Thread by @PeterRelph

Here is a long & boring thread on my OCD paranoid fantasy about Fascism

#auspol #fascism

Let's assume for the sake of argument that I am OCD & obsessing on imaginary fascism.

For the sake of my obsession I am defining neoliberalism, feeding the rich ruling elites & starving the poor, as fascism, also using Mussolini's definition of corporate state (& he defined it).

When did this obsession start?
I see nothing in the Whitlam years (at least until the coup) & certainly nothing from the government.
Fraser was surprising benign, so that takes us to 1983.
Jumping now to 2014ish the Coalition government is madly destroying everything I held dear.

That is the point at which I became aware of this imaginary obsession, when I thought “Abbott is not behaving like someone who is never going to stand for election again, so he must be assuming that there won’t be an election”. “What does this imply?” thought I.

My conclusion at that time was that the barbarian Coalition wrecking balls must be destroying the nation for someone, & who else could benefit from a quarry nation with no employment controls or welfare security?

I didn’t have to look too far to see the corporate oligarchs pouring money into the politician’s coffers, the same oligarchs who gratefully accepted the public services from the government for them to profit & pillage.

That was the point where I began to be affected by this imaginary paranoid delusion of fascism. I even tweeted “Is it possible to have fascism in a democracy?” 2014 or 2015.
I then started looking back to see how & when it might have started.

One point of democracy is the checks & balances on the government, major ones being “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition” & the “Free Press”, the 4th Estate.
For fascism to take hold one or both of those two must have been missing.

Now, Australia hasn’t had a Free Press at any time in the period we are looking at, so all it would have taken is the Opposition to abdicate their constitutional responsibility & either appease or actively support those that they had been elected to oppose.

So, returning to the beginning of the period in question, 1983.
Hawke has just been made P.M. & Keating his Treasurer.
A couple of unusual things happened, [previous ACTU Secretary] Hawke brought in the Accords that disadvantaged unions & Keating privatised the Commonwealth Bank.

At the time they were odd, a bit confusing, but nothing too way out, just “Why would a Labor government do that?” “Maybe they know something that we don’t”, we had no reason to distrust a Labor government, after all the previous one was Whitlam.

In hindsight, that was the introduction of Neoliberalism [= Fascism, remember] into mainstream Australia. They did other things, some good, but for the point of this saga, they opened the door to Howard & the hard core card carrying Neoliberals to do with us whatever they wished.

Howard then continued merrily wrecking Australian economy & society for several years until he was finally chucked out on his ear & a grateful nation was rescued by a Labor government.

Now was Labor’s chance to set everything to rights, but they were too busy brawling & passing their own neoliberal laws to do anything democratic.
Put single parents on Newstart, refuse to bring Newstart up to poverty level, introduce #robodebt, all sorts of stuff like that.

But now we come to the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison/Dutton/Pezzullo government with wrecking balls swinging in all directions, everything & its dog handed over to oligarchs. Now is Labor’s chance to shine, to oppose.

What do Labor do to oppose this barbarian fascist regime?

They support every single nasty party fascist police state anti-democratic law that the Coalition raises.

That is why I have this OCD paranoid obsession about imaginary fascists

FIN

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