38 comments

1. Robert G. ShawFebruary 11, 2017 at 7:44 am

   Christian, i doubt there’s any argument with the key tenets of your article; the Right are indeed in ascendancy, in the US, in Europe.
   This is a crucial problem in light of the proposed attacks of human freedoms and liberties. I’m referring here specifically to the abortion issue in the US.

   I don’t believe the Left have, or am yet to see, a rigourous strategy to counter that rise or rebut those insidious overtures.

   The regressive Left are very real Christian, we saw them at Berkeley.
   By way of example, I was extremely disappointed, yet again, by the riots last week. Another case of the Left as free speech deniers, or authoritarian and violent muzzlers.
   It’s my firm belief that we will never be in a position to address the larger issues of governance whilst condoning the undergraduate idiocy of those, like the rioters, who play right into the hands of Right stereotypes and propaganda.

2. DonandiFebruary 11, 2017 at 7:48 am

   Professor Bill Mitchell recently submited an extract from his blog (from an anonymous blogger), which I thought was worth repeating below..
   How to create a divided society
   Privilege private education over public education.
   Make sure there are fewer jobs than there are job seekers – blame the job seekers for being unemployed.
   Saddle tertiary students with massive debts and limited employment opportunities.
   De-regulate banking so that the people who can least afford it have access to easy credit – they haven’t got stable employment and need to get ahead somehow.
   Privatise public assets like airlines, rail systems, electricity, hospitals – sell them to your political donors.
   Dilute the power of independent entities that monitor conduct of individuals in high office – accountability stifles creativity.
   Stack the public broadcaster with industry mates – go on cooking shows because you can get away with anything if voters have seen you making pasta.
   Destroy job security for a large proportion of the working population – convince them they can succeed if they are more entrepreneurial.
   Undermine working conditions and awards – direct productivity gains to capital and limit real wage growth.
   Make sure unskilled labour is linked to jobs that destroy the environment – keep things sweet for industry status quo and ensure there is always an army of blue collar workers ready to fight against a transition to alternative industries.
   Disrupt disrupt disrupt – convince a gullible public that the robots are coming and that there is very little that they or their elected representatives can do to develop alternative labour markets.
   Be a serious investigative journalist or an engineer or a consultant or a public sector manager or a politician – but don’t challenge neoliberal economic rhetoric.
   Talk about deficit reduction and ‘budget repair’ without understanding how vacuous this is.
   Be surprised at the outcome.
   Repeat.
   The Anonymous Blogger – February 7, 2017

3. FreethinkerFebruary 11, 2017 at 10:48 am

   Donandi, I agree with nearly all the above points but not one which it is: “De-regulate banking so that the people who can least afford it have access to easy credit.”
   Allowing people to get in debt by exploiting their greed is the best tool to make them slaves of the system. It was and still is the best tool to decrease the power of the Union movement and almost eliminate the option stop work in protest for draconian laws.
   In the history of humanity the few at the top got united to exploit the disunity of those in the lower classes.
   IMHO that will never change and in many countries those that were at to lower class and gained power by revolutions become corrupted by greed and kept exploiting the ones bellow them.

4. David1February 11, 2017 at 11:36 am

   I fear the toxic preachings of the right wing racist bigot Hanson and her dangerous Party are making big inroads into next months WA election outcome, scary stuff. It is not beyond reason, given the trend in the polls One Nation could hold the balance of power.
   it is beyond my comprehension why Labor is so quiet on Hanson’s influence.
   The ALP still have a big hurdle to climb to win 10 seats from the Coalition and Labors head in the sand attitude will not stop the rise in Hanson’s popularity.
   It really is a frightening prospect and surely West Australians can understand the evil that appears to be spreading its tentacles into the States political future and therefore its citizens.lives. Wake up WA, the clock is ticking.

5. DonandiFebruary 11, 2017 at 11:42 am

   Freethinker, I think you forgot the title of the blog…….”How to create a divided society”. Just another way of doing it……………”De-regulate banking so that people who can least afford it have access to easy credit”.etc.

6. Christian MarxFebruary 11, 2017 at 12:17 pm

   Robert, I`m sorry but “regressive left” is just another buzzword propagated by the far right.
   Hate speech should by suppressed. It is dangerous and can lead to holocausts…especially when pushed
   by powerful media outlets.

7. stephentardrewFebruary 11, 2017 at 12:28 pm

   Great article Christian. Thanks once more AIMN.

8. Robert G. ShawFebruary 11, 2017 at 1:38 pm

   Christian, “a buzzword”?!?!
   Hardly.

   Did you read about events at Berkeley the other day?
   The student riot that successfully STOPPED a speaker from….speaking?
   At Berkeley, the womb of the campus free speech movement!
   Think on that a moment.

   Let us be frank here: students, admittedly a minority of those protesting, set property aflame, smashed barricades, smashed windows, destroyed property, public and private, assaulted people etc, all in the name of restricting someone’s freedom of speech.
   Intolerance, violent intolerance even, is not the sole tactic of those groups we may normally associate with fascist tendencies – the neo nazi’s for example. No, it is now the primary tactic of students so confused and delicate that even the appearance of a contrary idea sets off their latent desire for violence.
   And these students?
   Generally in the humanities, generally in subjects of inclusivity, of civil rights, and sexual rights, of gender equality, and the fundamental liberty of the individual to express themselves in an open, accommodating, and sensitive space, free from judgement, violence, and intolerance.

   The lunatic irony, comic and bleak, apparently lost on them.

   This is the reality that Trump’s threat counters when he threatens to cut funding.
   In principle, he is correct to counter it.

   Thus opening up a further and altogether more insidious irony: by protesting so visually, so violently, against the cause of free speech, the students incur the wrath of the totalitarians, AND the general public, who view this as the petulant tantrums of the, roll on cliches: cry baby, spoilt, bratish, coddled, delicate, precious, immature, and self contradictory, younger generation more at home in their own narcissistic bubbles than in the often bruising world everyone else lives in.

   It’s why Trump can signal his Uni funding threat and have no one, not a soul, raise their voice in horror.
   No one except the students of course.

   Police finally clear the area with rubber bullets and tear gas.
   All because these students don’t want a Right wing internet provocateur to speak?!?
   They can counter his provocations in no other, more mature or intellectual manner than riot and destruction?!?
   Berkeley students?
   Berkeley, in the top 25 best Uni in the world ranking, with tuition fees in the 35K US per year and attracting some the brightest minds on the planet?
   Rioting instead of argument?
   Burning instead of debate?
   Assault instead of polemic?
   Tear gas and rubber bullets instead of ‘fighting bad ideas with good ideas’?

   Christian, these regressive Leftie’s are antithecal to my notions of freedom, liberty, and morality. Their jackboot hysteria is no different tot hat of the lunatic, rabid Right, in that all contrary voices, ALL, are drowned in the liquid filth of aggression, vilence, intolerance.

   This has been a particluar area of interest to me these past many years and i could, if you wish, provide near countless examples of the disturbing trajectory some elements of the Left are taking our politcs.
   I will fight them as ferociously as I do those on the Right.

   It’s my firm conviction that no clear path for the Left can be furrowed till we first clear and order our own hoe.
   How else to convince others of our intergity?
   How else to convince others to follow?

9. Matters NotFebruary 11, 2017 at 2:22 pm

   David1 re your comment:

   beyond my comprehension why Labor is so quiet on Hanson’s influence.

   This is Hanson’s second coming. Labor tried very hard to demonise ‘hansonism’ first time around and One Nation received nearly 25% of the votes, scoring 11 seats in an 89 seat Queensland Parliament. Her party fed off those attacks. The demise of ‘hansonism’ only came over time – when the lack of a unifying ideology (and internal contradictions) became apparent leading to an implosion.

   Now, both the major political parties are bereft of ideas as to combat this current outbreak. It’s probably the case that the LNP will move to appropriate much of her ‘appeal’ by using a rhetoric that signals an even greater move to the ‘right’. Do what Howard did. That will, at best, be a mere speed bump. She’s back and the ‘madness of crowds’ will be upon us.

   Labor is like a rabbit caught in the headlights. They know that ‘attacking’ her is counter productive because some of their traditional supporters have already departed and many more are on the brink of doing so via the secrecy of the ballot box. The problem is most apparent in Western Australia and Queensland. States which feel left behind.

   Maybe ‘hansonism’ is just like a mouse plague. Just have to wait it out.

10. Red LeafFebruary 11, 2017 at 3:16 pm

    Robert G. Shaw, you are absolutely correct. The left will never win while they continue to deny people on the right the right to voice their opinions. People are sick of being called, racists, bullies, islamophobes, bigots, for simply questioning the status quo. No wonder they are turning to the right and the left are in denial. You cannot insist that your views are the right ones if you are unwilling to listen to and reasonably discuss alternative views. For instance there can not be any reasonable discussion and debate on the issue of immigration. People on the left immediately scream such insults as “racist” and ‘bigot’ and “while supremacist” in order to silence people and then where can they turn to be heard but to the far right. The left is making itself irrelevant as more and more people are turned off by it’s fascism. While I fully agree that Pauline Hanson is not the cleverest person in parliament, she at least does listen to people who the left is silencing. If the people on the left want others to listen to them, they have to first listen to others and I’m not seeing that happening. Over the past 41 years since I first began taking an interest in politics I’ve seen the left become more hysterical and exclusionist. Instead of listening to people and advocating free speech and exchanges of ideas they have gradually shut down all alternative view points and that is just wrong. Sad to say I have been slowly becoming more disillusioned and disgusted with the left. Their self-righteousness is stifling important and necessary debate that this society needs to have.

11. David1February 11, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    Matters Not…thanks.

12. Christian MarxFebruary 11, 2017 at 5:13 pm

    The problem with many Australians is that they are more concerned with bullying and hating those not like them.
    Anyone who challenges their hate, gets abuse. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO DENIGRATE AND ABUSE OTHERS.
    That is not freedom of speech. It seems that many care more about their right to intimidate and abuse others at the cost of their
    social and economic well being. The right wing power brokers are using this “political correctness” as a wedge to divide us.
    They couldn`t give a stuff about this issue. It is used to suck in the gullible and the fearful into voting for right wing parties,
    who then in turn will gut all our social systems and smash the middle class. “Fascist left” is an oxymoron. Stop your anti intellectualism and
    doublespeak. If you are more concerned with silencing hate speech than human rights then you are a part of the problem!

13. Christian MarxFebruary 11, 2017 at 5:19 pm

    Red Leaf, If you want to stop immigration, then stop supporting American imperialism. Much of the mass exodus from war torn countries is
    due to corporate warfare waged on Middle Eastern countries. Not only do they bomb and kill Muslim women and children, but they then turn around and propagate the “All Muslims are evil” bullshit. It suits their economic and military interests to get the gullible in the West
    to support our war crimes. It is no coincidence that some very wealthy parasites such as Murdoch push this vile anti Islam rubbish. His business interests are involved in destroying Syria and Palestine. Some of you need to start doing some research and intense reading,
    because right now you come across as very shallow thinkers.

14. FreethinkerFebruary 11, 2017 at 5:38 pm

    I guess that we have to accept the wishing of the people in regarding choices and the far right.
    In the polls today:
    One Nation support in Queensland leaps from 16% to 23%, poll shows
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/11/one-nation-support-in-queensland-leaps-from-16-to-23

    So far my theory that if the ALP and the Greens do not change the Coalition with One Nation and another extreme candidates will run the country after next federal election.

15. Robert G. ShawFebruary 11, 2017 at 5:42 pm

    Red Leaf, hi.
    I cannot adequately express my joy at reading your post; as much for your pitch perfect expression of the rot at the heart of our current Left ideology, as for your near mirroring of my very own experience.
    I am now middle age.
    Left since before birth.
    Working class parents, a migrant father who left his young bones in the steelwork factories of the mid sixties, his young bride, tending her brood, watching every penny of the mortgage in a deep suburban working class union crucible of struggle and poverty, alcoholism, hard work and double shifts, of pregnant teenagers and young boys in prison before they were men.
    Their one constant – a profound affinity to the socialist vision of sweat for bread, of equality, of ethical conduct, of opportunity through hard honest work and education.
    That dream shattered by a rapacious neoliberalism that left them behind. Some of them anyway. Those who progressed looked back at those who didn’t as one would a yet to be rescued drowning victim.
    The unions promised they would come back for them.
    They didn’t.

    Hawke and Keating filled the pockets of those already saved.
    And turned their faces away those sinking.
    In due time Beazley betrayed their morality over Tampa.
    Howard, shrewd f*ck that he was, saw the soft centre and struck mercilessly.
    We have been behind since that very day; since the day he dropped the broadsheet full page “we decide who comes here……”.

    And have never caught up.

    To those that think we did, I ask them to look at the treachery of Syriza, the impotence and failure of Podemos, the undergraduate idiocy, then,esther patch corduroy elbows of Corbyn. I ask them to look at Clinton’s hubris and the rise of the regressive Left. I ask them to look at Rudd, Gillard, Rudd (I liked Gillard so much, my heart still breaks at the recollection). I ask them to look at Abbott’s near effortless rise, at Turnbull’s tenure, at Shorten’s prominent and unfortunate Achilles heel.
    To no avail.

    Reduced to platitude and ad hominem, those here affronted are the reason for the Left’s emasculation.

    The free speech issues burning molten in the campuses of the US and several in the UK are, for me, one epicentre, there are many, that signal the decay at the heart of our ideological enterprise.
    I mentioned this once before somewhere Red L, the affair at Yale, the Christakis affair, was the one, after nearly 9 years of following these higher education issues, that prompted my final and most obstinate rejection of regressive Left ideology.
    If you have a moment, and are inclined to read, I suggest you take a peek.
    It was a revelation, and not one forgotten too soon by me. I’ve forgotten the number of letters, posts, articles, I’ve written in demonstration of my disgust.

    Red L, my feeling is this: we will find no way forward, no way to combat the brazen, prescriptive, and deleterious forays of the Right, till we perform a most ruthless culling of those within our midst intent on a joyous, ludicrous, embarrassing, and garishly public ideological suicide.

    Thanks again for your support.

16. Robert G. ShawFebruary 11, 2017 at 5:45 pm

    Christian,
    therein lies our disconnect; I see freedom of speech as a human right.
    You see it a corollary, as a subset issue.
    And as such see any contrary speech as ‘hate speech’.
    It is not.
    Until you see that, acknowledge that, you are part of the problem.
    Bound by such logical errors you believe I speak an anti intellectualism.
    I do not.
    I speak for a strict and formal intellectualism borne of both lived experience and common sense. You just don’t see it. You mistake it for a abstraction because it’s easier for you to deal with; not because it’s right but because you are corrupted by the regressive strain, fallen prey to the ludicrous cultural Marxism infection.
    And for that malady I can offer no balm.
    This isn’t an argument from a Right wing ideologue; this is from a Leftie since before birth, on the streets selling Socialist Worker newspapers, ferreting money for conference attendance and talks, for literature, articles, seminars, guest speakers, overseas forums, debates, more articles, more debates, more uni hall speeches than I care to remember.

    If my critique has no weight then all is lost. If the legitimate, earnest critiques of those, like myself, makes no impression, then all is lost.

    To bequeath our ideological heritage to those, like yourself, pains me enormously.
    But on such capricious axes does History turn.
    And as such you will have your moment.
    You are in fact having your moment now. Right now.
    Speaking of which, how goes Trumpism and the Rightist rape of liberties fought for by our fathers and mothers?

    Do tell.
    Articulate your case Christian.
    I will read it.

17. Red LeafFebruary 11, 2017 at 6:19 pm

    Christian Marx, I did not say that I want to stop immigration. If you were able to set aside your ideological blinkers upon seeing the word, you would have read that I said we cannot have any reasoned discussion and debate on the topic because of the left’s hysterical name calling which shuts down the debate. Fascist left is not an oxymoron. The left is often seen to be authoritarian. undemocratic,, dictatorial and despotic. You see, I mention that we need a discussion on immigration and I am subjected to a lecture on why I am wrong to ask for it. Your assumption that I would even support American imperialism is totally out of the blue and not at all anything that any reasonable person could deduce from what I wrote. Stop labelling people who might disagree with you. There is nothing more I can say, my point has been made.

18. Red LeafFebruary 11, 2017 at 6:33 pm

    Christian Marx, calling people who disagree with you “shallow thinkers”, is unhelpful. You also assume that we lack education and knowledge. Why is that? that is not an attitude that encourages open and honest discussion, exchange of ideas and increases in knowledge or wisdom. That is unfortunately and sadly you are just symptomatic of the left’s current problems. No wonder Hansen and her ilk and surging ahead. Please don’t assume I would vote for them, I have been a solid Labor supporter since I was 11 years old and never voted for any other party. As I stated it is the current attitude that is causing me to rethink my own position and I can’t be the only one doing so. After all there is a limit as to how often one can put up with being insulted by the political side they support before they start doing some serious rethinking.

19. Christian MarxFebruary 11, 2017 at 6:49 pm

    Robert, do not pretend you are left wing. Your far right slogans such as “Cultural Marxism” expose your extremist nature.
    Food, shelter, education and health are a human right. The right to be a hateful bigot is not. This is the reason we have laws
    in this country to protect minorities from ridicule and prejudice. No doubt you are a robust fan of removing 18C. NO LEFT leaning person
    would speak the way you do. The left is all about protecting those less fortunate and fighting for equality. I see none of this in your writing.

20. Christian MarxFebruary 11, 2017 at 7:01 pm

    Red leaf, authoritarianism seems to be an obsession with the right. The ideology of neglect (Classical Liberalism) needs to be condemned and fought against.
    What I see as protecting people`s well being and safety you seem to think is authoritarian and despotic. Your words expose your agenda though. So as a “Labor’ supporter you are happy to vote for Hanson who is anti union, anti worker and anti immigration? It seems that immigration and “free speech” are more important to you than social cohesion, a robust social safety net and strong unions and workers rights. You are being disingenuous. Good day!

21. HarquebusFebruary 11, 2017 at 7:23 pm

    My sentiments entirely. The George Carlin quote sums it up neatly.

    It’s us or them.

    Cheers.

22. Red LeafFebruary 11, 2017 at 7:35 pm

    Christian Marx, I think you have missed both Robert’s point and mine. I am sorry to say, that your attitude is the problem that you are fighting against. You will not win without a good look in the mirror and an adjustment in your tone and treatment of other people. Again you are making assumptions about a writer’s political leanings based on a couple of ideas that you disagree with. You say that left is about equality, what about equality of ideas? Or is it that the left’s ideas are more equal than others?

23. Red LeafFebruary 11, 2017 at 7:42 pm

    Christian Marx, “authoritarianism seems to be an obbession with the right” are you sure? You seem to be demonstrating an authoritarian attitude. “So as a ‘Labor’ (see you are now calling me a liar) supporter you are happy to vote for Hansen.”
    Please, are you being serious here? Did I not write that I would not vote for her? Really Christian, you’re becoming a little hysterical here. You seem determined to paint me as a villain and crediting me with thoughts and attitudes that I simply have given you no reason to believe that I have. You are becoming absolutely ridiculous. I do hope other people reading this will see what the left is doing to itself and how they are demonising innocent people and turning people away with their outrageous and sinister assumptions. Good luck to you, you’re going to need it.

24. Robert G. ShawFebruary 11, 2017 at 9:08 pm

    Christian,
    your grasp of Left politics, social studies, and contemporary practice is appalling. Add to that your dishonorable and fallacious resort to questioning my political affiliations in an effort to discredit and avoid the points I’ve made, and you have one of the key reasons why my particular political battle is as much with the Left as it is with the Right.
    Do you know why we lose so often, as in the US recently?
    Because rather than consolidate our energies toward the single enemy, and confront them with a full compliment of our most formidable weaponry, our positive, ethical, economic and social policies, we waste time on apologizing for those idiotic Berkeley rioters, those fools who think that what our society needs right now, above all else, are another fifteen different pronouns for the LGBTQ community, for some vapid apparatchik who decides that free speech is only free to those of oppressed communities and no one else, for some imbecile who cannot distinguish between issues of real substance like health and education and instead turns out at a Trump rally and tosses a Hitler comparison to the gluttonous TV camera’s, or those dunderheads who think that calling Turnbull an assortment of child’s nicknames constitutes political critique, or those who think, poor sods, that the “Battler’s” Howard stole from under Labor’s nose will return with open arms at the announcement of some new climate change policy, etc, etc, etc….

    Christian, if you cannot take my critique, let alone a critique from those that utterly despise you, have you seen Catallaxy lately?, then our cause is done for.

    Your response here fills me with dread.
    Not surprise, I’m well past that, just simple unadorned dread.

25. JohnoFebruary 11, 2017 at 9:08 pm

    Christian..

    Good article, I agree with what you are saying.

26. silkwormFebruary 12, 2017 at 11:28 am

    Perhaps Robert Shaw can tell us who the right-wing ideologue was who addressed the Berkeley students. If he won’t, then I will.

27. Robert G. ShawFebruary 12, 2017 at 3:11 pm

    Right wing internet provocateur” Milo Yiannopoulos, Breitbart editor and journalist.

    silkworm, if you, or better yet, if Berkeley students, cannot rebut his politics, his provocations, without burning and smashing and No-Platforming, then they’ve got bigger problems, MUCH bigger problems, than Milo Y.

    If you can’t see that, then there’s nothing I can do for you.

    Perhaps you’d like to justify the No Platform and protest of these other ‘provocateurs’ – Greer, Maryam Namazie, Julie Bindel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who also had her honourary doctorate canceled by Brandeis)?

    Can you see the hypocrisy here silkworm?
    Can you see the concrete wall such imbecile tactics will drive us into, full speed and head-on?
    No, perhaps you can’t.

    Because you think that opinions contrary to your own should be unsayable, because you don’t believe in the positive power of your own intellect or the bearing of your own moral compass to confront and challenge and dispel. And so you end up blaming Yiannopolous for your inadequacies.
    Sad.

    You think that silencing ideas is the best way to eradicate them.
    It’s not.
    Ask an ostrich.

28. Red LeafFebruary 12, 2017 at 4:18 pm

    Has anyone here actually heard Milo Yiannopoulos’ speeches to the universities? He is more than just the headlines Hilary Clinton read out. Try listening to him if you really want to know what the other side is thinking. People who think like him cannot be dismissed simply as racists, bigots, white supremacists or whatever else is hurled at them. It’s young people who are listening to him, and who he is listening to. It’s young people the left needs to get on board. This current generation is more conservative than the last and it isn’t going to change till the left actually does some soul searching and realises that it is alienating them. Silencing ideas the left doesn’t like is censorship and most intelligent people don’t like that or want it.

29. David1February 12, 2017 at 4:28 pm

    Red Leaf, R Shaw…..here endeth the lesson. Are you taking the plate around, silver coins or notes?

30. Christian MarxFebruary 12, 2017 at 5:20 pm

    I have listened to Milo and he is a dangerous lunatic.

31. Robert G. ShawFebruary 13, 2017 at 6:41 am

    So let’s all burn, destroy property, throw bricks, throw Molotov cocktails, smash, assault, get shot by rubber bullets, get arrested for rioting, to show the world that we’re NOT ‘dangerous lunatics’?!?

    This is the kind of logic that puts our cause back a decade.
    This is the kind of logic that makes people, our real and prospective voters, recoil in disgust.
    This is the kind of logic that fuels Rightist attacks on us and energies their scorn and mockery.
    This is the kind of logic, predictable f*ckery that it is, that excites and helps rationalize the further attack on our rights by those like Bannon and Trump desperate to publicly, loudly, scald the Left.

    And yet this is the first line of rebuttal by those, like Christian Marx, who think they’re doing the work of the Left.

    With friends like you Christian, who needs enemies?

    ….

    I’m going to leave you now with this to ponder. It was the subject of an extended dinner party conversation last week. It’s my hope that you consider it, talk about it with your comrades, your facebook friends.

    It was this proposition from two seats to my left.
    Re: Berkeley rioting – the true definition of terrorism is the pursuit of political ends via violence.

    3 hours later we were still at it.

    ……

32. HarquebusFebruary 13, 2017 at 7:08 am

    Robert G. Shaw
    “if Berkeley students, cannot rebut his politics, his provocations, without burning and smashing and No-Platforming, then they’ve got bigger problems, MUCH bigger problems”
    I agree with this statement totally and support your advocating free speech. Shutting down sections of it It is totally okay with others until, it is their dissent that is stifled and it will be if left uncontested.
    Cheers.

33. ZathrasFebruary 14, 2017 at 12:06 am

    Anytime somebody tries to legitimise the Far Right I refer them to this site to illustrate the truth behind their beliefs and who their real power base is – http://www.rightwingwatch.org/

    They used to be just the crazy lobbyists behind the Republican Party but now they are their true representatives.

34. robinacreaserFebruary 23, 2017 at 11:55 am

    Red Leaf and Robert G Shaw, thank you both, for patiently and repeatedly, describing the problem. I too come from Labor-for-Life territory, but find myself completely alienated from the ‘Left’ – Politically Correct zealots, who have no real grasp of the broader political realities..
    Yes, Australia’s major parties sold-out to the Globalist-Elite long ago, abandoning the masses to penury and exclusion. The same is true across the Progressive West – and the intellectual-bourgeoisie are generally quite happy, for the un-PC bogan-sector, to be crushed underfoot.
    It seems only appropriate, that it now falls to Trump etal (and Putin) to save us, from this collapsing dystopia.

35. Kathy HeyneMarch 25, 2017 at 4:52 pm

    centrist
    ˈsɛntrɪst/

    noun
    1. The guy on your right who praises family values and John Howard.

36. Pingback: The Rise of the Far Right – Christian Marx – Papuq's Snippets

37. Matthew MalpeliApril 14, 2017 at 5:01 pm

    Q: What is conservatism?
    A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.

    Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
    A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world

    Until the left starts attacking them where it hurts it will continue to be lost against an opponent that is inherently deceitful.

    And brutishly attacking people on the left who object to the cruelty of animals, Christian, is a conservative’s trick. You should know better. That you don’t is all people need to know about you.

38. Dr Michelle FrantomJuly 28, 2018 at 10:02 am

    You nailed it. Thank you for this politically incorrect, ballsy article. It’s reassuring to know I have allies out there as the wave of neo-liberal evil sweeps human decency before it.