Yves here. For some odd reason, even Americans who know we installed the Shah of Iran in 1953 seem remarkably unaware of the fact that we ousted Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1975. Key sections of a Guardian story:
Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone. “Try to screw us or bounce us,” the prime minister warned the US ambassador, “[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention”.
Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, “This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House … a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion.”…
The Americans and British worked together. In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain’s MI6 was operating against his government. “The Brits were actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office,” he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, “We knew MI6 was bugging cabinet meetings for the Americans.” In the 1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that the “Whitlam problem” had been discussed “with urgency” by the CIA’s director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said: “[governor-general John] Kerr did what he was told to do.”
On 10 November 1975, Whitlam was shown a top-secret telex message sourced to Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of the CIA’s East Asia division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile two years earlier.
Shackley’s message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia’s NSA, where he was briefed on the “security crisis”.
On 11 November – the day Whitlam was to inform parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia – he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal “reserve powers”, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The “Whitlam problem” was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.
By Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius, Tumblr and Facebook. GP article archive here. Originally published at DownWithTyranny
“For certain of their leaders, modern-day liberalism is a way of rationalizing and exercising class power.”–Thomas Frank
The real resistance occurred in 2016. It failed in both parties.–Yours truly
There’s something greatly troubling about what the media-fronted #Resistance has morphed into, but I’m having trouble writing about it (it’s lightly touched here: “A Nation in Crisis, Again“). Partly the problem is the marshaling of pages of proof; partly the problem is the unstoppability of the train wreck that will ensue. Perhaps I’ll write about the train wreck instead.
After all, as noted in the link above, “No Praetorian Guard, once it grows muscular, reverts back to a simple barracks unit just because new leadership arrives.” And the anti-Trump leadership in both parties is growing us a Praetorian Guard, if we don’t have one already. You may be cheering it onward as we speak, depending on the latest lashings from former and current security state personnel, but what you’re cheering, if you do, enables an unelected, uncontrolled and muscular security state, one you’ve certainly been appalled by in many other contexts.
Trump will go; but the unelected state will grow only stronger, now with help from the #Resistance. Do you see the dilemma? How to write about this to a nation in love with what it will come, but only later, to hate?
How Principled Is the #Resistance?
Another troubling aspects of the “professional resistance” — for example, the MSNBC version, which constantly offers the worst of the New Dems and neoliberals for cheers by the anti-Trump crowd — is that I suspect it’s not at all principled.
For example, the charge “Russia’s attack on our election is an act of war” has been made and platformed daily for almost a year — spoken by those for whom it would be heresy to say that U.S. interference in elections around the world are also “acts of war.”
As one of far too many examples, consider Honduras:
At the beginning of Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State in 2009, the Honduran military ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in a coup d’etat. The United Nations condemned the military coup and the Organization of American States suspended Honduras from its membership, calling for Zelaya’s reinstatement. Instead of joining the international effort to isolate the new regime, Clinton’s State Department pushed for a new election and decided not to declare that a military coup had occurred.
“If the United States government declares a coup, you immediately have to shut off all aid, including humanitarian aid, the Agency for International Development aid, the support that we were providing at that time for a lot of very poor people,” Clinton said when asked about Honduras in April. “So, our assessment was, we will just make the situation worse by punishing the Honduran people if we declare a coup and we immediately have to stop all aid for the people, but we should slow walk and try to stop anything that the government could take advantage of, without calling it a coup.”
Clinton said that she didn’t want Zelaya returning to power. “Zelaya had friends and allies, not just in Honduras, but in some of the neighboring countries, like Nicaragua and that we could have had a terrible civil war that would have been just terrifying in its loss of life.”
Emails that have since surfaced show that Clinton and her team worked behind the scenes to fend off efforts by neighboring democracies through the Organization of American States to restore the elected president to power.
Is this also a declaration of war by the U.S. against Honduras? Did the U.S. declare war on Iran in 1953 when the CIA unseated the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh?
The answer to all these question may well be Yes. But would the pro-Clinton hosts and guests at MSNBC, of which there are many, say so? Especially if Clinton herself were to be tarred with that same brush? Using Trump-Russia logic, would Rachel Maddow charge Clinton with abetting an “act of war” against Honduras? Hardly likely.
As I said, I suspect the “professional resistance” to Donald Trump is not at all principled, but opportunistic and entirely one-sided, however right or wrong that one side might be.
The Failed Electoral Revolution of 2016
All this has led me to wonder what the goal of this professional #Resistance really is. The Restoration of Democracy to America? Or the Restoration of Mainstream Democrats — the anti-Sanders, anti-progressive, “you can’t have that” crowd — to power again?
If just the latter, the nation may sink more slowly beneath the neoliberal waves than it would under solid Republican rule, a plus to many people’s way of thinking, but progressives will still have an enemy who hates all they stand for, armed, enabled and in the field against them. Does strengthening the professional, media-curated #Resistance, without at the same time fighting to dethrone the Clintonists and Obamists actively moved into its front ranks, serve either the cause of progressivism or, given the increasing power of the unelected state, the interest of American democracy? One has to wonder.
The real Resistance, of course, occurred in 2016, in that year’s electoral revolt against the money-bought in both parties, and it failed in both parties. Mainstream Democrats successfully fended off the actual populist in their race, Bernie Sanders, whom they hate even to this day. Mainstream Republicans successfully elected their “populist,” the fake swamp-drainer Donald Trump, and his voters are getting nothing nothing they wanted in terms of relief from the relentless greed and austerity they rebelled against.
The nation, meanwhile, is left with a still-unsatisfied populist anger, waiting like an abscess to erupt. What form that will take in 2018 and 2020 is anyone’s guess. Failed revolutions, like bad meals, often come back stronger.
The #Resistance, Mainstream Democrats and Harvey Weinstein
Who are these mainstream Democrats? According to Thomas Frank, they’re Harvey Weinstein:
Let us now consider the peculiar politics of Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie producer. Today Weinstein is in the headlines for an astonishing array of alleged sexual harassment and assaults, but once upon a time he was renowned for something quite different: his generous patronage of liberal politicians and progressive causes.
This leading impresario of awful was an enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He was a strong critic of racism, sexism and censorship. He hosted sumptuous parties to raise money for the fight against Aids.
In 2004 he was a prominent supporter of a women’s group called “Mothers Opposing Bush”. And in the aftermath of the terrorist attack against the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, he stood up boldly for freedom of the press. Taking to the pages of Variety, Weinstein announced that “No one can ever defeat the ability of great artists to show us our world.”
But lest you think Frank is tarring the Clintonist-Obamist wing of the Party with Weinstein in a guilt-by-association manner, he digs deeper (emphasis mine):
Most people on the left think of themselves as resisters of authority, but for certain of their leaders, modern-day liberalism is a way of rationalizing and exercising class power. Specifically, the power of what some like to call the “creative class”, by which they mean well-heeled executives in industries like Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
Worshiping these very special people is the doctrine that has allowed Democrats to pull even with Republicans in fundraising and that has buoyed the party’s fortunes in every wealthy suburb in America.
That this strain of liberalism also attracts hypocrites like Harvey Weinstein, with his superlative fundraising powers and his reverence for “great artists”, should probably not surprise us. Remember, too, that Weinstein is the man who once wrote an essay demanding leniency for Roman Polanski, partially on the grounds that he too was a “great artist”.
Harvey Weinstein seemed to fit right in.
And then the meat of Frank’s argument:
This is a form of liberalism that routinely blends self-righteousness with upper-class entitlement. That makes its great pronouncements from Martha’s Vineyard and the Hamptons. That routinely understands the relationship between the common people and showbiz celebrities to be one of trust and intimacy.
Countless people who should have known better are proclaiming their surprise at Harvey Weinstein’s alleged abuses. But in truth, their blindness is even more sweeping than that. They are lost these days in a hall of moral mirrors, weeping tears of admiration for their own virtue and good taste.
Is the anti-Trump #Resistance, the professional broadcast version with its behind-the-scenes security state actors, simply setting us up for a Restoration of those — a Pence, a Biden, or another darling of our dual mainstream parties — who “weep tears of admiration for their own virtue” as they tank or attempt to co-opt the next Bernie Sanders, or re-destroy the last one? Stay tuned. The answer is coming soon.
And if they do, will America weep tears of thanks, or something else?
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“Je n’ai jamais abandonné un régime avant qu’il ne se fût abandonné lui-même.”
haha, I love that quote from Talleyrand!
Yves,
The analogy of Trump and Whitlam goes deeper in that even though Whitlam
was involved in politics for a long time, his administration like Trump’s, was from the very beginning considered by the opposition to be illegitimate not just because of his policies, but because like Trump, he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind.
Within the first two weeks of his premiership, even before a foreign minister was appointed, Australia recognized China, North Korea and announced the withdrawal
of Australian troops from Vietnam. All this was considered anathema by the opposition who only a few years earlier campaigned on the slogan “All the way with LBJ”.
The Australian Republican movement was in large part born from from the Whitlam Dismissal and there was a referendum in 1999 to change the Australian constitution
so that the head of state would be appointed by Parliament, and not by the British Queen. That is, if a prime minister is to be dismissed, it would not be by a person representing some foreigner. I was in Australia during that time and the “Yes” backers campaigned explicitly on this point. The referendum failed by only 10 percent.
Whitlam had his “true believers” and Trump has his “deplorables”. If Trump was
deposed by means not considered fair by his supporters, then the reaction I think will be much more violent than the peaceful Australian Republican movement which
emerged after the dismissal. In other words getting rid of Trump, won’t be the end
of the problem, but just the beginning and who knows how many years it would take
to play out.
The Aussie PM is head of govt, not head of state. If republicanism is just about putting the appointment of the PM in the hands of Parliament, it is going about it the wrong way by dragging the issue of the monarchy into it as well.
The “archaic reserve powers” are in the Constitution from 1901. You can amend that without having to introduce a republic. The monarchy could be left intact and the appointment of the PM put into the hands of the House of Representatives. That’s the arrangement in the Irish Republic, Scotland, and de facto in the UK since the Fixed Term Parliaments Act was passed under the coalition.
Perhaps I should have been more explicit in that I was referring to the Governor
General, who is currently the head of state and not the prime minister who as you said is the head of government. The referendum change would have meant the replacement of the Monarch appointed Governor General by a Parliament appointed person who as you say, would be the like the situation
in Ireland. Aside from those who felt some attachment to the monarchy, the people behind the “No” vote of the referendum were afraid that under the proposed plan the two positions would not be as distinct especially if a current politician was appointed.
to be clear, the ’99 referendum was to sever ties with the crown, not to merely swap the role of the G-G with parliament. Australia would have ceased to be a constitutional monarchy and part of the Commonwealth. (I was a kid at the time but I’m pretty sure this is correct)
This example is where conspiracy theory rubber hits the road.
Pop leader
unpop with the vested
Vested uses allies
Pop leader gone
Allies say this cannot possibly happen,always and foreverver
Vested survive
Powerful interests can move brutally,swiftly and without the mainstream critique that would be raised against their antagonists
As an Australian with a long term interest in politics and economics (yes, there is only political economy) I am aware of the issues that led to the Whitlam dismissal. The account given by Yves is probably on the classic conspiracy theory end of the spectrum, and would be similar to me, as an outsider, saying that Kennedy was shot by the CIA/FBI/nascent neocon arm of the US government.
The reality was that the Australian opposition, the Liberal Party, that controlled the upper house, had defied convention and blocked the supply bills, potentially shutting down the government. Kerr’s response was anachronistic, but also fed by the knowledge that the opinion polls were most likely correct in that, if an election was called, then Labor would be defeated, which is what happened. Sacking Whitlam only brought on an election, it did not really replace him with the opposition leader, who lost a vote of confidence in the Parliament almost immediately, and hence had to resign.
Did the US consider Whitlam a security risk? Almost certainly. Did they work to undermine him? Again, almost certainly, as they have every Labor government since, of which there have been a few. Did it set the scenario from which ‘Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation (regain) its true independence’? On a purely objective level, and considering that we have had some truly nasty neo-liberal governments in the intervening years, that would be a hard call to justify. In many ways Australia is in much better shape than the US, in terms of happiness, violence, social services, health outcomes and liveable cities. We could do much better, but we are certainly not reduced to subservience.
I agree the independence bit is overwrought, but there is ample evidence that Whitlam’s ouster was in large measure engineered by the US. This isn’t as controversial a claim as you suggest. I pulled the Pilger piece because Google served it up prominently and I was in haste.
Here is a more detailed treatment:
https://www.crikey.com.au/2015/11/25/rundle-proving-the-cia-backed-conspiracy-that-brought-down-whitlam/
I smiled when I read (considering that the term “conspiracy theory” was thought up and promoted by the CIA to prevent this exact sort of thought) “saying that Kennedy was shot by the CIA/FBI/nascent neocon arm of the US government.”
The last I knew, most polls here in the U.S. have shown that around 2/3’s of the U.S. public believe this “conspiracy theory” may well be conspiracy fact. For good reasons.
Yes, David Talbots’s “The Devil’s Chessboard” makes a danming case against Allen Dulles and the extracurricular CIA he continued to run even and especially after his dismissal by Kennedy. The case is based on primary sources and though lacking proof is quite convincing. Dulles CIA was in the business of overthrowing foreign governments wherever they ran afoul of Dulles’ Nazi sympathizer vision of US interests.
Dulles, a name that should die in infamy, should be stricken from any and all monuments, airports or other public displays.
If a plaque at George Washington’s church (George Washington!) can be removed, and all those other offending statues of whatever nature can be removed, why can not some obscenity relating to a certified ruiner (pick either brother or, why not both) of lives be removed?
Is it wise to remove reminders of such villains? We don’t want to forget.
I would agree with changing obvious honorifics, like naming an airport after them. But plaques should merely be added to with a correction – and I actually think the same of, say, Confederate statues: put a statue of a slave next to it, and make the connection clear.
Pamela Churchill Harriman and her husband, Averill Harriman vs the rise of the Clintons. Pretorian Guard is a lot older than 2016, and neoliberalism includes predating on your own citizens.
Also involved in the events of 1975: one R Murdoch.
And continues so to this day- the editorials in his national newspaper often read like paid political ads. For the Liberal(i.e. Rightwing) party, and the partisan choices as to what is news are only slightly less so. His publications are climate change sceptical , and his insidious influence spread to the UK in the 1980’s via his acquisition of the Times and collusion with Thatcher.
He then bought himself US citizenship so as to further his business and political interests in the US, i.e. Fox., thus perpetuating and expanding his insidious influence to the benefit of the establishment, and to the detriment of the wellbeing of the majority.
All in all a shameworthy Australian export to the world.
The heart of the problem lies in the nature of American Empire itself. This hall of mirrors is set up by the strange notion held by the majority of citizens that America is NOT an empire. The wise men of American politics seem to be running an experiment to see if the necessary crimes of empire can be hidden rather than glorified. To them, everything is a matter of public relations when considering their connection and responsibility to the citizenry at large. The grinding wheels of Empire are masked by aspirational language of freedom and democracy. A gullible population buy into the myth making. It is the path of least resistance. The desire for world domination is recast as being the World’s Policeman and upholder of values when in reality it is the opposite.
So what we have created here in America is a shadow government exercising the traditional goals of empire, while projecting a facade of propaganda in order to control the citizenry. This system is the antithesis of principled. It relies on creating delusional people.
The real revolution that is on the horizon is when this public relations experiment finally fails, which it surely must because of its absurd contradictions. When this occurs, the true power will come out of the shadows and a bewildered American citizenry will be left to deal with the true nature of their country, which is authoritarian and oppressive. Will they embrace this authoritarianism? Without principled leadership desiring a different future other than naked self interest, they will. The struggle will be between the elite who take the traditional militaristic rout to power and those that take the principled road of equality and justice.
Exercising power entails cost. An authoritarian power exists only so long as that cost can be shifted to someone else. Authoritarian power rests on delusion. The delusion of a supreme leader believing in his personal power of control and the followers who sacrifice themselves to the myth that is their leader. Capitalism has created the myth of the All Powerful Corporation. The benevolent structure that provides for humanity. A structure that shields its leadership from accountability, while offering the promise of liberating the individual from class stagnation and hopelessness. This is a system for protecting thieves and promotes corruption by shielding it form accountability to a higher social purpose.
The time has come to reject unprincipled leadership. Pick your side. The idiocy of Trump is just the beginning. Half baked sham liberalism has run its course, slowly smothered by selfishness and greed. Corporate Democrats are the epitome of this delusion and continue to bring on the ruin they profess to combat. By focusing on the myth that self interest is somehow the supreme virtue of human existence, they bring about authoritarian forces that should be suppressed.
The power and success of any society always rests with its people. It is how those people are organized and directed that is important. The flame of individual liberty is snuffed out if not shielded or contained in some encompassing vessel. A lantern if you will. A nation can be that lantern, a corporation cannot. The people must choose between a lantern or a cage. An elite exercising power must be guided by principles other than their personal desires, and must be made by the citizenry to constantly reaffirm those principles and uphold them. If not, only darkness and tyranny reign and a corrupt elite frolic in hubris and decadence.
Sane people know the existing order is not working. Capitalism is the failed existing order because it is based on competition not rooted in any larger social goals. Resistance to the status quo will take the form of forming a new peaceful collectivism. Some form of goal based Federalism that is not traditional competitive Nationalism.
A tall order indeed, but one that is impossible to reach if lead by cynical opportunists bent on personal aggrandizement. On one end, people like this are easy to spot. The work involves the dedication to not provide them with any legitimacy or support. It will entail the desire for a new and better future, not for oneself alone, but for the world at large. It must take concrete form, not just pretty words.
By necessity it will be an outside force. It will be embracing those that are outsiders of the current order.
This is a very interesting point of view and deserves consideration
I think what we are slowly discovering is that the United States is not the empire but just another vassal state of the empire. That the kind of predation and resource extraction Americans were comfortable with when carried out elsewhere for their benefit are now being carried out on them.
I think there are lots of efforts, writ small, happening around the world. Not sure how to get past small, though.
Here are two I came upon today:
http://www.monbiot.com/2017/10/19/the-ground-beneath-our-feet/
and
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42444-we-draw-the-line-lummi-nation-connects-with-museum-to-grow-the-climate-justice-movement
I find the second link quite interesting personally, especially since so many museums seem to have been co-opted by corporate donors.
Thanks for the links. Yes, getting past the small is the problem! The George Monbiot link is interesting in noting the power of community financing- but how to get there? There is extreme resistance to the notion of a Postal Bank, which could in a short period of time, greatly reduce the burdens on many citizens lives.
The power working people have is in their labor and where they spend their money. It is encouraging to see that efforts are being made to creatively direct these resources in a beneficial way. But in the end, it has always been about controlling public money. Money should be a public utility, not a personal enrichment tool.
Until there is some stronger political movement to make this dream come about, we can extend loans to friends if needed and support businesses who’s goals align with real community growth and strength.
This is the question that the Populist movement of the 1880s and 1890s could not solve. Again and again, they ran into a brick wall that no matter what they did, it did not work well without popular financing. The banks successfully stymied them at every turn. That was why they went into electoral politics, but in that effort they came up short.
A postal bank or other form of finance that broke the grip of the current finance industry would be a dramatic increase in the freedom of ordinary people at the expense of the power of the powers that be. That is why it will not happen easily or accidentally. It will have to be fought for.
It is good that you are addressing the core power issues rather than the surfaces and symbols.
I’ve wondered it it is simply the nature of the sort of civilization that was Rome that is predictable as it is attached to the absolutes of human nature.
Civilization with banks that pretend to be private.
Banks that refuse to give the poor any breaks when debt slavery is a fact of the plan.
In the end Spartacus tried to just make a run for it.
Your thesis that the outsider is required conforms to the fall of Rome.
It is good that you wrote down how it is that Americans are not supposed to understand their US as an Empire.
As there was something fishy about how Clinton Unit II hardly mentioned the Clinton Foundation, Empire is not the word to be used, betraying the shame that the Washington party crowd feels for what is done in the name of its country.
Bankers have become mobsters, angry at debtors.
In the 80s, I knew an Australian woman who would say things like the CIA was controlling Australia. I assumed she was a nut. It’s only in recent years that I heard the story about Whitlam and realized she was trying to educate me.
The Honduras story is the perfect response to the Russiagate hysteria.
I had the same thing happen to me in Greece in 1974. I wondered why an educated women would believe conspiracy stories like the CIA had overthrown an elected government to install a dictator. The day I was in Greece there were crowds in the streets celebrating the one year anniversary of getting their elected government back. Little did I know that the CIA doesn’t care what kind of government you have as long as you do what they want.
In the late 70’s I lived in the mountains of Colombia as a Peace Corps volunteer. After riding our horses and mule two days further back into the mountains we stopped and chatted with a campesino hoeing weeds in his bean field. After talking about the weather for a while he asked “Who really killed Kennedy?”
Re Honduras:
Yes. Particularly given how under-reported it was in the U.S. press. They ran articles about it of course, but the overthrow was incredibly soft-pedaled. Key U.S. actions were politely down-played so as to eliminate the event from American minds.
Quite a contrast with the current Russiagate pearl-clutch-o-rama. Of course, news has changed with the rise of social media, and the crash in advertising revenues that ensued. In 2009, the gatekeeper media were still publishing numerous articles about DFH “bloggers”, and the laughable inadequacy of their understanding.
While we’re on the subject of Oz, you all should follow Caity Johnstone over at Medium. She does a brilliant job of skewering the “McResistance”, along with much else about our messed-up political system. And she does it with style and humor, too.
Johnstone is a Seth Rich truther.
And…..?
There are legitimate arguments against the meritocracy or neoliberalism. But claiming that powerful men who abuse women are the result of neoliberalism or are inextricably linked is stupid. Powerful men have been abusing women since the beginning of time. The fact that a man/men wrote this article is proof that men are woefully out of touch with how they are raising their sons and are solely to blame for the Harvey Weinsteins of the world.
Abusers abuse everyone around them, and feel comfortable with one another. So it’s natural, I think for them to admire and support each other. And the Weinstein/women thing is about power, using power to get what you want. Powerful people use abuse and fear to get what they want if that’s the way they roll.
The new cold war with Russia will not amount to anything. Ignoring even the fact that the commander in chief of the military has zero motivation to start such a thing, except maybe in the most peripheral, proxy manner. It’s the establishment democrats doing what they do best, dusting off old arguments the right used against them decades ago, thinking they will be just as potent now if they use them in reverse. It’s internal politics, not a reflection of any serious foreign policy.
As far as the “Resistance”: much as establishment Republicans form uneasy alliances with Libertarians when Republicans are out of power, so do establishment Democrats form an uneasy alliance with the left when they are in the same situation. So the left-resistance is one of fighting back against the late-stage capitalism and rampant militarism that Trump represents.
For the establishment Democrats, well imagine an aristocracy holds regular galas. Sometimes, one faction of the aristocracy has a favored status at the gala, sometimes the other. They always work at gaining and keeping status, but both sides understand that it’s the same game they’re playing. Trump then comes as the boor, making rude comments, acting without decorum. The side the boor is on is upset, but willing to put up with him as long as they have their favored status. But both sides are aghast, not that he’s playing a different game, the gala, but that he’s exposing the ugliness under the pomp and circumstance. Yeah, they’re all abusers and grifters, but he’s making a spectacle out of it instead of hiding it! Thus why the establishment Democrats are having a much more negative and unhinged reaction to Trump than they ever did to Bush. They’re afraid that without the veneer of respectability, the game will not hold up when it’s reduced to its true nature.
Thanks for the info on Whitlam, it was something I’d never heard about, but then it isn’t like what was happening in Australia was a big concern with a high level of coverage in the USA back then.
” Failed revolutions, like bad meals, often come back stronger.”
Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping for. But my first thought was “be careful what you wish for.”
This is the first I’ve heard of Thomas Frank.
Well worth reading.
He’s hit the nail on the head on the subject of ‘liberalism’, frequently and erroneously called ‘the left’, where it had historically meant socialist as in ‘people – power’ and wealth dissemination.
The reality of US ‘liberalism’ – perfectly represented by Weinstein – is that equity holds all the cards, promoting disguised eugenicist and Malthusian agendas as ‘liberal /equality’ causes.
It is the social and cultural expression of neoliberalism, a Doctrine of global exploitation peoples via the hegemony of globalised capital.
I recently came across a phrase which described these ‘liberals’ as the ‘wh***’s of fascism’.
Wish I could attribute it, as it is exactly right.