******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
In Australia, the "threat" of the far right as represented by Pauline Hanson's One Nation performs, I would argue, the function of the Bad Cop to the Good Cop. We are meant to soil our pants at the thought of a groundswell to One Nation and so we miss, for instance, the clear and present danger that both political parties are committed to neoliberal economics (though Labor are showing small signs of movement here). During the term of the Federal Labor government (1983-1996), the bad cop was the so-called New Right which we were all supposed to be terrified of while the Federal Labor Party put in place the key elements of the neoliberal program. The Trade Union movement went along with the Labor government and not surprisingly has gone into precipitous decline. comradely Gary On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > One last thing: I am not downplaying the threat of right-wing politics and > racism in America. Donald Trump is the president, after all. But I tend to > think that the biggest threats from the right come from the Republican > Party, not the Klan and the Dominionists and the neo-Nazis and whatever > Richard Spencer’s thing is called. (Even Spencer’s hometown hates him.) And > when we fixate on the outright fascists, the people who have “organized > street forces,” we are missing the more significant threat, which comes > from the halls of state capitol buildings. You can (and should) care about > both threats, of course, but it’s important to keep them in proportion, to > weight each in accordance with its power and consequences. And it’s not > that Berlet and Wilson are necessarily wrong that the white supremacists > are rising, it’s that they are not trustworthy guides, because they don’t > respond to the tough questions or show an instinct for self-criticism. And > that’s why I think it’s perfectly fair for us to say that the state of the > far right is unknowable. It’s unknowable because those who study it don’t > seem committed to evaluating it cautiously. > > https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/08/why-we-dont-like-hyst > erical-journalists > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt > ions/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
