Do I inhabit a fascist nation?

For various reasons I spend lately more time as an internet consumer than producer. 'Social' media, while suggesting productive engagement, works mainly to let time pass. Luckily I came across an old-fashioned webpage with some characteristics of fascism.

As I think most, if not all of them apply to Australia in 2015, I take the artistic freedom to provide some thoughts on each of the given points.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

Australia celebrates their participation in wars as cannon fodder for either the British or the US Empire as national holidays. There's Anzac Day, Long Tan Day, something about Gallipolli, and 'Australia Day' celebrates the illegal acquisition of an entire continent by means of on-going genocide of more than 600 nations since 1788.

It's funny to see so many flags in this country, being a remote island nation. I would be surprised if island tribes bother coming up with a flag. What an ingenious meme of the Brits, using a piece of cloth as symbol of power. It's a piece of 'black' magic.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

The policy of indefinite detention for refugees, the policy of 'stopping the boats', incarcerating children in detention camps, the entire concept of 'off-shore detention centers', the planned removal of more than 150 remote indigenous communities in Western Australia, the data retention laws speak a very clear language here. Not too mention UN reports published about Australia's Human Rights violations.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

'Stop the boats!' was the official election slogan, islamophobia justifies many civil liberties restrictions. Sydney was the first place to stop air traffic for a hostage situation - the Sydney siege build up the vague concept of 'terrorism' as common threat, just like subscribed by Orwell in 1984.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

Some Japanese fighter planes made it to the Northern Shores of Australia during WW2, but the invasion threat since then is quite minimal. That didn't stop the current government spending $12 billion on 58 fighter planes last year. Not too mention the increase in US military personnel in Darwin and in Pine Gap. Did I mention the Dawn parade for ANZAC day (or whatever let's celebrate slaughtering innocents for profits and call it just war holiday).

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

There was only one woman in the government's set of ministers. The PM himself, known to have a strong misogynic touch, announced himself as minister for women's affairs. Of course, gay marriage can not be tolerated. If you have a chance seeing an interview with PM when asked about homosexuality, you get a free time travel into the Dark Ages.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

Media ownership works more than governmental influence in this case. Murdoch makes and breaks the political puppets of the corporatist system. However, 'national security' is now the get-into-jail-card for journalists who dare to have an eye on those in power. As one of the first ways to 'stop the boats', the current government declared any incidents with refugee boats a matter of national security, and effectively censored any non-government approved reporting.

Just two days ago, blocking of torrent sites increased the level of everyday censorship in this country.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

Lots of elements threaten the 'Australian Way of life' - everyone could be a terrorist! Latest PR stunt I recall asked for the removal of citizenship for terror suspects, yet I certainly mentioned national security earlier here.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

The current PM not only promotes his take on Christian values (Would Jesus have let any refuge in? I don't think so.), but also likes to compare himself to the person praised by his follower as their 'saviour'. And while alleged child abuse was repeatedly used to justify the genocidal act of closing indigenous communities, stealing their children and reeducating them in 'white' families or in Christian orphanages, the PM still confirms his friendship with Bishop George Pell, a confirmed child abuser.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

The mining industry pays hardly any taxes, doesn't employ many people, acts ecologically totally irresponsibly yet nevertheless directs many ecocidal decisions the government had chosen. The current PM went so far to claim that 'Coal is the future for Australia. Coal is the future for the world.' In WA, some of the oldest artefacts made by our current race have been destroyed to make a quick mining buck. 

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

Unions can now be held liable for perceived profit losses if they do their job and organise strikes or pickets. The union asking for adhering to safety standards, after a collapsing wall on a GROCON site killed a pedestrian, has to pay $3.5 million for the picket. Not an elimination of labor unions, just a suppression.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

The current government doesn't need a Ministry for science, so they abolished it. At the moment, severe funding cuts for art in community and education take place. No arrests yet, as far as I know.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

Law enforcement can now legally store all your communication meta data, inspect the communications if they deem it necessary, hack your communications devices, break into your house, create evidence, use created evidence against you. Anti-terror laws make everyone a suspect, the Magna Carta doesn't count for anything anymore.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

The PM's daughter, most likely as act of cronyism, got sponsored by a university. The employee bringing this act favoritism into the public got sued. I guess an investigation into the current treasurer will bring lots of evidence that this is more than hearsay. PS: The speaker of the house, Bronwyn Bishop, has been caught spending lots of taxpayers money for private pleasures. Of course, the current PM protects her.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

I'm really not sure about this one. Besides the manipulation of the Murdoch press, I can't vouch for open manipulation. Finally, a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. I'm happy than happy to discuss this with anyone still believing in the fairytale of democracy in Australia.

Human nature

Language acts like a virus, especially once we enter the level of abstraction. While we might learn from General Semantics, or Rene Magrittes famous painting 'Ceci n'es pas une pipe', that even words describing tangible objects fail to capture the suchness of the worded item, abstractions lead us to a dive in truly murky waters.

We pave the road to misunderstandings elegantly when talking about all sort of -isms, as no-one can define those terms with authority and accuracy, albeit many claim to do exactly that. In most real life situations, people insist that 'everyone knows' what communism, socialism, capitalism, feudalism etc. means, and whether or not one abstract category fits into another.

Unless we become aware of the inherent inability of using language to describe our individual and shared experience, we are held captive in Plato's cave, and might easily get angry at those who have seen the light of day. That doesn't stop us from attempting to communicate verbally, and luckily in a majority of cases that still works out sufficiently for survival and even enjoyment.

Since Occupy Wall Street happened, the term 'human nature' became a highly popular confusing term to argue either for or against specific ways to organise society. Although all of us have our very own way of perceiving the world around us, and although language with its multiple levels of abstractions makes it challenging to pinpoint some agreeable ideas about 'human nature', I want to give it a shot.

The black-and-white perspective on human nature seems most popular, describing humans as inherently 'good' or inherently 'evil'. I guess most peoples experience rather shows them that some people act without the intent of harming others, and other do. Of course, even 'bad' people do some 'good', and vice versa. Using the black-and-white approach fails from the start to provide a framework that could be backed up by experience, no matter how much one wishes for people to fit into this worldview.

Modern psychology uses the Bell curve as a tool to describe the distribution of human traits. This approach seems much more appropriate to approach 'human nature' than the moralistic ideas lingering around in the dualistic approach of either 'good' or 'evil'.

Bell curve (normal distribution)

A lot of the categories we use in language compare to boxes, especially if we think in mutually exclusive categories (good/evil). Let's put the thinking in boxes aside for a while, and take the above image as a better representation of human nature, with potentially 'good' and 'evil' on the flat ends of the curve. If an axis 'willingness to do harm' exists in human nature, only a few percent fall into the extremes of psychopathy or saints, the rest will simply do whatever they perceive as 'normal'.

The origin of the idea of government, however, links back to the idea that humans can't be trusted, and need protection from each other. This meme spread first via religion (born in original sin), and was then happily reinforced by more secular forms of government which basically acted like parents for entire populations. The expressions 'fatherland' and 'motherland' remind us of the generally parental character of nationhood. 

As humans, we are individual expressions of consciousness, sui generis, and as such share some elementary needs. Besides that, we are pretty unpredictable most of the time, which makes life so interesting. A minority of humans lacks the ability of empathise, and therefor feels no remorse when harming others. How we can we deal with those individuals?

Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer. In tribal societies, shamans held the responsibility to identify those individuals, and prevent them from harming the rest of the group. People with psychopathic predisposition don't turn automatically into monsters, and can still fulfil useful functions within their community. You might have noticed the absence of shamans in modern society, which happened unlikely just coincidentally.

Without anyone in the position to identify and keep psychopaths in check, they can basically do whatever they like. After killing or removing shamans as safe guards for communities, they could spread fear with impunity. And they used the fear they spread to demand even more power and less control for themselves. 

Has anyone ever wondered why an individual murderer bears the full brunt of punishment society can offer, while president Obama signs off kill list as regular routine task? We live in a world run by psychopaths, which used violence to implement systems of government that create heaven on Earth for themselves and other psychopaths. Being only a minority, this means hell for the rest of us. 

As a majority of humanity can be described as relative gullible, they perpetuate this mad system that harms the rest of humanity, many other forms of life on this planet and the planet itself. This has several motivations. (hey, we're all individuals), which potentially collapse into the erratic believe that human nature is inherently 'good' or 'evil'. As long as we believe in the validity of this construct, psychopath will maintain control over the rest of the population.

If ones believe that we're inherently 'good', then she/he will fall for any intentional lie. If government harms the environment or other people, it is 'for the greater good'. If one believes that we're inherently 'evil', their fear will ask for protection, even from themselves. Just when one understands that we cannot generalise this aspect of human nature, the opportunity arises to reign in the psychopathic elements in society without converting it into a prison for all but the psychopaths.

Humans can adapt probably better than any other species to their environment. Humanity survived much longer without the illusion of government than with it. Well, maybe we managed to get to this historical water shed moment before, and just wiped out the memory of it by nearly extinguishing our species. We have seemingly unlimited learning potential, as individuals and as community. We can create a world that shares the resources of this planet, and allows 100% of humanity to survive and prosper. 

If we don't do it, the cosmos might giggle in schadenfreude about the failed human experiment, or feel sad about its end, or remain equanimous as the universe continues to exist.  

max blues

Networks of violence

exist in loud silence

doing their dirty job

fighting for the the top.

Watching people pass by

some upfront, some shy

I wonder if peace has gone

and brutality has finally won.

With more and more oppression

less space is left for compassion,

people act just like machines

and might blame their evil genes.

Yet there's nothing to lose,

once you learn to choose.

Gay politics

The Age reports today about a young man being charged for blackmail. He had filmed himself having sex with a politician and threatened to put the video on the internet. While I do not suggest that blackmail is okay, we don't know whether he asked for money or love (most blackmailing is emotional, and never makes it to any court).

The 'victim' of the attempted blackmail attack remains unknown, we just hear that he is a 'married senior political figure', while the offenders details lie in plain sight. While Jake tried to 'out' this politician, he got outed by The Age. But maybe Jake doesn't mind if others know about his sexual identity.

So the same action, informing a wider range of people of one's preference for sex partners of the same gender, gets one person into trouble (for just trying it) while it fills happily the top of page 3 in The Age. It seems though that Jake didn't hide his sexual identity, unlike his lover for 5 month. He used a false identity during their relationship, not to mention the fact of his marriage.

A society, in which blackmailing about sexual identity still happens, deserves the label sexual repressive. This repression goes so far that representatives of the government deliberately deceive its constituents about their sexual orientation, they betray their churches by ridiculing their vow of marriage. (Of course, I imply here that the black mail victim is only one of the gay politicians playing a similar charade, not just a solitary bad apple)

Jake's career took a dent after his attempt to regain his relationship, make some extra money or what ever his motives were. The 'senior political figure' remains unknown, unharmed, protected by the secrecy of a feudalistic administration, that covers for his lies to his voters and spiritual community.

Representative democracy is based on trust, not on control. Control exists only for commoners, who are by definition potential terrorists, but not for those in control. National security, ie. the integrity of the network of parasites sucking the population dry, is the common excuse why politicians get granted privacy even for their lies and crimes, while the governments satellites can zoom into any property.

Let's call Jake's gay lover Kevin for simplicities sake. (Yes, like Kevin Rudd. No, I don't think he did it. Which doesn't mean it couldn't imagine Kevin Rudd doing something similar. I saw a photo of him snuggling one of the bushfire victims, a little boy, who looked less than comfy.) Kevin probably found out early in his life that boys made him happier in bed than girls. But in homophobic Australia career comes only with traditional family, so he got used to live different lifes.

Networking, the essential component in the existance of a political parasite, takes lots of time. This allows for plenty of excuses to do something entirely different, constructing realities/stories to meet the expectations of the environment becomes a skill. If Kevin manages to hide his sexual identity even from his spouse (which some gays manage to do) he fits into the profile of a pathological liar. If his wife is complicit, he qualifies as skilled conspiritor, willing to cooperatively deceive those around him.

I fail to find a decent explanation why someone should trust Kevin. His voters might be sufficiently homophobic not to vote for him just because of his sexual orientation (very likely imho), and he lied to them. He lied as well on his wedding ceremony, vowing monogamy. The separation between private and public life is similarly inadequate like the separation of mind and body - if a person's private life requires the regular construction of lies and deception, then we can safely assume the use of similar strategies in public life.

Kevin trusts someone, even more, Kevin networked with a lot of people exchanging 'dark secrets' to secure each other favours in time of need. Finding out the competitors bets for a tender can make building one's house cheaper, or get access to unusual areas of entertainment. Doing things outside the law for the network strengthens its bonds.

So when his little bitch came back to him, he knew that his name would not surface. The network of psychopaths would not let him fall.