By Dr George Venturini* Conclusions? This much is certain: no all purpose definition of Fascism is possible. Mussolini’s was born republican and anti-clerical, hired by land-owners and industrialists, for the repression of workers; soon turned monarchist, and corporatist. Fascism found a good bed to lay down with the Fascist Popes: Pius XI and Pius XII…
Source: The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Government experiment (Part 50) – »
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis (continued) 14 (Fraudulent elections) Strictly speaking, and barring some rare, isolated cases, there is no electoral fraud in Australia if by that one means ‘illegal interference with an election process’. None of the defining instances of ‘electoral fraud’ is present in Australia – not intimidation, vote buying, misinformation,…
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Rampant cronyism and corruption (continued) The Iraqi wheat-for-weapons scandal was set to reignite headlines again in 2016 with former Australian Wheat Board – A.W.B. chair Trevor Flugge due to face court in a lengthy civil trial examining his central involvement in the bribes controversy. A.W.B.’s…
Source: The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Government experiment (Part 47) – »
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Rampant cronyism and corruption (continued) The late Chalmers Johnson, reviewing a book by the already mentioned Emeritus Professor Sheldon S. Wolin, who for well over two generations taught the history of political philosophy from Plato to the present to Berkeley and Princeton graduate students, made…
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis (continued) 13 (Rampant cronyism and corruption) Cronyism and corruption have lived so long amongst humans that it is fair to say they preceded The Bible, where many precedents are recorded. This is not to say that in Australia cronyism and corruption are all around. Transparency International provides every…
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Obsession with crime and punishment (continued) Preventive detention and ‘control orders’ are the tools of fear-inducing State power. One such ‘control order’ was imposed for the first time in 2006 on an unfortunate Melbournian. A recent convert to Islam, he was on a visit to…
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Obsession with crime and punishment (continued) There are, it seems, no active union organisers – only “union thugs”. In 1998, during a protracted waterfront dispute, the Australian stevedoring workers were accused of costing the economy billions of dollars a year and to be denying others…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Government experiment (Part 42) –
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts (continued) In 1987 Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, the Country Party (Agrarian Socialists) longest-serving Premier of Queensland, delivered himself as follows: “The greatest thing that could happen to the state and the nation is when we can get rid of…
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis (continued) 10 (Power of labour suppressed or eliminated) During most of the twentieth century unions were the dominant force of Australian industrial life. For most of that time they were the point of convergence of many employees. Between 1914 and 1990 at least two in five workers were…
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