence.
Their anger and existential contempt makes the profile of the attack that they are assembling without limit or let. Nothing is off the table. No outrage is too great. All is just. And what is terrible about them is that while fascism had no moral compasses, this lot do and they are truly terrible ones.
Above all, the object of their attack is liberal humanist institutions which after 70s years of collaborating with the consumerist drive for disinhibited libertarian deregulation at both the market, social/civil and existential levels, now represent a decadent and degenerate remnant of what they once were; where rights, which no longer match obligations, have been turned into corrupt indulgences.
The Islamic judgment is a moral one that just won’t go away because fundamentally, they are right; not in the details of culturally specific values, but the overall assessment of how the consumer society is constructing its people and how it is traveling. Anyone looking at at dispassionately can see it is a mess that has weakened us, and therefore strengthened the hand and motivation of our enemies.
Modern societies are in trouble both from within and without. The inevitable denouement is just a matter of time, whether it is that we unravel ourselves, or the job is done for us, or both.
We seculars have no answers to this. We have hardly begun to think about it because most of us blithely think that modern times cannot be undone; that they are destined to be history’s last and only child.
This is complacent rubbish. If we do not have a vision that can construct an alternative post-modern future, others will do it for us.
If there is to be a secular counter-thrust, it certainly isn’t going to be particularly liberal, humanist, tolerant or compassionate. It will re-establish the social commons. It will be more a fighting vehicle than a peacetime one. It will run with the same kind of discipline and dedication as its religious fundamentalist enemies. And it will have to operate effectively in a world that has become a real mess, where anything you can think of is going wrong.
And I say it again, if we do not have a vision that can carry us forward in a such a world, others will do it for us.
Christopher Nagle
March 30, 2015 at 11:24 pm
OK John. sorry I got a bit short. But real fascism was a terrifying phenomena and represented one of the darkest periods of human history since the Mongols and the Huns. To use the term as a catch all for any sort of tough governance trivializes what it means and renders the term next to useless. Cliches are the damaged language of reduced meaning by uncritical over-use.
But much more than that, asking whether or not the Abbott government is fascist is a non question at a completely different level. The leverages for totalitarian governance have moved on and most of them are no longer even overtly ‘political’.
Civil society has been systematically eroded over the last 70 years and social control has moved from the administration of social institutions into marketing ones. The consumer society has replicated itself into the mass consciousness to the point that it has virtually wiped out our social software and replaced it with production drivers and consumer responders.
Inside the Golden Gulag, there are no guards or fences. The prisoners simply cannot bring themselves to leave because they are fixated by visions of paradise, brought to them by the Pied Pipers of Cool and the Proud Sponsors who fund them.
The Golden Gulag doesn’t do messy mass murder because it doesn’t have to. It just destroys everything in its path, turning our little planet into a charnel house, administered and deployed not by uniformed thugs, but people who have been existentially and socially destroyed.
*Post continued next post entry*
John Biggs
March 29, 2015 at 4:09 pm
#116 Me tone down my rhetoric? That’s rich coming from you! I quote again: “Your entire argument is like that; wildly inflated paranoia that bears almost no relation to reality at all. Now if that is purple prose, so be it.”
I think if you read my stuff you will see that I base my case on definition, evidence, argument, not with a string of adjectives and accusations..
Your contribution #112 was more like it: I could agree with most of it. Except the last tinge of absolutism which reduced fascism to brute force and power: that, yes, but there are other characteristics than that. You can be a little bit fascist without being a Hitler or Mussolini. But if that upsets you too much maybe Kim Peart is right: let’s use another word and stop this wheelspinning,
Christopher Nagle
March 29, 2015 at 1:18 pm
John, the Nazis won the 1933 election with just under 30% of the vote, after which they promptly closed and burnt down the parliament, imprisoned all its left wing members and instituted a one party state policed by the much feared Gestapo.
You embark on your argument with wild exaggeration that doesn’t even vaguely come within a moonshot of anything that has ever happened in sunny Australia.
Your entire argument is like that; wildly inflated paranoia that bears almost no relation to reality at all. Now if that is purple prose, so be it.
Abbott is just a pugnacious catholic whose values were shaped in the wake of the ALP split in ’55 and by his formidable mentor, B A Santamaria. Only the most intellectually blunted left ‘intellectual’ could because mistake the anti-communism for ‘fascism’. All catholics, almost to a man and woman, were anti-communist.
One of his other mentors, Maggie Thatcher was a pretty tough neo-con, but she wasn’t a fascist. If she had been a fascist, unions would have been shut down, assets confiscated, their leaderships ‘disappeared’, recalcitrant strikers shot down in the streets with machine guns and meetings would have been broken up by gangs of Blackshirts armed with iron bars wrapped in newspaper.
Pinochet’s Chile did some of that. His regime had some fascist features, but didn’t go in for total mobilization of the state and people for war that characterized the all fascist regimes bar Spain, which was just too poor and smashed up by bitter civil war.
None of this bears any relation to anything that has ever happened in Australia. In a fascist state there is no rule of law, no democratic institutions or civil rights and security police can torture and kill you at will, and send you to concentration camps. And if they ever let you out of there, only the shell of the person who went in came out! Most died.
When a couple of Ethiopian resistance fighters tried to assassinate Italian governor Graziani with grenades at a public meeting in Addis Ababa, the blackshirt guards fired into the crowd killing hundreds of people. Then they rounded up about half the extant population of educated Ethiopians, around 30,000, and summarily shot them all. That mate, is fascism!
So, John, try and tone down your rhetoric. Stop using ideologically inflated cliches and then you might begin to have something pertinent to say about the real world.
Kim Peart
March 29, 2015 at 2:51 am
Re: 113 ~ John Biggs ~
The label used oft matters less than the meaning attached.
Fred Hoyle named the Big Bang theory as a black joke, as he never agreed with it, but that is the label that remains.
A more complex term could be found to describe our current form of authoritarian democratic police state that must manage growing unemployment and poverty in a wealthy nation, now practiced by both sides of the chamber when in power.
If there is a better term, I’d love to consider it.
When I checked the term “polist”, I found there is a Polist River in Russia and a type of paper wasp known as polistes with 300 sub-species in North America.
I find that the term “fascist” or “neo-fascist” doesn’t fit the banner, as fascists worked at offering work to all willing workers accepted as citizens.
The NAZIs won popular support through creating work and making Germany strong again.
This may be the first time in human history that a form of government has emerged that specifically denies work as an economic tool and then proceeds to police the consequences.
At the same time the “polist” form of government lies through gritted teeth about the never-ending reality of created and policed unemployment, while they pretend to create work toward full-employment.
If they can get away with this now, when the situation grows under the robot revolution, we may end up with 30% unemployment and 50% poverty, all well managed, so the well-off can get a larger share of the national pie.
At what moment will the system crack?
At what percentage unemployment and poverty will life become totally intolerable?
We live in a moment in time when, if enough good people hammered a Fair Go stake in the political landscape and fastened a rope of principled conduct to that stake for people to grab hold of, we could halt the current slide into darkness.
We could work our way back to basic principles that offer real work with real pay to all willing workers.
The drivers of a full-employment society would create a truly free Australia.
We can create wealth with automation and robots, but the wealth created must be shared with all through work, or we are allowing a dangerous bubble of magical thinking to control our destiny.
From within that bubble we are now lied to, we are lulled into a false sense of security and we allow theft on a grand scale, as the well-off get a larger share of the national pie at the expense of the under-employed, the unemployed, children hammered into poverty and the homeless.
So what is the description of a form of government that feeds on all that?
If “polist” comes to be the term for that description, so be it.
I simply wonder if our current form of authoritarian government has been labelled yet.
Giving the beast a name will help make it visible.
Kim Peart
Steve
March 28, 2015 at 9:36 pm
It’s a fascinating argument but at the end of the day “fascism” is simply a descriptive word.
The pregnancy comparative is an apt one. Pregnancy is something that that can be defined. It has a cause and a result. Fascism has no scientific definition.
#108 has expressed the situation perfectly. What we have may have some resemblances to fascists past, but the world has moved on. Hitler failed, we need new descriptives for the latest breed.
John Biggs
March 28, 2015 at 6:28 pm
#107 Elections have nothing to do with it: Hitler was elected by a majority vote. Further, the term “extremist†as an essential component of fascism can be misleading: Morrison called critics of his treatment of asylum seekers extremist.
Chris, you seem to see fascism in absolutist either-or terms but fascism isn’t like pregnancy: either you are or you aren’t. This absolutist conception of fascism evidently draws into your delicate and finely nuanced way of arguing. To quote you, in just this passage (there are more empurpled ones of yours): “irrational and obtuse thinking of say climate change denialists or creationists with whom it is impossible to have a rational discussion…. the sort of rubbish that the inquistion or Comintern went in for to determine heresy or political deviationism …. It was garbage then and it is garbage now. Pure delusional gobbledygook… Ideological totalitarians are past masters at this sort of balls aching crap.†Oh dear.
#108 nails it: fascism takes different forms in different times, and can be more or less extreme. In other words, fascism is not absolute but relative. As I said, it is not like pregnancy.
#111 However, given the problems on this site and the baggage surrounding the term “fascist†maybe we do need a new term to describe degrees of the following characteristics (which do appear in much the Abbott Government’s policies): protection of the powerful at the expense of the underprivileged, heightened sense of militarism, a strong law and order agenda, clamps on free speech in the name of national security, … and many more such that have already appeared on this site.
The presence of these characteristics cohere to form a concept, characteristics that commonly co-exist in the same entity, and like any concept we label and use it as a linguistic convenience to avoid repeating ourselves. But this particular label “fascist†seems to attract a torrent of imaginative verbal insults in lieu of argument so we perhaps we should cast around for a new term. However, I’m not sure that “polist†quite captures it Kim, there’s more to it than just policing. Many including myself have seen the above characteristics in neoliberalism (which embraces too if not quite so strongly) , so “neo-somethingâ€. Neo-fascist perhaps? Or have we been there?
Christopher Nagle
March 28, 2015 at 5:23 pm
This thread has been going now since the beginning of June last year. Initially I got very bored with it, but the questions that this subject keeps raising somehow go to the heart of where we are at and where we are going. And certainly the events of the last six months have only added fuel to the firing up concerns.
I think there are two prongs to this.
One is driven by the fear that democratic and liberal institutions are under threat internally as a result the residualization of the state and the shift of power into the hands of a corporatocracy. And it is just beginning to dawn on people how profound that shift is, down to how marketed consciousness is constructed at a mass level, the undermining of civil society and the reduction of our collective social and existential software to junk status..
There is a perception that we are internally at risk from internal threats that have weakened important tranches of our cultural infrastructure, threaten its stability and open it up to pathogens.
The second prong is a sense of external threat that seems to have come out of nowhere from an absurdly unlikely source; religious fundamentalism, which owes absolutely nothing to the modern world and which is threatening this mainly secular firmament with not merely fearless aggression, but deep hatred and contempt. What is more they turn out to be not only militarily extremely formidable, but highly attractive to a constituency that is much larger than we ever imagined it could be.
It is as if the liberal democratic secularism and the industrial system that sponsored it has suddenly lost its prestige and credibility. All that ‘progress’ is set at nought.
In my view, we are looking at the beginning of the end of the modern period and the break up of the empire of capital.
We know it isn’t biologically sustainable and the consumer society that it has rolled out over the last 70 years has succeeded in destroying most of the social commons, disinhibed behavior, eliminated boundaries and disciplines and reduced consciousness to fantasy, all in favor of turning us into one dimensional contractor drones and shop troops who are dedicated to using up the life force until it collapses under us.
What we are leaving to our children is a discreditable pile of dysfunctional cultural and ecological garbage. And while fundamentalist religious thinking isn’t very sophisticated, the above is not lost on them. They have a commons and all the existential software you could possibly need, and then some. They have a lifestyle stripped down to the basics so that we can concentrate on the big issues, like salvation. And their ambition is to come and give it to us, whether we like it or not, even if they die to the last man and woman trying to dish it out.
Worse, they ‘know’ that they are going to win in the end, because time and tide are on their side.
And folks, a little bit of fascism is going to be the least of our problems. And besides, fascism never had much of a philosophy, other than brute force and power. Religious fundamentalism brings much more to the table, as well as that.
Kim Peart
March 28, 2015 at 3:26 pm
Reading at the latest bout of comments, I wonder if a new label is required to describe our current political system in Australia and also other Western nations.
In The Conversation of January 12th, Stambe and Fryer wrote ~ “The Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment is a term used by economists and politicians to refer to the level of unemployment, between 4% and 6%, considered necessary to prevent inflation taking off.”
This simple statement spells out a political reality that requires around 5% unemployment, now above 6%, to keep the wheels of growth turning.
The real percentage is often described as much larger.
The face of the percentage affects the under-employed as well as the unemployed, children forced into poverty and the homeless, too many of whom end up dead on the street.
This percentage is the outcome of automation removing paid work and a reliance on the economy to deliver solutions: but the delivery of economic hope never happens.
Muir, Powell and Butler writing in The Conversation on March 19th describe our stark national reality ~ “This is basic maths: 657,407 young people plus another 1,197,057 underemployed and unemployed adults 24 years and older looking for work minus 149,900 job vacanciesequals not enough jobs. Assuming one job per person, this means 92 in every 100 of these people won’t get a job vacancy. Competition is fierce.”
This situation is about to get a whole lot worse, with the rising robot revolution set to eliminate around half of current paid work in the next couple of decades.
With no plan on the table to offer work to all Australians, we see systems being established to control the unemployed and the poor, such as enforced work-for-the-dole schemes for all unemployed people under 50 years of age from July.
Rather than building a nation with full-employment, we see a police state being created to control, humiliate and discipline people.
How do you describe an authoritarian democratic police state that must manage growing unemployment and poverty in a wealthy nation?
I wonder if that new term could be something like “polist” and “polism” ~ reflecting on the policing role of the state to maintain public and fiscal order.
Sad to say, unless Labor rebels against the new totalitarian way and sets out to create a full-employment society, they will be frog-marching to the same policing drum.
If we do not agree with our nation becoming a police state, then we need revolutionary change that delivers real work with real pay to all able workers: as automation continues and as robots fill the work-place and street.
Defining what our national government is becoming, or has become, may be the first step in fighting back against this drift to an ugly future.
Our failure to act now may see violence later, as too many people become very angry.
In this future, will we see unemployed people sent to concentration camps?
Do we care, or has our will been weakened by this “polist” state?
Kim Peart
Christopher Nagle
March 28, 2015 at 12:58 am
Dear Eric and John. I wrote you a reply which took a lot of effort, but I was bounced with an error notice and then lost the whole thing. I will try again tomorrow. This conversation is revealing a lot to me as I write. Regards
Mike Ballard
March 27, 2015 at 4:08 pm
Fascism isn’t just any sort of authoritarian rule, it’s a specific form of dictatorship which has private capitalists and workers forced by State law to collaborate in what Mussolini called “corporations”, all for the good of the nation. Fascists all think that class struggle is a communist, anarchist, socialist ideological invention used by internationalist revolutionaries to destroy the fabric of a strong nation. Oh fascists know that there are classes; yes indeed they do. But fascists don’t like the marketplace for commodities when it comes to labour power. Fascists think that both the employing class and the working class should do their moral duty to work together in ‘corporations’. Fascists make it illegal to see the social relation between classes and class interests any other way. Fascists don’t like ‘flabby’ liberals who endanger the nation by saying workers should have the right to organise in their own class interests to negotiate the price (aka wages) of their time, skills and working conditions with the employing class. Fascists don’t like class conscious workers who organise to pursue their own material interests.
If this kind of rhetoric has a familiar ring to your ears, perhaps you’ve listened to people who have been influenced by fascist-nationalist thinking and who like the idea of restricting or even eliminating the rights of workers to strike, organise and the right of workers to be in classwide solidarity with their fellow workers in their negotiations with the employing class over wages and conditions. These people will say, “We must put restrictions on workers’ ability to combine as a class or they will become too powerful and upset the national interests. After all, what’s good for employers is good for workers too; they have common interests.” Maybe these people didn’t even know that they have been espousing the fundamental doctrine of the fascist State.
Outside the State there can be neither individuals nor groups (political parties, associations, syndicates, classes). Therefore, Fascism is opposed to Socialism, which confines the movement of history within the class struggle and ignores the unity of classes established in one economic and moral reality in the State: and analogously it is opposed to class syndicalism. (my MB interjection: class syndicalism is like the sort of unionism which the IWW promotes) Fascism recognizes the real exigencies for which the socialist and syndicalist movement arose, but while recognizing them wishes to bring them under the control of the State and give them a purpose within the corporative system of interests reconciled within the unity of the State.
and later in this piece…
…It might be said against this programme that it is a return to the corporations. It doesn’t matter!….I should like, nevertheless, the Assembly to accept the claims of national syndicalism from the point of view of economics…
Is it not surprising that from the first day in the Piazza San Sepolcro there should resound the word ‘Corporation’ which was destined in the creations at the base of the regime?
and later…
But when one says liberalism, one says the individual; when one says Fascism, one says the State. But the Fascist State is unique; it is an original creation. It is not reactionary but revolutionary in that it anticipates the solutions of certain universal problems. These problems are no longer seen in the same light: in the sphere of politics they are removed from party rivalries, from the supreme power of parliament, from the irresponsibility of assemblies; in the sphere of economics they are removed from the sphere of the syndicates’ activities—activities that were ever widening their scope and increasing their power, both on the workers’ side and on the employers’—removed from their struggles and their designs; in the moral sphere they are divorced from ideas of the need for order, discipline and obedience, and lifted into the plane of moral commandments of the fatherland…..
From “The Doctrine of Fascism†written by Benito Mussolini in 1932 in collaboration with Giovanni Gentile.
Eric Fromm on the social psychology of fascism:
The love for the powerful and the hatred for the powerless which is so typical for the sado-masochistic character explains a great deal of Hitler’s and his follower’s political actions. While the Republican government thought they could “appease” the Nazis by treating them leniently, they not only failed to appease them but aroused their hatred by the very lack of power and firmness they showed.
Eric Smith
March 27, 2015 at 3:57 pm
Interesting comments.
Strange that in looking at a modern political equivalent of historical parties that we would use the strict criteria of the party of 100 or more years ago… its rather like comparing the horse and cart to a F1 racing car.
Likewise, in our modern world – particularly Australia, America, et al, Fascism won’t come wearing army greens with salutes and symbols… it will come in Business suits with slogans and agendas.
This is the era of democratic fascism.
Christopher Nagle
March 27, 2015 at 12:32 pm
John, you have not addressed what I said. What I pointed out was the extent of the extremism of the historical phenomenon of fascism. Go back and have a look at what that meant in practice. It isn’t even remotely connected in any way shape or form to any sort of governance within a society that has elections and is subject to the rule of law. And to suggest it does is the sort of irrational and obtuse thinking of say climate change denialists or creationists with whom it is impossible to have a rational discussion.
I couldn’t find the 14 point checklist, but that too is just another labeling exercise which is no different from the sort of rubbish that the inquistion or Comintern went in for to determine heresy or political deviationism. It was garbage then and it is garbage now.
It is really easy to invent lists of characteristics and populate them with inflated language to categorize perceived enemies in the blackest light possible. And anything you don’t approve of can be made to seem ‘just a little bit fascist’, no matter how harmless it really is.
And you can be a little bit fascist if what is being observed could lead to a little bit of fascism. Pure delusional gobbledygook…..
Ideological totalitarians are past masters at this sort of balls aching crap.
John Biggs
March 27, 2015 at 11:44 am
Christopher it’s one thing to stating that a regime is fascist, such as Pinchet’s, The Third Reich, Stalin’s Russia et. listing as proof all those things you mention. Yet another to blandly throw the term around as a term of disapproval. Still yet another to list characteristics that signal fascist tendencies and judge a particular government as exhibiting or not some of those tendencies to a stronger or a weaker extent.
The last is what I was trying to do in this article. I concluded “yes, the Abbott Government at least has strong fascist tendencies. That is what hard line neoliberalism does. It is itself a form of neofascism.” That was 9 June 2014. Since then I would claim that the Abbott Govt has displayed even more such tendencies.
TT had a recent discussion on this over Lawrence Britt’s 14 characteristics of fascism http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/article/an-extraordinary-invasion-of-privacy-of-an-ordinary-private-citizen-/, and it was mooted that to a smaller or lesser extent the Abbott Govt ticked all 14 boxes.
The purpose of all this is not to chuck insulting labels around as might be implied from your contribution Christopher, but to examine some characteristics of fascism and see if any such characteristics are exhibited by our own Government, and to what extent. That gives us due warning of the direction in which we may (or may not) be heading, and what are the specific issues that we need to worry about and hopefully how to deal with them.
Christopher Nagle
March 26, 2015 at 7:27 pm
Garry, it is nice to see someone writing on this subject who has a vague idea of what they are talking about and can put fascism into a meaningful historical and philosophical context.
‘Fascism’ has become an awful cliche/tool-of-disapproval which all too often represents a stock ideological ‘blah’.
I would only add that what made fascism distinct from its fellow totalitarians, was that it militarized and mobilized the state and the whole of society for wars of deliberately and exceptionally brutal aggression, to mass murder, asset strip and enslave surviving ‘race inferior’ neighboring populations (Slavs, Abyssinians and Chinese) to pay for the armaments based economy; a really extremist (and embarrassing) black caricature of traditional European Imperialism.
Fascism had no normal sense of moral precept or legitimacy. Force, no matter how monstrously applied, was its own justification. Force was glorified as an end in itself and could be used by the state and its agents without limit or let. Unqualified extremist violence became its underpinning and defining zeitgeist.
There were some differences within the fascist firmament. Franco was smart enough not to get into the external aggression business, because Spain was just too industrially backward and bitterly divided to involve itself in major wars, but everyone else did.
Mussolini only managed to bring his Phalangist military formations up to the brutal fascist standard of his Japanese and German counterparts. The Italian population lacked enthusiasm.
So when anyone talks about the Abbott government and its corporate sponsors as being ‘fascist’, they are talking fluffed up gobbledygook.
We do live in a privatized and marketing driven form of totalitarianism with democratic features, whose control mechanism are much more effective in manipulating the consciousness of mass populations than any of its totalitarian predecessors. It makes fascism look very clumsy and unsophisticated, but that is another story.
Garry Stannus
March 26, 2015 at 1:13 pm
In the past, there has been similar discussion on TT concerning what fascism is – by common definition. While not rejecting an analysis of fascism via its relationships with corporate entities, I feel that there is more to the question than that. Perhaps fascism was/is a reactionary response to the Marxist nationalisation programme. Right wing in the extreme to the effect that it cannot/could not contemplate abolishing capital, but sought to control and thus use it. It saw the ‘people’ not through the lens of ‘John and Jane Doe’, not through the working-class as the basic constituent, not through collective ownership of the means of production, but through the organism that we call ‘the State’. Jon Stuart Mill’s individual, Karl Marx’s working class and Bakunin’s worker are/were insignificant elements of the ‘Fascist’ state. In a fascist scenario, the whole is not the sum of its constituent parts. It is something more. Or from another direction, an individual’s value is measured in terms of their usefulness to the state.
For me, the essence of fascism is found in that idea of the state. Fascism is the antithesis of liberalism, for which the individual in the society is the guiding light. Socialism, whether anarchist, Fabian or Marxist, is understood in terms of class. I can’t put this together in any way which is to my satisfaction, but I would group Marxist-Leninist socialism as a brother to fascism, while seeing sisterhood in anarchism and liberalism (social democracy?).
Was Stalin a fascist? He liked uniforms and had a hairy moustache. Hitler had that absurd, closely-cropped ‘mo’ while Mussolini had no public hair of any description. Uncle Joe reminds me of both Putin – not for being hirsute – and of Saddam Hussein. Hussein had a crop of hair similar to Stalin’s. He was brave when they hung him. When, with the rope already around his neck, he was hectored by some of the guards, he replied rhetorically, in words to this effect: ‘Is this how (real) men behave?’
In thinking how we might understand the central elements of fascism, we should remember that Stalin and Hitler initiated the invasion and carve-up of Poland. Perhaps it is open to conclude that Stalinist socialists and German Nationalist Socialists (NAZIs) were all fascists. and how should we regard China, whose People’s Liberation Army – as I understand it – has something of a business empire. Korea?
My first-draft shortlist of fascist criteria contains:
-love of uniforms
-disregard for the individual
-militarism
-holds the ‘state’ (be it the Reich, Italia or Nikolic’s Australia) in higher regard than each of its citizens
-practises violence against its own citizens
-tolerance and intimidatory control of successful business enterprises within the state
I’ve left out Spain, and General Franco. This is a tragic story, and I’d ask anyone interested in understanding how these movements (fascism, communism and anarchism) took to the field in Spain, to read first Hemmingway’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ and then Orwell’s masterpiece ‘Homage to Catalonia’.
POSTSCRIPT:
-Maybe we should include in a definition of fascism, that which we excude from the core of the fascist fold.
-On this day when Malcolm Fraser is being remembered, courtesy of a State memorial service (apparently not quite a ‘State Funeral’ occasion), I remark that it is perhaps fitting that we recall his liking for the works of Ayn Rand, (e.g. Atlas Shrugged) whose narrative is redolent of fascist ‘tendencies’: Her brand of ‘Social Darwinism’ … the right of the strong … the successful business leader on whose coat-tails the lumpen-proletariat, the worker and myriad of other hangers-on depend. I have to say that having just completed my (first) reading of Quentin Beresford’s The Rise and Fall of Gunns, I am reminded of a certain individual and more importantly, of the concept of ‘crony capitalism’. This Tasmanian example of the ‘incestuous’ (for wont of a worse word) nature of our local ‘State’ dynamic should be cause for concern. Unless we are fascists or indifferent, we should find ways to resist this abandonment of the gains that came from Socrates, from the Enlightenment, from the shearer’s strike, from Federation, from the ACTU (though that was a disappointing last-minute-stand-in for the OBU) … and even from the Menzies era of public housing, pensions, universities and Colombo Plan. What we have now – both State and Federal – is a pox on all our houses.
Peter Bright
March 25, 2015 at 10:46 pm
Keith, prior to the election the Abbott gang of rampaging political thugs roasted Labor so extremely and so often that its ignorant members eventually convinced themselves that their attack lies were truth.
In office, and recklessly riding their own roller-coaster of fiction and falsities, they applied themselves to deal not with truth as it was, but with those same concocted lies – hence a madman’s budget.
This means, just as you say, that the Abbott gang of increasingly manic desperadoes is inept (too kind, Keith!) with its gross ineptitude still rooted in its continual barrage of vigorously flung lies.
So basically the Abbott mob is now stuck in a gluggy morass.
It set a trap for others but caught itself.
Keith Antonysen
March 25, 2015 at 7:11 pm
Whether the abbott gang is fascist or not, is debatable; however, there is no doubt they are extreme. Not only are they extreme, but also inept. A good illustration being how prior to the election we had a budget emergency; the cruel budget was drafted on this concept. The concept had been pushed till recently, now everything is benign despite a doubled deficit. Just one example of many where the abbott gang has been caught out.
John Biggs
March 25, 2015 at 6:17 pm
#100 Thanks Mike you are quite right: private companies provided the wealth for fascist states. Which makes Australia closer to a fascist state than I had originally said.
As to “The Australian government isn’t fascist or this article would never have been published and we wouldn’t be discussing it in the here and now in a public fashion.” All I would say is — Not yet, but Brandis and co (with Labor support) are shutting down on free speech in the name of national security, much more so now than when I wrote the article.
Mike Ballard
March 25, 2015 at 3:26 pm
The Australian government isn’t fascist or this article would never have been published and we wouldn’t be discussing it in the here and now in a public fashion.
“In fascist countries the state owns industry and the means of production. This is not so in Australia. Here it is rather the other way around: corporate power owns the government. The results for us however are much the same.”
Wrong. I.G Farben, Daimler Benz, Junkers, Bayer, and Messerschmidt were private capitalist corporations operating under German fascism. Italian fascism had capitalist corporations as well. In fact, the MAIN distinguishing feature of fascism is the FORCED co-operation between labour and capital. Let the founder of fascist doctrine speak for himself:
Benito Mussolini wrote:
32: “Fascist corporate economy is the economy of individuals of
associated groups and of the State.”
47-8: “This fond of economy is regulated, strengthened and
harmonized for the sake of collective utility, by the producers
themselves — be they employers, technicians or workers —
by means of the corporations created by the State which,
representing as it does the whole nation.”From: Mussolini, Benito. 1936. The Corporate State (Firenze: Vallecchi)
That said, the author of this article gets a few things right:
“In Australia, company tax rate is 30 percent but few pay that. The average rate is 22 per cent for companies, but Westfield paid 8 per cent last financial year, and through a loophole, Apple and Google pay virtually no tax at all despite enormous profits made in Australia. Labor tried to fix that but when the Abbott government came to power the Labor initiative was dumped. “
Ian
January 29, 2015 at 12:02 pm
Re: 98 ~ Kim Peart ~
I don’t really agree with your philosophy, but wish you luck with it.
Kim Peart
January 29, 2015 at 9:28 am
Re: 97 ~ Ian ~
Democracy lives if one person walks free and does not bend to dictatorship.
Democracy dies when citizens allow freedom to be crushed.
Write to me ~ address in website ~ http://spacepioneers.com.au/index.html ~ if you would like to explore how we might pick up from Eureka and build a future that is free in this Great Southern Land.
Freedom cannot happen if we keep walking around in old circles like so many convicts at Port Arthur.
Freedom happens when we are inspired by something new.
Kim Peart
Ian
January 29, 2015 at 1:27 am
Yes we are definitely heading towards Fascism in Australia. The pilfering of money from family estates, assets and property has already begun through the insidious Aged Care Reforms as well as through the use of low interest loans payable to drought-declared farmers. Using loans to pay for debts is a recipe for disaster (especially for those farmers who take the bait). Perhaps these farms will be sold off to mining companies or foreign interests. We are sure to see similar reforms come into place in future which will further erode our financial and social liberties, and we will see the gap between rich and poor grow ever wider. Democracy is presently dead in Australia.
Christopher Nagle
December 24, 2014 at 1:41 pm
I hit the no more messages icon by mistake
Pete Godfrey
December 24, 2014 at 12:19 pm
#13 John Boy you may need to check your statistics, Mr Rabbitt’s party were voted for by 32% of the Australian public, hardly what I would call a majority of voters voting for Mr Rabbitt.
Wayne
December 23, 2014 at 9:57 pm
there may be a question of whether Tony Abbott is a psychopath but the was no question about whether the man he replaced was a psychopath, you just had to see Rudds YOUTUBE rant and witness his attack on a poor defenceless airline stewardess because she brought him a chicken dinner instead of beef, now Rudd was truely a psychopath. What about Gillard, was she one too, maybe not but she did try to split society and create class and gender decisions, one minute complaining that she was being targeted for her gender then the next minute creating a group of solely women (women for Gillard) to campaign for the female vote. Then again, I think the evidence points to her actually being a psychopath too.
Chrstopher Nagle
December 23, 2014 at 2:14 pm
The state corporatism was just to differentiate fascism from a socialism that was remarkably similar; including its one party state, pervasive security apparatus and partial abandonment of the rule of law.
But there were other aspects of fascism such as its economic modeling, which used armaments build up and colonial expansion as an economic stimulus to rebuild out of the ruins of the first world war and then the depression.
And of course the Germans added race as a defining element of the state and society.
To compare Australian society with fascism is frankly not only absurd, but historically ignorant and ideologically inflationary.
John Biggs
December 23, 2014 at 11:21 am
#90 “the merging of the state and the corporation”
presumably with the state in charge is what Mussolini surely meant. Here, the merging leaves the corporation(s)in charge.
I wrote this article last June, in the aftershock of the Budget. I think almost everything that has happened since has strengthened that case that the Abbott government has fascist tendencies. Back to the subheads with top of the head recent examples:
A culture of lying. This has got more blatant: no cuts to the ABC or SBS being a most glaring example.
Enriching the elites at the expense of the poor. Promises to look after company tax havens now abandoned.
Filters and controls information. The secrecy of anything to do with immigration. I would put collecting metadata in this category.
Controls the media. Interesting one this, as now News Ltd and the shock jocks are turning on Abbott personally, not because ofhis policies but because he is showing signs of weak leadership. That will never do in a fascist regime.
Nationalistic and militaristic. Not half. The Team Australia call would be sinister if it wasn’t so ridiculous. What it says is that you are batting for Team Australia if you side with Liberal policies; not to do so is being unpatriotic. That is the message and it is straight from Maoist China. Sharply increased defence spending , planes and submarines we don’t need but not to be built in Australia. His tough talk to Putin may be posturing but
it was needlessly aggressive.
A poor world neighbour. Very bloody poor. Refusing to join the rest of the western world on climate change measures, sending boats back to Indonesian and Sri Lanka, the meanest immigration policies in the western world,ignoring UN and UNHCR criticisms of detention policies and conditions.
On the other hand, fascist leaders strengthen their positions. Abbott is trying to do this in the recent cabinet reshuffle, putting his supporters no matter how ineffectual they have been, like Dutton for Immigration, Andrews for defence, to keep the Bishop supporters at bay. However his recent performances have shown how weak he is compared to international leaders. I think the key to Abbott is not so much the fascist he would like to be, but is a poor thinker: he just doesn’t get it. His recent comment that women should be grateful for the carbon tax because it means more in the household purse, while adding one more women to the front bench, is not only tokenism, but he really does believe that little wifey should be at home doing the ironing.
Conclusion: so since last June is the Abbott govt heading further towards fascism? It would like to but thank God Abbott is making a mess of it himself, as are his sidekicks Hockey, Dutton, Andrews, Abetz and Pyne. Bishop is not, she is to be feared; Morrison also, greatly to be feared, but my guess is that he will so delight in putting the boot into the underprivileged he will earn the contempt of all decent Australians and out he will go.
ted markstein
December 23, 2014 at 9:33 am
In these
The times of uncertainty
Pushed hither and thither
By the prevailing wailing
Of the pundits and the pedants
We are prey
We are fodder
Our energies and enthusiasms
Harvested by vultures
For their own end
In these
The times of uncertainty
Milling about anxious and erratic
Looking for direction
Yearning after surety
Comes a contender
Loud of mouth
Demanding our trust
With shouted slogans
Of simplistic brutality
In these
The times of uncertainty
Calloused by the clarion call
Of the hucksters
Our jaded gaze
Lights on our leader
Exuding self promotion
Lacking all substance
Pumped full
Of self regard.
In these
The times of uncertainty
Our sly jackanapes
Stern in demeanor
Dripping fake concern
Spies on us
For our security
Chains us up
For our freedom
Crying terror.
Vivian
December 23, 2014 at 1:21 am
Benito Mussolini created the word ‘fascism.’ He defined it as ‘the merging of the state and the corporation.’ He also said a more accurate word would be ‘corporatism.’ This was the definition in Webster’s up until 1987 when a corporation bought Webster’s and changed it to exclude any mention of corporations.
ABBOTT’S FASCIST CORPORATISM
Shah Photoart (Joe Shah)
December 22, 2014 at 3:36 pm
If you’re serious about this business, it’s time to stop discussion and join Heather Mildred
on Facebook to petition Sir Peter Cosgrove our
Governor General for a Double Dissolution of parliament
Let’s stop fooling and get serious. Who wants another two years of this “government”?
The Italians did what they did because they didn’t want that war, they have had their own share of war heroes in other times more recent than Roman, Garibaldi comes to mind, they can be a very tough people when required.
Eric Smith
December 21, 2014 at 11:52 pm
Absolutely!
Thank you John, a well written article based on fact.
Leonard Colquhoun
October 15, 2014 at 10:14 am
Comment 86’s opener, “The Italian model of Fascism (in broad terms), was significantly different to the German model, and Fascism is often confused with being a Nazi – these two dogmas have completely different meanings”, makes a very valid point, but is let down by its third last word.
As is its later “That is exactly where we are at in Australia” by its third word.
We often joke about the WWII performance of the Italian armed forces, but here are two points to put that in context:
~ there were almost no Roman-style centurions – the officers were generally 90% useless, plus despite having some very up-to-date & very good materiel, the basic day-to-day equipment & supplies were shoddy & chaotic;
~ perhaps far fewer Italians were dumb enough to be sucked in by the Fascist ‘vision’ of a Neo-Roman Empire than were the more gullible Germans by the ‘1000 Year Reich’?
Another important difference: Mussolini never had absolute authority in his fascist state, because he & his movement were never game to depose the King, nor to remove the Pope.
Paul
October 14, 2014 at 5:46 pm
The Italian model of Fascism (in broad terms), was significantly different to the German model, and Fascism is often confused with being a Nazi – these two dogmas have completely different meanings.
Fascism (the WW2 Italian way), involved the minimisation of government services, and all power and control handed to the Corporations – The Government were to basicly act as a millitary wing for the corporations….
That is exactly where we are at in Australia… Today, the libs have announced that they are allowing the Multi Nationals to enter our classrooms to prepare our children for “work”… for now it is restricted to Geelong…. this is a frightening development… but there are frightening developments everyday under this government…. and I am so no afraid of terrorism or the ridiculous distraction of ISIS… i AM MORE AFRAID OF MY OWN GOVERNMENT.
John Wade
June 16, 2014 at 11:59 am
As language appears to be evolving and continually parsed for translation and meaning I proffer the extenuation of the word ‘fascist’ to now include the behavior, law-making and philosophy of the federal Coalition government.
The precedent stands in the example of one John Howard (“Take a very committed funeral home director. Then halve his personality, and halve it again, and you have pretty well got John Howard” – Writer Bill Bryson) for the word “never”, as in “No, there’s no way that a GST will ever be part of our policy. Never ever. It’s dead. It was killed by the voters in the last election” – May 2 1995.
Kim Peart
June 15, 2014 at 11:43 pm
Re: 82 ~ Leonard Colquhoun
I assert the “we” of it with a vengeance.
In comment ~ 35 ~ I explore why.
In comment ~ 4 ~ I explore how.
And in comment ~ 22 ~ I explore where to.
We can cross swords and miss each others points as the blades whizz by the ear ~ but I ever seek to see our way to a better future for Australia and the Earth, that assures or survival and the preservation of life.
Kim Peart
John Biggs
June 15, 2014 at 9:41 pm
#81. This is the thing, Mr Colquhoun, I would answer those questions differently from you, and as in my article I wouldn’t use a binary yes /no to answer them. I talked about trends. Now if you work on a sliding scale from 1 to 10 I would see there is some evidence on all these, more on some less on others, but the trend is there. And all neoliberal govts score something on these. “Terror” is in full blown fascist countries that dreaded knock on the door in the dead of night. But fear can be inspired in other ways: like suing those who criticise as Hockey is now doing, or threatening one’s means of support by keeping the vulnerable off Newstart. And don’t you think that asylum seekers whose presence is legal are absolutely terrified by being separated from the children, being locked up and assaulted sexually and otherwise by their guards?
The evidence is there but perception of that evidence and its saliency is selective, depending on one’s filters — and we all have them.
Leonard Colquhoun
June 15, 2014 at 9:36 pm
Meanwhile, back to Comment 1’s opening sentence, “Australia is at risk, because we have not defined who we are or what we really stand for” – waddaya mean ‘we’, [paleface]?
As for “true independence” – which is?
And our “only crack at a revolution” was more of protest rebellion by small business entrepreneurs against government regulatory interference.
Which leads to: most of the opining about the post January 2011 Arab ‘revolutions’ fails to distinguish ‘rebellions’ from ‘revolutions’. (A case could even be made out that the American Revolution was not one in our current understanding of revolutions, which sees them as being more radical, starting with the French Revolution. Which, for Americans then & now, is just as well, because radical full-blown revolutions rarely turn out well.)
Leonard Colquhoun
June 15, 2014 at 4:31 pm
Re being called out by Mr Biggs in his Comment 79: looks to me that Comments 36 & 37 have done a good job, with nary a skerrick of “patronising high-handedness”.
The Australian Independent Media Network offers this opinion:
“Is fascism creeping into Australia?
“There are clearly no Fascist regimes in Australia, or any regime with even the slightest of Fascist agendas. We’re a luckier country than that.
“Broadly speaking, Fascism is:
“A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.”
So, some box-ticking, where (to be 100% clear) [Y] = Yes, and [N] = No:
~ “centralization of authority” [N] – ALP federal governments are far more likely to aim for this; Coalition policy stresses States’ rights (& responsibilities), though they do not always follow through;
~ “under a dictator” [N];
~ “stringent socioeconomic controls” [N] – again more often an ALP modus administrandi;
~ “suppression of the opposition through terror” [N] and
~ “censorship” [N] – compared with the recent Roxon / Conroy efforts; and
~ “belligerent nationalism and racism” [N].
TGC
June 15, 2014 at 2:10 am
I am constantly ‘on watch’ (eternally vigilant) #79 for any signs that some TTers may object to my not joining their ‘club’
John Biggs
June 14, 2014 at 9:27 pm
#77. Only a couple TGC, but many more including myself thought the Gvt was heading in that direction. Different. It’s even a greater cause for concern that many people don’t think the Govt is heading that way. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Enough of the patronising high-handedness Leonard, mount your case.
Leonard Colquhoun
June 14, 2014 at 3:00 pm
Or, TGC (Comment 77), an occasion for much sceptical^ amusement, or sad astonishment at such naivety & nescience*, and at such shallowness of understanding & lack of appreciation of the essence of fascism.
It is on a par with claims that the ALP is ‘communist’.
^ and avoiding any soul-destroying slide into cynicism.
* ‘nescience’: that’s me trying to keep myself nice.
TGC
June 14, 2014 at 2:19 am
That a couple of TT’ers firmly believe the Abbott Government is ‘fascist’ should be a cause of great national concern.
Garry Stannus
June 12, 2014 at 5:36 pm
I’ve always thought of fascism in the sense that the individual must serve the needs of the state, as opposed to our ‘liberal democracies’ paying lip-service to the state providing for the needs of the individual.
Keith Antonysen
June 12, 2014 at 4:19 pm
No 74, John, I agree fully. No matter how they try and sell the budget, it stands out as being social engineering. Those who cannot defend themselves are hit hard. Yesterday in the Guardian was an article about how unemployed pregnant women will be treated the same as under 30 year olds.
Here the recklessness and stupidity of the Abbott gang knows no bounds. Stress and poor nourishment have impacts on babies development; a well known fact amongst health workers. If mothers are not supported financially how do they look after themselves and their babies?
How are they able to visit Gynecologists and later Paediatricians should the need arise. Babies often do need a lot of medical attention.
A number of the Abbott gang say they are against abortion, and then place mother and child in a worse than subsistence environment. Newstart doesn’t offer much more than living at a subsistence level.
The Abbott gang wish to begin the dumbing down process from babyhood. How do babies develop in a situation where stimulation is not available due to poverty.
The number of new mothers suffering from post natal depression is highly likely to increase through extra stresses imposed.
The decision should not be a surprise though, the dollar is more important to the Abbott gang than individuals or the social fabric of Australia.
We had the view of a “budget emergency” pushed hard. Yet, Hockey is said to have increased debt by 25%. Professor Garnaut has stated that the budget is unfair and hardly touches the debt. Professor Hewson has indicated also that the budget is unfair and other mechanisms should have been used to gain revenue.
With Abbott suggesting that he is concerned about climate change; and then, trying to organise opposition to President Obama’s push, Abbott is showing he cannot be trusted.
John Biggs
June 12, 2014 at 2:00 pm
#69. I didn’t put my neutralising comment well. I chose the budget comment of yours because despite what you later say, I still regard tghe budget as inhumane. Thus if your interpretation of that could be so different from that of mine, not to mention that of the 12,000 others who marched the streets of Melbourne and Sydney in anger yesterday, then there would be little point in arguing the toss over the 19 other different interpretations you made that differ from mine. Like Hockey yesterday shouting how fair the budget was; or Abbott saying with a straight face that Australia was doing all it could for climate change (when dismantling all the positive structures set up for combatting climate change); or Abbott saying that Obama has based his climate change strategy on Abbott’s. This is simply a bizarre use of language where black is white and no means yes.The Chinese have a saying that addresses this problem: “A chicken talking to a duck.” It just doesn’t work.
Mick Kenny
June 12, 2014 at 2:24 am
When the economy, that thing, global in proportion, causes financial stress in middle-Australia or America or France or Germany, you name it, nationalistic sentiments get stirred, far-right, far-left, whatever flavour you like, such that a search for culprits typically ensues. Foreigners, unemployed, elderly, Jews one time…yeah, The Big Budgie has found his target for all that pent up frustration, adopting a tried and true strategy that has the audience quibbling over meaningless distinctions and missing the core issue and causes of their perceived pain.
O'brien
June 12, 2014 at 1:10 am
“An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods.”
— Ambrose Bierce
(1842-1914) Humorist
He may be an inveterate liar, but he is our inveterate liar. He may be a second rate pugilist with tendency for removing his shirt in public or publicly prancing a pair of speedos. Whatever bizarre behavior goofy Prime Minister abbott exhibits is irrelevant. What matters is policy, particularly undocumented, unspoken policy. It is incumbent upon all Australians to stand their ground in the face of oppression, intimidation and threats by those whose interests have little to do with National harmony, peace or well-being. Australia & Australians are being led down paths both foreign & fraught with peril. Tories have only one policy, stealing our money & giving it to their chums, and we my dear friends are not counted among those.
(ref: http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Ambrose.Bierce.Quote.72E6)
Steve
June 11, 2014 at 10:05 pm
#63; Jenny, the definition I googled for you was a dictionary definition of racism. Oxford dictionary, if I remember correctly. Despite what you appear to believe, I am neither defending or condemning Karl. My issue is with the inappropriate use of language and as such I turn to dictionary definitions.
In answer to your question, yes, I do think the NSW publication got it wrong. Xenophobia isn’t a prejudice, it’s a phobia. It also relates to foreigners, who could be of exactly the same race as the sufferer but simply from another country.
Obviously, xenophobia and racism are by no means mutually exclusive but they are still different things.
Just to assist you;
I don’t like Asians = prejudice.
Asians make me feel uncomfortable = xenophobia.
Asians have superior intelligence = racism.
You could also add;
I don’t think Asians should be politicians in Australia = discrimination.
I don’t think we should have foreign born politicians = opinion.
As someone has commented above, we really are dragging this thread off topic so I’m going to leave it there. You are fully entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine so, as I’ve said previously, let’s agree to disagree.
Keith Antonysen
June 11, 2014 at 9:47 pm
No 66, John, the US has been really hard hit by the crazy weather patterns they have experienced lately. This has been drought, extreme snow falls in areas snow is not experienced, wildfires, tornadoes; so, President Obama will be seeking to have climate change on the Agenda. Brazil has been experiencing a severe drought. Anomalous weather conditions have also been experienced in Europe. There had been wildfires in Norway in January 2014 and wildfires in Siberia in April 2014. So, other countries are also quite sensitised towards anomalous weather patterns.
It will be quite surprising if climate change is not featured prominently during the G20 meeting.
davies
June 11, 2014 at 7:56 pm
“#36. When you say the Budget was “hardly tough†you have neutralised all your other points. Tell that to the poor, the underprivileged, single parents, the disabled, low SES students. And I do not “hate†Abbott. Hate is a term used between persons and I’ve never met the man. I do however think his policies are badly damaging the social fabric of Australia, our environment and our international reputation. I’m reminded of those on the Right who described everyone who criticised Howard’s policies as “Howard haters†in the belief that such a label thoroughly discredited what the critics were saying. That’s the old trick of personalising again: slap a label on someone then you can ignore what they are saying. We see lots of label slapping on this thread.â€
I see. So you think one of points is wrong so it neutralises all my comments! So I guess that means all my other comments had me in the positive but this one comment on the budget dragged it all the way back to 0. Well considering I made probably 20 remarks I probably should rest on my laurels with a score of 19 out of 20. But I am willing to also get this last one over the line.
The budget was not tough. For example people are sooking about the cut to the ABC. Turns out it equates to a cut of less than 1%. For an organisation that did very very well under Labor, which has 4660 employees at an average cost of $102,000 per person. Cut 87 employees from that bloated list and the ABC has met their target. Tough? Yeah as tough as a marshmallow.
The cut to Family Tax Benefit B. The cut off is now less than $100,000 per annum and you still get the benefit! Welfare should be for those in genuine need. Earnings over $100k pa, though I do have sympathy for the position that Australia is a very expensive place to live, are not people in genuine need of welfare.
The reintroduction of the indexation of the fuel excise, something many socialists have been advocating for years, will add about 1c a litre to the price of fuel each year. Let’s see 60 litres a week in fuel = $0.60c!!! Oh the humanity. Can this budget get any tougher?
Changes to the old age pension are mostly down the track and merely slow the increase in the pension. It does not cut the pension. Sure there is an argument to say these people have paid their dues so they have earnt the pension, but ABS stats show the average pensioner has paid $300,000 in taxes but will receive $400,000 in payments. Simply this is not sustainable.
Medicare co-payments. This measure was recognised as essential to maintain a sustainable health care system all the way back in 1991. By guess who? Bob Hawke and guess which opposition leader agreed with his assessment? John Howard. The proposal was for a $3.50 co-payment. There will be a number of protections for lower incomes and for children and it is very interesting to see just the thought of a $7 co-payment had some practices getting 40% less people turning up. There needs to be a small cost for going to the doctor to constrain the increasing cost of the Medicare Benefit Schedule. And a great example for what this payment may mean…remember the dire consequences predicted that large swaths of the population would not be able to afford to have their prescription filled when co-payments were introduced for the Pharmeceutical Benefit Scheme? Didn’t happen did it.
The Newstart allowance being denied for six months to those under 30 has a number of protections around it. If you study then your not affected. If you have been working for a couple of years and then lose your job the six months wait is reduced. Those with ‘other’ issues that make it harder to get a job are protected. But when you look at this issue calmly. Do you want the work-fit under 30s in a job or training for a job or would you prefer them remaining passively on the dole?
So in conclusion, the budget was not tough.
Leonard Colquhoun
June 11, 2014 at 6:17 pm
About this allusion in Comment 64, “When the airlines have their flights running on time . . “, the Sawdust Caesar did not achieve this, excepting for one example (so he could go by train during the Fascist March on Rome – typically, he sat in comfort while his followers walked). Plenty of google links.
An ‘urban’-style myth derived mainly from uncritical acceptance of fascist Italy’s propaganda by snobbish people (largely upper-middle & upper class) going on 1930s Tours-for-the-Gullible, the same sorts of tours with the same sorts of gullible ‘useful idiots’ (but from the other end of the Left >-< Right spectrum, and, sadly, more likely to have academic credentials) who flocked to Maoist China (and like places) in the 1970s. Yet another such 'urban'-style myth in the same vein is the one about Hitler being a teetotalling vegetarian, often used ad hominem against The Greens.
peter mackenzie
June 11, 2014 at 5:27 pm
Jenny at #63
I wrote a lengthy comment on the issue last night- put a lot of thought into it, only to see it wiped by my computer before it trasmitted. (probably pushed the wrong key, so my fault).
The nub of it was I don’t support racism, xenophobia, bigotry, jingoism and probably a few other isms.
Karl’s prejudice seems to be more about not wanting people who are not Australian -born becoming Prime Minister, or any Minister of Govt really. (though it could extend well beyond that, but he doesn’t indicate that).
But he doesn’t seem to be talking about racism in the sense of against different races, ‘cos Messrs Nikolic and Abetz aren’t of a different race and Mr Abbott was born to an Australian mother in the UK.
It seems to be more of a scattergun prejudice against other ethnic backgrounds becoming politicians in Australia.
If I am correct, a person born outside the USA can’t ever become President (not sure about lesser positions), but I have no idea about how it works in Serbia, Germany or UK), but at least in regard to USA, Karl may not be alone in those thoughts.
Karl seems to be asserting that foreign born politicians, from very different countries, have combined in working together against the interests of Australia, for the good of which of those countries?
If Karl’s efforts don’t extend beyond a spray on TT against non-Australian born politicians, I’d put that in low-category efforts of prejudice, but I accept that your words indicate you are very passionately objecting to what Karl has written.
John Biggs
June 11, 2014 at 5:23 pm
Quite a few comments agree with the general thrust of what I’m saying but baulk at the word “fascistâ€. My conclusion was not that the Abbott Government was fascist, but that as an extreme neoliberal government (certainly not “centre-right†as Abbott described himself and his Canadian soul mate Stephen Harper) it has many of the characteristics of fascism. Certainly you can find many other governments with this or that characteristic, but what we see in neoliberalism is the general pattern: authoritarianism, a pattern of lying and not just the odd porky, lack of empathy which in the case of asylum seekers borders on the sadistic, legislating for the rich and powerful but against the interests of the poor and underprivileged. One area where neoliberalism differs markedly from fascism is the control of industry and production; rather, national and even global corporations, whose assets exceed those of many countries, control government. This is particularly true of mining and fossil fuel industries, but also gambling and media industries which are often interconnected. I agree with #33: these are the real fascists who run the country through compliant governments.
#34. I don’t see myself as crying wolf (I like wolves) but there certainly is a danger of an extreme right wing take over that bears many of the characteristics of fascism. Bob Kendra at #62 has summed it up beautifully: “A march towards fascist ideals is no less frightening if the line cannot yet be drawn and seen to be crossed.â€
#36. When you say the Budget was “hardly tough†you have neutralised all your other points. Tell that to the poor, the underprivileged, single parents, the disabled, low SES students. And I do not “hate†Abbott. Hate is a term used between persons and I’ve never met the man. I do however think his policies are badly damaging the social fabric of Australia, our environment and our international reputation. I’m reminded of those on the Right who described everyone who criticised Howard’s policies as “Howard haters†in the belief that such a label thoroughly discredited what the critics were saying. That’s the old trick of personalising again: slap a label on someone then you can ignore what they are saying. We see lots of label slapping on this thread.
#46. Thanks very much for that URL about what Harper is doing to Canada. I lived in Canada for years and was mightily impressed with public services like post, transport, health (superb and in Alberta free), social welfare, even care for the environment and public attitudes in general. Harper has destroyed all that in a few years, in a manner very similar to Abbott: starve public services until they no longer work properly then in the interests of “efficiency†sell them for a song to the private sector. What shale oil is doing to the Arctic is criminal, but Harper encourages that because he and the oil companies want it. He and Abbott are a dangerous team: both see effective action on climate change as “clobbering the economy†as if that is all a government needs to worry about. They’ll try and control G20 by making the agenda all about the economy and not climate change but hopefully Obama will stymie them.
Jenny
June 11, 2014 at 4:09 pm
#62 I share many of the concerns expressed here about LNP policy. However. You do not combat hateful governments with hate nor racist governments with racism. A Liberal politicians country of origin should not be used against them in the way one or two have used it here. Most of us probably have migrant parents or grandparent. We may be migrants ourselves.
Mike Adams
June 11, 2014 at 12:14 pm
When the airlines have their flights running on time then I’ll believe the connection between Abbott and Mussolini.
Jenny
June 11, 2014 at 2:35 am
#60 You googled a definition of racism.
Ive supported all my comments with references from the Australian govt bodies which administer the legislation on racial discrimination & applied their criteria to the offending comments from karl. You have ignored this at every turn, not once attempted to deconstruct the comments in question or refute my references.
In my experience people who defend racism do so because they know the accused & believe them not to be a racist person. I don’t know Karl. He may be a lovely person. I can only respond to what he has written here.
Steve I provided you with a quote about xenophobia from the NSW govts Racism No Way website. You reply by saying Xenophobia is an irrational fear of foreigners which has nothing to with racism.
Really? They got it wrong did they Steve?
What expertise & experience do you have in the field? Why don’t you address the quote i gave you in #58 & pull it apart? What did they get wrong that you know better?
Steve have another read of the website & consider the expertise & experience in the education systems who informed the content of RacismNoWay. Then go back & read what the Human Rights Commission says about racism.
For arguments sake lets accept your “google” definition.
“The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races:â€
Tell me now then Steve if it isn’t their “characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to their race” what specifically do you think it is about Nikolic, Abbott, Abetz foreign born-ness that offends Karl so much that he believes should preclude them from holding down the office & authority they have in Australia?
Why does he say they are not even Australians?
Now how about you actually answer my question this time.
Bob Kendra
June 11, 2014 at 2:32 am
Could we please get back to the thread? It’s been hijacked. Doesn’t the Australian Government’s approach to people from offshore and to minorities here rate as disturbing? Why should one contributor’s concern about another’s distract from the deplorable government policies now hurting Australians, people in our care and our reputation overseas? This is about inhumanity, unless you overlook a lot of hardship from a political stance. A march towards fascist ideals is no less frightening if the line cannot yet be drawn and seen to be crossed.
max atkinson
June 11, 2014 at 2:00 am
Great article and references.
Thanks for putting together such a detailed and comprehensive summary of recent Liberal policies; it’s the kind of scholarship one looks for but is hard to find in a fast-paced media cycle – a pre-requisite to clarify the ideas and values which help explain this government, assuming there is coherence and it’s not all opportunistic.
Richard Cooke’s article in The Monthly is interesting but puzzling. His view that politicians of the major parties have become an elite who don’t care about public opinion is persuasive, but only in the sense they don’t see it as a guide to policy; but they certainly care about electoral polls – how else to explain so many dodgy promises and recantations.
Cooke wants to criticise this elite for not respecting public opinion; but he also cites Edmund Burke with seeming approval, even citing his famous Bristol speech. I wonder if other readers find this problematical.
Steve
June 11, 2014 at 12:18 am
#58; Jenny, I’ve no wish to argue over semantics when what you really need is a dictionary. I saved you the trouble by googling a quick definition of racism.
“The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races:”
Xenophobia is an irrational fear of foreigners.If you reckon that’s the same as racism, you’re entitled to your opinion but I struggle to see the logic.
Ditto, your attack on my comment; “Do you consider that Karl and others are displaying irrational fear of foreigners? If you do, your description is probably apt.” Did you fail to notice the conditional elements? “Do you..”, “If you do..”.
Sorry Jenny, as I said on the previous thread, it’s not racism, there’s no suggestion that one race is superior to another. Objecting to foreigners occupying positions of power is not the same as saying they are biologically incapable of occupying positions of power.
Karl Stevens
June 10, 2014 at 11:24 pm
I’m satisified with the point I’m making. No Australian would treat their fellow Australians the way the Liberal Party are treating Australians in 2014.
Why isn’t ‘jenny’ standing-up for the ‘human rights’ of thousands of dead Iraqis, killed in a botched invasion by the Australian Liberal Party?
Jenny
June 10, 2014 at 11:14 pm
#57 No Steve. Racism & xenophobia are not entirely different things. You could not be more wrong. What do you base your claim on Steve? Reference from an expert in the field? Link?
You’ve also contradicted yourself.
In #40 you stated that labelling mr stevens comments as xenophobia was apt.
You said…”Good to see you’ve dropped the racist taunt in favour of xenophobia. Xenophobia is more relevant as the application is subjective. Do you consider that Karl and others are displaying irrational fear of foreigners? If you do, your description is probably apt.
Now you’ve changed your mind.
Once again steve I’m astonished at your determination to downplay the virulence of mr stevens comments.
From NSW government’s “Racism No Way” education tool for schools……
“Racist attitudes may be manifested in a number of ways including common expressions of racial prejudice towards and stereotyped assumptions about other cultures as well as more extreme forms of prejudice such as xenophobia.
http://www.racismnoway.com.au/about-racism/understanding/
Xenophobia is an expression of a racist attitude.
I reissue my challenge to you.
Go to your workplace, school or sporting club & suggest to “foreign born” people or those with non anglophile names & backgrounds that they are not Australians, as Karl has stated about certain Liberal politicians.
Try having Karl’s comments published in any reputable newspaper.
Phone your local radio & say what Karl said.
See how you go.
Even better Steve, contact the Australian human rights commission & put Karls comments to them. Let us know what they say.
Steve
June 10, 2014 at 10:46 pm
#49; Racism and xenophobia are entirely different things and I don’t thing either really apply. You create the racist interpretation by what you read into Karl’s comments. I see no implication that one race is superior to another.
Personally, I would prefer the simple description of “silly” when it comes to Karl’s more extreme rants.
Jenny
June 10, 2014 at 10:26 pm
Comment #55 in this line…..”Now read Mr Stevens #44 where he states in black & white that we should have a Prime Minister or member for Bass (despite being an Australian citizen) who is “foreign bornâ€
Apologies to readers. I meant to write ‘we should not’ rather than ‘we should’
Jenny
June 10, 2014 at 8:54 pm
#54 Ah my friend.
Guts?
I am the only person here is prepared to call your coments for what they are. It takes guts to stand out from the tribe & it appears i’m the only person prepared to do that here.
How the hell would you know what my name is or isn’t?
How do I know what your real name is?
Its irrelevant.
You are the one making racist attacks on others not me. That has nothing to do with courage my friend.
Jenny is my real name.
However. I will never post my full name in a debate with people who express views like yourself.
My parents are European born. Having read your commentary why would I potentially subject myself & my family to your discriminatory ranting?
Why would anyone? Why should anyone?
Elements of your commentary are disgraceful. The rest is just bizzare.
Make no mistake some of your comments are racist & could get you in a lot of hot water if an Andrew Nikolic, Eric Abetz or other persons you have attacked based on their ethnicity wanted to take you to task. So you would do well my friend to pull your head in instead of taking to me.
Read the Human rights commission link below.
Your comments may be bought to the attention of the politicians you have attacked based on their country of origin. Its probably the only way you will learn.
For anyone is any doubt how the law regards Mr Stevens comments read about your right Australia’s human rights commission webpage. https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/know-your-rights-racial-discrimination-and-vilification.
“Racial discrimination is when a person is treated less favourably than another person in a similar situation because of their race, colour, descent, national or ethnic origin or immigrant status.
Now read Mr Stevens #44 where he states in black & white that we should have a Prime Minister or member for Bass (despite being an Australian citizen) who is “foreign born”
….”Call it xenophobia if you like but why is Bass in Tasmania represented by what I term a ‘Serbian Warlord’?
Why can’t Australia have an Australian-born prime minister anymore?
Why have our ‘foreign born’ prime ministers shut down our entire manufacturing sector? (Karl Stevens)
In other words Abbott, Nikolic & the other people Mr Stevens have named should be treated less favourably because of their ethnicity.
That’s racial discrimination right there folks!
Wake up to yourself mate & wake up the people on this blog who sit by and say nothing.
I cant stand the Liberals but you don’t fight bigots with more bigotry. You don’t fight racist with racism. Its not the answer.
Karl Stevens
June 10, 2014 at 5:42 pm
jenny 49. Hilarious. We find you hiding behind an anon yet calling for ‘correspondents with an ounce of guts’?
No wonder people are labelling the Liberals as ‘psychopaths’.
Thats what Professor Biggs article should have been titled ‘Is the Abbott Government psychopathic?’
Why don’t you post under your real name rather than cowering behind anonymity? In my view you don’t even have a gram of ‘guts’.
Leonard Colquhoun
June 10, 2014 at 4:58 pm
Sorry all: my Comment 50 should have started with “This thread needed Comment 42 . . “.
(Probably from upscrolling from the Comments box.)
C
June 10, 2014 at 4:56 pm
Piffle is in the eye of the beholder, TGC. Gosh knows you’ve written plenty in your time.
TGC
June 10, 2014 at 3:46 pm
Oh, come on #45- that’s just absolute piffle.
Cut it out!
Leonard Colquhoun
June 10, 2014 at 3:21 pm
This thread needed Comment 43, otherwise it would have been at serious risk of becoming a collection of childishly absurdist rants which even many of today’s under-prepared undergrads would have been deeply ashamed of.
Particularly timely is its warning that “Fascism is far too serious to be used as a political label of convenience to be attached easily and thoughtlessly to one’s political foes just because they march to a different drumbeat”; the same could apply to that other pejorative of the malignant Left, ‘Racist!!!’
An indiscriminate, brainless and infantile use of these two terms as the argumentative equivalent of the head-butt is offensively demeaning to actual victims of real fascism & racism.
Besides, if a TT thread has other purposes than just venting brainless slogans, this sort of rubbish preaches only to those of like mentality – it can never be persuasive to thoughtfully mature people with minds open to, and with hearts welcoming of, other rational viewpoints.
Jenny
June 10, 2014 at 3:09 pm
#44 Seeing a pattern now Steve?
Search back through TT archives.
We can quibble all day about whether stevens is a racist or xenophobe. Either way his extreme views on so called foreign born Australians are IMO more extreme & bizarre than any of the Liberals xenophobic policies.
I dont want views like stevens censored. Publish them. Give them enough rope & let TT correspondents with an ounce of guts call him out.
Joan Emberg
June 10, 2014 at 3:03 pm
‘Is the Abbott government fascist?’…YES
bazzabee
June 10, 2014 at 2:55 pm
42/44 There was one historic characteristic that I failed to address at #42. It was a characteristic particularly prevalent in National Socialism and that was extreme nationalism.
It could be argued that it was Germanic nationalism that was the clearest difference between National Socialism and corporate and militaristic Fascism. In Germany nationalism had had a long and deadly tradition which when mixed with overt Prussian militarism saw German expansionism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nationalism appeals to a false highly structured often hierarchical but mostly imaginary interpretation of a peoples, not a country’s, shared history. Hitler argued for the and finally achieved if only for a few years Germanic unity when he invaded Austria, annexed the Sudetenland and conquered Poland thus taking back what had been vast amounts of land in the east land that had been for centuries part of Prussia.
Nationalism is like Fascism once again a growing force in Europe. In Eastern Europe extremist Nationalist groups are well organized in Ukraine they are also well armed and only too willing to kill.
A dangerously militaristic Nationalism is on the rise in Russia where President Putin has not been averse to mix and manipulate religion and nationalism, a highly volatile combination, in order to combat democratic opposition forces in that vast country. It would also seem that nationalism has to lesser extent gained a foothold in the UK with the rise of the somewhat dubious right wing breakaway Tory group UKIP.
Closer to home I suspect from the almost incoherent ramblings of Clive Palmer and some of PUP’s Senators elect that nationalism is the base of their political beliefs. Added to which in Clive Palmer’s case gross self-interest may play more than a small part as he clearly feels cheated that his years and years of support for the Queensland coalition failed to pay the financial dividends he feels were his due return.
Firstly, in Queensland and then nationally Nationalism and xenophobia formed the base of Pauline Hanson’s beliefs and that of many in her party. Just as it clearly does in Karl Steven’s xenophobic response at #40 when he describes the latest Federal member for Bass as a “Serbian Warlord” and suggesting that the government has been it would seem deliberately been “shifting manufacturing to Asia”.
Keith Antonysen
June 10, 2014 at 1:11 pm
An interesting article in relation to Canada.
https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/what-happened-to-canada/
Pamela
June 10, 2014 at 1:05 pm
I’ve studied psychology both formally and informally, with a particular interest in psychopathy. From my observations the whole front bench of this Far Right Wing party ticks all the boxes on the Psychopath Checklist.
My personal test is by the eyes, they are cold, hard and ‘dead’ of any feeling (particularly those of Julie Bishop). Their favourite feigned emotion is anger because they’ve learned it’s a handy tool to use to control others. Any charm is also affected and used as a ploy to reach their own goals.
Karl Stevens
June 10, 2014 at 12:18 pm
Steve 40. Call it xenophobia if you like but why is Bass in Tasmania represented by what I term a ‘Serbian Warlord’?
Why can’t Australia have an Australian-born prime minister anymore?
Why have our ‘foreign born’ prime ministers shut down our entire manufacturing sector?
Why is our ‘foreign born’ prime minister holding an inquiry into who paid for Julia Gillards house when he didn’t have an inquiry into why his government slaughtered up to half a million Iraqis and destabilised the entire Middle East?
Why does the ‘lucky country’ have to beg for investment from 3rd world countries just to support it’s massive, bloated tax system and archaic ‘British Empire’ public service?
Why has our ‘foreign born’ prime minister declared war on the people he made unemployed by shifting manufacturing to Asia?
Why is our ‘foreign born’ prime minister forcing Australians to work up to the age of 70?
Why is our ‘foreign born’ prime minister continually lying to Australians and cheating them out of every minor asset including their unused bank accounts?
C
June 10, 2014 at 10:39 am
The Fascism may be closer to home than you good people think. I find Really Very Interesting indeed that Will Hodgman’s threats to legislate for mandatory sentencing for protesters, made some time towards the end of last year, seem to have vanished now that he is ensconced as Premier. Perhaps he’s biding his time. If he proceeds with it he’ll need to explain where the funding is coming for the extra prison he’ll need to build.
And Mr Nikolic, the Facebook Liar…don’t get me started. I saw him in action during the federal election campaign while I was handing out how-to-votes outside a pre-polling centre, for Peter Whish-Wilson. I swear one day Nikolic turned up to smile and look stupid with a couple of bodyguards. You cannot make this shit up. I also (because I’m Really Very Polite) had to shake Eric Abetz’s hand while performing that service for the Greens. Now that’s taking one for the team.
bazzabee
June 10, 2014 at 3:06 am
Having just read this string it seems to me that a lot of people many of whom should know better, but clearly don’t, are confused by just what Fascism is.
The most common mistake here is that most of the correspondents are assuming that National Socialism as described by Adolf Hitler in Mien Kampf and Fascism are one and the same horned beast they aren’t. And what is more they never were.
That the two political beliefs shared some common ideas does not make the two synonymous.
Fascism mostly associated with Benito Mussolini and Italy was to a greater or lesser degree a political force in most countries in the first half of the 20th century including Australia.
Whereas National Socialism was tragically and uniquely German. Although some countries and their leaders were willing to adopt it during WWII notably Croatia, Ukraine and Rumania. The latter two countries had along with Russia and Prussia a long history of violent even murderous anti-Semitism. But it was their shared hatred of Russian Bolshevism that really cemented their loyalty to Hitlerian Germany.
Historically Fascism and National Socialism had their beginnings in the mid part of the 19th Century although the virulent/murderous anti-Semitism of Adolf Hitler had a far darker and longer past than Italian, Spanish or for that matter Australian Fascism.
And while I share many of the opinions about Tony Abbott and some members of his government and party he isn’t a Fascist. Abbott isn’t even a social fascist, a broad brush term invented by mid 20th century communists, to describe some if not all of Stalin’s social democratic enemies even members of the Left such as the British Labour Party, ILP and Fabian groups.
Fascism is far too serious to be used as a political label of convenience to be attached easily and thoughtlessly to one’s political foes just because they march to a different drumbeat albeit one I also in this case dislike.
Having said that it doesn’t harm in fact it is I feel essential that those of us who still of the Left remain vigilant because Fascism is once again on the rise as we have seen recently in Greece, Holland and France.
Karl Stevens
June 10, 2014 at 3:01 am
Today we see ‘insurgents’ have captured the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Taliban are attempting to re-take Karachi Airport.
So what did career-soldier Andrew Nikolic achieve by earning decorative medals invading these 2 countries? What did the Howard ‘war cabinet’ of Tony Abbott and Erich Abetz achieve by carrying-out an illegal invasion of a soverign nation based on breakfast cereal box intelligence?
Wake-up Australian Liberal Party, you claim there is a ‘budget crisis’ when you wasted out boom times on childish wars that undermined our national security. Shame.
Steve
June 10, 2014 at 1:56 am
#29; Jenny. Good to see you’ve dropped the racist taunt in favour of xenophobia.
Xenophobia is more relevant as the application is subjective. Do you consider that Karl and others are displaying irrational fear of foreigners? If you do, your description is probably apt.
Ian Carter
June 10, 2014 at 1:38 am
Look at Abbott’s performance and his ideology; what inspired him?
Perhaps the evidence will be found in his work-book:
“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.â€
― Adolf Hitler
“What luck for rulers that men do not think.â€
― Adolf Hitler
“It is not truth that matters, but victory.â€
― Adolf Hitler
“By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.â€
― Adolf Hitler
“The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.â€
― Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.
davies
June 9, 2014 at 9:44 pm
cont
Controls the Media – Think your one Government too late on that assertion. Unless of course proposed internet filers, government control of media companies, and directly ringing editors to abuse them is ok when a Labor Government does them. That would make your position a tad hypocritical would it not?
Militaristic – Really? Of course the humane policy under Rudd and Gillard only killed 1300 or so men, women and children so I can see why Abbott’s policy is militaristic. Just on that, Sarah Hanson-Young’s response to those drownings was a rather flippant ‘accidents happen’. How does that fit into your psychopath response kit?
Poor World Neighbour – just your opinion. According to a number of diplomats, Abbott is way superior to Rudd who just lectured everyone.
Takes over industry – in your own words ‘this is not so in Australia’. But never mind it still means fascism!!!
You write well but your argument that this Government is fascist a joke and an insult to those that have lived under a fascist or communist regime.
You hate Abbott. That’s fine. You can mount an effective argument against some of his policies and directions very effectively without going completely over the mark and calling them fascist.
davies
June 9, 2014 at 9:43 pm
If we truly lived under a fascist regime then this website would be closed and several authors and contributors would be jailed. Fascists, much like their more numerous and odious counterparts Communists, do not allow dissent.
These authoritarian regimes, and I include the Communists, quite happily kill their opponents…by the thousands, and for the really screwed up authoritarians by the millions. Under Mao approximately 50 million people were killed as a direct result of Communist rule, in Russia around 35 million, and in Cambodia around 30% of the population. And just to put that into comparison, Pinochet reputedly killed around 1300 political opponents which is the same number that drowned trying to get to Australia under Rudd and Gillard.
So now that we have an idea what a truly authoritarian regime is capable of doing let’s compare this to the evidence provided that this Australian Government is fascist.
Psychopathic tendencies – lacking empathy, no guilt, seeking revenge, compulsive lying, narcissism. Biggs provide 3 examples. Is that it? On Banton it was a stupid comment to make for which Abbott later regretted and apologised for. Doesn’t sound like Abbott experiences no guilt. The ‘shit happens’ example proves nothing, except he needs a better sound bite spin doctor. As for the last example, I would have laughed out loud as the story seemed like a total set up.
So any examples of seeking revenge? Narcissism? The guy has been doing community and charity work for years. Most of the time, and quite deliberately, with no media presence. Those that meet him and work with him seem to like him. Just an ordinary bloke they say.
Now compare that to a true narcissist like Rudd or Obama…
Rules by slogan – Doesn’t all parties? All parties feel the general population is pretty dumb and cannot be trusted (Labor and the Greens particularly think this which is why they try for nanny statism at every opportunity). As for the insults Abbott got and still gets more than any other PM. Not surprising when the impulse to insult is a core socialist tactic.
Culture of Lying – That ‘Independent Australia’ article was the best laugh I had in a long time…until I realised they were being serious. All politicians lie, yet this light comic relief article tries to state that Rudd lied only once and Gillard never!!!! I think you may need to read about the Royal Commissions.
Maintains an Underclass etc – Again sounds like most Governments. But I would argue that it is much more important for a socialist government to maintain an underclass since they can control it and get it to vote for them. Nothing better for a socialist government than having an underclass reliant on state welfare, state jobs, state transport and state education.
As for every positive initiative by Labor. Seriously? Under Labor, Gonski was not a national scheme since they provided no funding to WA, QLD and NT. Under Libs, it became a national scheme. Now Gonski is a pile of crap, but only under the Libs is a pile of crap that all States and Territories can enjoy.
NDIS under Labor was barely a thought bubble. It will not work because it is simply unaffordable.
Gambling reforms. These the reforms Gillard promised to Wilkie in return for his vote? No wait, Gillard reneged on those. Some would say lied!
NBN! Really you want to mention this? It is an absolute disaster from the kick off. Which is what you would expect when two politicians get together and hatch a policy written on the back of an envelope. The Libs look like they may be trying to save the project, probably not trying too hard, but is it savable? On current estimates the Labor plan of fibre to the home would take another 15 years and cost $120B. By then of course it will probably be obsolete.
Budget…stop ya sooking. Sure it could have been better targeted but it is hardly tough.
Filters information – I am sure they do, just like every other Government but obviously not as much as you do.
cont
Kim Peart
June 9, 2014 at 9:30 pm
Re: 26 ~ John Biggs
I would say that the stake in the heart of Australian democracy was hammered home when we were told by the US to turn our backs on the West Papuans in 1962, allowing Indonesia to march in and begin there regime of suppression, torture, rape and murder.
During the 1950s we had been working with the Dutch toward the independence of the whole island of New Guinea, which could have become one very large island nation.
I wonder if our path back to truth and liberty lies in revisiting our 1962 betrayal of the Papuans.
Then we may begin to find our independent mind.
Until then, our politics is shaped as a vassal state of Washington and later maybe of China, because we don’t know our own mind.
I wonder if our willingness to be dictated to has resulted in authoritarian styles, as this nation must be managed, rather then inspired as a vibrant democratic society.
Concerning the Greens, I have my own personal experience from when secretary of the Ralphs Bay group questioning the Walker marina proposal.
Some Green members decided to take control of the group and organised there own unofficial meeting, with a select list of invitees, who passed a no-confidence motion in myself and the president.
It was a rather brutal coupe that reminded me of the fascist approach to securing power.
It was a power play that ultimately served to deliver one of the plotters a ministerial position in State government.
I informed the Greens about the affair, but was met with stony silence.
I was shocked that the Green organisation tolerated such unprincipled and ruthless conduct.
When I raised this matter in the media, I was threatened with legal action for speaking the truth.
I told them to go for it, but they didn’t risk that.
It was the old developer’s tactic of threatening legal action that is then not pursued.
Since that experience I have washed my hands of the Greens.
Some experiences get personal.
Kim Peart
Christopher Nagle
June 9, 2014 at 7:20 pm
‘Fascism’ has become a facile, crying wolf, fudging ideological cliche pedaled by people who have little idea what it is, to audiences who know even less.
However, the colonization of bourgeois democracies by demogarchs might mean that we have become subject to a very new kind of privatized totalitarianism, where mass consciousness has effectively been hijacked by marketers and PR firms.
We are now into a third generation of hardened overgrown adolescent shop troop who will buy anything given enough massaging stimulus. All the social software that might interrupt that process has been systematically marginalized over a 60-70 year period in a process of libertarian civil and market deregulation.
The results are high levels of market compliance and conformity to messages from the sponsors, and an existential and social hinterland that has had its guts ripped out, leaving civil populations helpless in the face of their rulers, and without the critical faculties necessary to do anything about it.
That is not even remotely fascism, but it is all the more insidious for that, for it exists below the social recognition software that would alert mass populations to the extent to which they have been suborned.
Mike
June 9, 2014 at 6:51 pm
Tony Abbott is not a fascist, he does not have enough power. He just happens to be the Prime Puppet for the time being.
To find out who the real fascists are that run Australia you need to look at the political donors. Especially the large ones that donate to both the Labor and Liberal parties at the same time.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/28/australia-political-donations-parties
It should be no surprise that apart from individuals, Banking and financial companies are at the top of the list.
Find out who controls those and you get the names of the real fascist puppet masters!
thomas connelly
June 9, 2014 at 4:24 pm
If Mussolini was right and “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”, then we have been fascist country for many years now.
Des Pensable
June 9, 2014 at 4:09 pm
Excellent article with compelling evidence that we have a form of a fascist government. Few conservative Australians will agree as the thought is too horrifying to concede. Those more progressive already have no doubt. I suspect that we will see over the next couple of years a growing divide between the conservative welded on pro liberal party followers and the rest of the community. This is probably intentional as neo liberal policy is antisocial and divisive. Perhaps it is timely as the Australian population has been isolated and complacent about world affairs.
Sam
June 9, 2014 at 3:45 pm
You are kidding, right? Jeez I would love to see you live under a truly fascist regime, and then you’d really have something to cry about.
Get your head out, look around and realise how lucky you are. Instead of wasting your time on this propaganda, perhaps direct your gaze at the current investigation into Union thuggery which could bring down Gillard and a whole lot of labour cronies. Or wait, does criticising Gillard make me a mysoginist?
Or maybe direct your vile at the greens, the group of socialists masquerading as environmentalists whose dangerous way of politics could truly see the demise of this nation.
You’re free to criticise Abbott and I have no issue with it. What I do have issue with it the misdirected tabloid style reporting in which you’ve decided to do it.
Jenny
June 9, 2014 at 3:34 pm
More xenophobic garbage on display here from some posters.
#3.“Great Tasmanian representation – a German in the Senate, and a Serbian in the House of Reps. Fascism is a state of mind. We are well on the way.
#3 Ann is the above comment a quote or is this your opinion?
#2 Why is an Australian citizen’s ethnic background relevant. Your commentary across a range of threads features the consistent raising of politicians ethnic background. Why is this?
Nigel Crisp
June 9, 2014 at 3:18 pm
You saved the best line until last John when you said “……. they’ll self-destruct, to peals of international laughter”.
Yes you are correct and I think it’ll be this government’s response to Climate Change that starts the self-destruct process.
After all who needs a Planet when you have an economy.
Sel
June 9, 2014 at 2:03 pm
Can we just let go of the who was born where thing? This is supposed to be a discussion about whether Abbott is democratic. 25% of Australians are born overseas. It stands to reason that some of them will make their way to the parliament – and so what if they do? All the better.
Biggs – Abbott didn’t exactly control the media but he did everything he could to avoid it (and after some recent footage, I don’t blame him). Nevertheless, whether he is good at dealing with the media or not – and he clearly has some problems with answering off-the-cuff – he has to. After all democracy is ‘rule by the people’ and with this government it seems like they are saying something like ‘oh we are representing your interests, but you little people need not worry your little heads with the details. We stopped the boats didn’t we’. Well who knows whether he actually has. It seems to me that the asylum seekers aren’t dying on the high sees (although it is difficult to actually get that confirmed); they are dying in scott morrison’s care instead by their own hand or by the staff employed by Morrison/Abbott.
For someone with just a smidgen of psychology in my background, both Morrison and Abbott exhibit symptoms of anti-social personality disorder. Calling asylum seekers ‘boats’ is indicative of this. As is turning them around, keeping them in custody on customs vessels and adding more asylum seekers to turned around boats (where the hell did they get those ones from anyway?).
And the wink? That was a clear alarm bell for a head shrinker. It wasn’t the fact that she works on the sex-line, it was the fact that she had just finished telling him how many of her chronic illnesses were life threatening – clearly he does lack compassion and empathy. A balanced person should have been horrified at her situation.
John Biggs
June 9, 2014 at 1:49 pm
#2. I didn’t look at the bizarre alignments of the Liberals in Tas, Karl, because my article was about the Abbott Government. But there is a great article to be written on Liberal Tas, and who better than you to write it?
#8,9,13,21. I made my case with defining fascism, outlining its more important characteristics, and seeing if actions by the Abbott Government matched those characeristics. And in most cases they did. If you disagree with my conclusions then by all means point out where I’m wrong, in my definitions or in my interpretations of what the Abbott government has done.
Instead what you have done is in part what I am accusing Abbott of doing: throwing around insults without making any case at all for your positions.
TGC, you’ll disagree without even reading it? Why don’t you stand for politics — as a Liberal of course, you’d feel at home.
#9 “a tad more conservative than the last Labor Govt”? I don’t think you can have read the article if you think that. The Budget alone is extreme, not just a tad more conservative.
What I’d really like to read is not just bare assertions but a reasoned evidence-based case that the Greens and environmentalists in general are communist extremists. How about it?
Kylie
June 9, 2014 at 1:45 pm
A very interesting and well presented article and argument that Australia’s government is fascist.
John Broadbent
June 9, 2014 at 1:29 pm
The human shadow appears in many areas on the world stage. I remember reading CG Jung’s ‘The Undiscovered Self’ which explains the psychological basis of fanaticism and fascism. Jung explains that the unresolved shadow of an individual, especially a world leader and his ‘team’ are often projected onto the ‘other’, making them more threatening than they really are. I read this just as GW Bush entered Iraq. Here was GW creating a fictitious WMD crisis to justify his agenda. Who has killed more Iraqis? Hussein or GW? While there is no doubt Hussein was a tyrant, was GW any less of one?
Here with Abbott & Co, we have exactly the same mechanism in action with the ‘enemy’ being asylum seekers, environmentalists, carers, pensioners, students, school-leavers, single mums …
Australians might have a latent racist underbelly but when push to comes to shove, we’ve always looked out for our neighbour in times of crisis. Compare the Brisbane floods to Katrina and New Orleans, and the contrasting ways our cultures responded.
Abbott is a dangerous man and unfit to lead our country. Only through education about his agenda, as per John Biggs’ article above, can we hope to make his time in office and short as possible. As Paul Keating noted, God Help Us!
#manunplugged
Karl Stevens
June 9, 2014 at 1:14 pm
I think the real issue in Australia is ‘brainwashing’ pure and simple. That’s what worked for Hitler amd that’s what Abbott hopes will work for him.
Like Hitler, Abbott is a ‘foreigner’ who has no love for Australia. If he did he would be nurturing Australia not trashing it, and that goes for the rest of his Liberal ecological ‘death squads’.
It makes me angry that a Liberal whose family … can come to Tasmania and tell us to trash our forests and poison our oceans.
There are Liberals here who spent their whole working lives living on taxpayers money in the military. They didn’t ‘defend’ this nation but fought meaningless ‘offensive’ religious wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. One Liberal MP from Tasmania allegedly presided over torture and war crimes in Iraq. Look at how the ADF is raping its own personnel and imagine what they do to ‘detainees’ in Iraq?
All we have to do as Australians is ‘unbrainwash’ ourselves.
An unbrainwashed picture of history makes Abbott and his team look like grubby thugs and criminals in my view. Dictators like Abbott and Hitler hate the truth more than anything else. By the way Abbott was not popularly elected. He is party leader by one vote and that vote could have come from a Tasmanian senator who himself represents less than 1% of the Australian electorate.
Kim Peart
June 9, 2014 at 8:53 am
Re: 13 ~ Jonboy
If we can be honest, we can find our way.
It is honesty that will allow us to work with science, rather than deny the facts.
We now know asteroids are a threat, but we appear to lack the will to face the facts.
Similarly with the rising level of CO2 in the biosphere and all the changes that brings on. ~ We appear to lack the will to face the facts.
Now the robot revolution is upon us and will remove 50% of paid work and the income that flows there, ~ are we facing the facts and redesigning our economy to meet the needs of the new society?
I suspect that the solution to this problem runs back to the individual.
When an individual begins demanding honest facts with a view to a fair future for the whole society, then there will be the dawn of hope.
When honest individuals get together and begin demanding action, then there will be change.
What must we do to make the Earth safe from asteroids, win back a safe Earth from CO2 and design a robot-friendly society?
The trail of honesty leads to that knowledge, if there are fearless and compassionate people willing to act.
The story of the Good Samaritan describes the art of fearless compassion practiced by an honest individual who is not swayed by political appearance.
When we find our heart, we know our path.
Kim Peart
TGC
June 9, 2014 at 2:08 am
I didn’t read the Dr Briggs’ Contribution: but I have no hesitation in disagreeing with it!
Bruce Thomas
June 9, 2014 at 1:57 am
“This comment probably won’t be published but it’s ok to attack the Prime Minister, elected by the majority of Australians but it’s not ok to criticise extreme enviromentalists.â€
Ummm…45.55% of voters actually went for the Coalition parties in the 2013 election. So 54.45% didn’t and that’s a majority!!
Steve
June 9, 2014 at 1:16 am
#3; Very true Anne. I think a lot of people have forgotten that Hitler didn’t suddenly come into existence, there was a lot of support for his message.
kim carson
June 9, 2014 at 12:35 am
#11 with respect anything more from 8 or 9 wouldn’t be a tad more interesting, it would the usual ill-informed zombie opinions that is offered in the way of an argument, but due to weak kneed left liberalism fail to give it the drumming it deserves.
Tonia Bott
June 8, 2014 at 11:59 pm
The Abbott government certainly bears all the hallmarks of a fascist organisation. However it lacks one thing (thank heaven) and that is a charismatic leader. Tony under pressure is laughably witless and even his fellow-party members have begun to be nervous (albeit not the inner circle). I agree that Labor has shifted to the right of centre, however, and would suggest that both major parties have outlived their usefulness in the 21st century. We need new leadership that has the capacity to deliver social and environmental justice and recognise the real threat of Climate Change to our future economy. It’s hard to see which of the minor parties is best equipped to do this. The Greens, while laudably committed to these goals, seem to lack the organisational structure to survive in the top job. Palmer is only in it for control of environmental laws more favourable to his mining interests (despite his credible impersonation of ‘everyman’) and the remaining parties seem to new, too disorganised and too inconsistent to be able to shoulder the burden.
Certainly we need a more definite self-image as a nation than we have achieved to date. But imagine of this were happening in a republic modelled as hsa been proposed in earlier times! We would have no means of stopping this insanity short of bloodshed. A minority coalition of the larger minority parties and some intelligent, balanced independents may be our only solution. We have been too long brainwashed into imagining Lib/Lab are our only hope.
Kev Rothery
June 8, 2014 at 11:19 pm
John’s question is well worth asking, and is well supported by his evidence. If Abbott’s government are not fascist, then they are bordering on it.
Denial of climate change, refusal to honour human rights obligations, and attempting to excise world heritage reserves, are all clear examples of Australia setting an abysmal example to the world. I view such irresponsible actions as nothing less than crimes against humanity.
It is not just the federal Liberals setting a poor example either. Senator Colbeck’s mis-information campaign concerning the world heritage excision is a classic local example. As The Wilderness Society were able to verify recently via an FOI request, federal Environment Department advice shows that only 8.6% of the nominated areas bear evidence of human disturbance. Senator Colbeck however conveniently ignores such statistics in his crusade of “World Heritage Mockery” media releases:-
http://www.richardcolbeck.com.au/2014_media_releases
In my opinion the 8.6% statistic makes a complete mockery of Senator Colbeck’s campaign.
Terrence James
June 8, 2014 at 11:18 pm
Yeah, on balance the Abbott rabble look like fascists. Mike Bolan @ #6 “We need to wise up and recognise that Australia is not a democracy and start fighting for our freedoms and for some sensible rights under law.” Damn right and Citizen Initiated Referenda would be a good start.
jonboy
June 8, 2014 at 10:54 pm
Fascism perfectly describes most environmental groups except they are extreme left wing; same difference. They are :The Way, The Truth and The Light and wo behold anyone who holds a different opinion as is consistently displayed on this website where anyone who does not comply to their view is attacked like a pack of rabid dogs.
Eco-fascists, Eco-terrorists, both alive and here in Tasmania.
This comment probably won’t be published but it’s ok to attack the Prime Minister, elected by the majority of Australians but it’s not ok to criticise extreme enviromentalists.
john hayward
June 8, 2014 at 10:22 pm
#9,Tony. Fascists/Psychopaths often don’t strike their despotic colours until they have full control of the wheel. The former Yugoslavia, China, Russia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and numerous S. American countries have all suggested that this sort of psychopathy is everywhere at all times, awaiting its opportunities.
Tony already displays the telltale absence of conscience, empathy, and honesty.
peter mackenzie
June 8, 2014 at 9:47 pm
Davies #8 and Tony Hale #9
As far as I am aware, TTs Editor would accept a separate item from each of you (or even a collaboration), explaining in detail (along the lines of the item above), why you respectively argue that #1 Lee Rhiannon is extreme, and #2 The Abbott government is only a tad more conservative that Labor under Rudd/Gillard/Rudd, and not fascist.
I would definately read it, and you will certainly generate a lot of discussion among TT readers.
With respect, it would be far more interesting than the 2 and 3 line comments you have made.
Basil Fitch
June 8, 2014 at 8:57 pm
Stop Press- Tonight 8.30p.m ABC 1- Four Corners Investigative programme into the 2,400 abuse victims in the ADF.
New evidence and Royal Commission being called for. Basil
Tony Hale
June 8, 2014 at 8:50 pm
For goodness sake. At the worst it is a tad more conservative than the last Labor Government but hardly fascist as the Green commies would suggest.
Regards,
Tony Hale
davies
June 8, 2014 at 8:38 pm
Seriously are you people for real?
The most extreme politician in Parliament by far is the Stalinist Lee Rhiannon. Yet not a single comment about how extreme she is.
Mike Bolan
June 8, 2014 at 7:17 pm
Whether they’re technically fascist or not, it’s surely enough that they exhibit all of the symptoms of psycho/socio-pathocracy!
To have a pathocracy running Australia is a serious risk to any vulnerable groups, and to the rest of us under the ‘right’ conditions.
Such people have no feelings for others whatsoever and hence are dangerous whenever they have decision making powers over the lives/well being of other people.
If you can treat desperate refugees the way our government does, then other vulnerable groups can expect the same lack of consideration and empathy that the asylum seekers get.
We need to wise up and recognise that Australia is not a democracy and start fighting for our freedoms and for some sensible rights under law.
john hayward
June 8, 2014 at 3:46 pm
John should stick with the” psychopathy” label. Tony’s lads seems quite comfortable with the uniformed tough guy connotations of “fascist”. Remember Tony’s orgasmic pleasure at sitting in a fighter cockpit.
But John is right about rejoicing at the repellence of nearly everyone in the Tony Gummint. If they don’t cure Australians of any yearning for punitive authoritarianism, nothing short of death will.
John Hayward
Kim Peart
June 8, 2014 at 3:23 pm
It is not enough to say “NO” by hitting the streets.
We must build the future that we wish for and inspire enough people to participate in the building.
Actions speak louder than words and last longer than walks.
Enough voters follow Abbott, because there is no serious alternative on the table.
Get that alternative on the table and the numbers can start rock’n.
We must be at the cutting edge, if we wish to cut through.
We must think differently.
Kim Peart
Anne Cadwallader
June 8, 2014 at 1:26 pm
“Great Tasmanain representation – a German in the Senate, and a Serbian in the House of Reps. Fascism is a state of mind. We are well on the way.
Oh, and I don’t share John’s optimism in the last line. People laughed at Hitler too, ridiculous little man. It took 80 million deaths before he was stopped. Fascism remains the greatest danger to the human race, and it has never really gone away.
Abbott must fall, but he is only a figurehead for a cabal that lurks behind and around him – Peta Credlin and her husband most prominent. Fascists don’t go away, they have to be stopped by resolute action of those who value freedom, and kindness, and equality. We need to be in the streets a whole lot more or we will live to regret it.
Karl Stevens
June 8, 2014 at 12:17 pm
No, the Abbott government is not consciously ‘fascist’. However, I believe the Abbott government is working for a globalist agenda that is anti-Australian.
Take Tony Abbott for example? Born in a foreign country with a hereditary monarch that he still serves, even though the country of his birth has joined the EU.
That is the dazed and confused mentality of this internally-contradicted party of free lunchers and probable sociopaths IMHO.
Doctor Biggs has not even looked at the bizarre alignments the Libarals are flying in Tasmania.
‘The Three Amigos’? What the hell are they and are they interchangeable? Seems they are.
If you are in Bass, Lyons or Braddon your interests are served by the Three Amigo’s. Their policy is a mindless mix of shutting down Australia while pretending to be ‘growing’ it.
The key ‘Amigo’ is Serbian-born Andrej Nikolic who has served is country by helping to invade Iraq while we were bribing it’s dictator. He then went on to help invade Afghanistan for good measure, even though his party refuses to tax the ‘religion’ of 1slam in this country.
People like Abbott and Nikolic are quite capable of using ASIO to silence anybody who does not bow-down before a foreign monarch and are probably doing that right now.
Why would a Serbian-born military man serve the queen of another country while living in yet another country? That is a secret that Tasmanians deserve to know.
Kim Peart
June 8, 2014 at 10:49 am
Australia is at risk, because we have not defined who we are or what we really stand for.
As a nation we were set up as a British colony and after WWII found that we were a vassal state of the US.
It was all the way with LBJ and every US war that followed.
We have never known true independence and that is why we fail to think independently.
Our only crack at a revolution was swiftly stamped out in 1853 on the gold fields of Ballarat.
Now our ship of state is a bit rudderless, sailing in a dangerous ocean.
We are in the East, where China is asserting power and Russia is finding its feet and taking back lands once integral to its dominion.
We see the circle of the East spread over Syria, backed by Russia.
Now China and India are forging strong bonds.
The East is dominated by authoritarian governments.
This is where Abbott may be heading, finding more in kin with Putin than Obama.
If we wish for another way into the future, then we had better discover who we are as a democratic nation and we had better be pretty quick about it.
The brewing conflict in our region may force us to choose between being friends with fellow authoritarian states, or risk invasion by the forces of the East, who would also have an eye on our claim to half of Antarctica.
Kim Peart