Excellent analysis - Sub-Imperial Power by Clinton Fernandes is a great book for people looking for greater theoretical clarity on Australia's relationship with America.
Marles is the perfect executor for AUKUS: a venal dullard, utterly bereft of imagination and easily manipulated. Bonus attributes for the required butt-kissing of Trump & his flunkies: he loves golf and is an unctuous toady.
I submit that this horrid behavior is likely less ignorance, and more disavowal. The Labor (Australia, Aotearoa, UK) and similar (Liberals in Canada, Democrats in US) governments this century have all been good cop to the opposition's bad cop. They have all moved towards authoritarianism, militarism, and Neoliberalism, but at a sufficiently slower rate to pretend to their more compassionate electorates that they are not the sociopaths they appear to be. These ostensibly 'leftist' but actually center right parties have long been more often complicit than not, in the sick bipartisan normalization of rightist ideology. They are not ignorant of their militarism, authoritarianism, and Neoliberalism. They are disavowing their bad behavior, and criminalizing protest of it, and hoping that the apathetic will believe, or at least tolerate it enough, to allow them to continue committing their crimes against humanity (like the G3n0c1d3 Convention & Arms Trade Treaty). History confirms this with countless examples:
'After a delay of more than half a century, the Commonwealth Government finally legislated in 2002 to make genocide a crime in Australia. Although the Government had been under domestic pressure to do so because of Indigenous issues, it was the establishment of an international criminal court with jurisdiction over the crime of genocide where a national jurisdiction is unwilling or genuinely unable to carry out an investigation or prosecution that finally prompted the Australian Government to act, and to do so in such a way as to avoid providing a basis for litigation on behalf of the ‘stolen generations’.'
I contend that the US and other occupying 'frenemy' states are less likely to force Australia to apply Human Rights laws, and more likely to threaten us to not enforce Human Rights laws.
Expect little external salvation from US or UK or EU or Russia or China or India, and therefore little UN salvation, as powerful Nation States chase personal power, and ignore fair global governance. So salvation must come from us, despite our passionate desire to avoid this thankless, endless responsibility.
I suggest we should each take our remaining opportunities to replace our toxic (ecological devastation, wars of aggression, Neoliberalism, sundry other dehumanization) duopolies with genuine ecologically-conservative, Human Rights-conservative, egalitarianism-conservative, and socially enlightened ('Progressive') parties like The Greens. I am confident that now is the best time remaining to us to prepare for the next elections, to prepare to replace the harm normalization of irredeemably corrupt duopolies with humane Parties and independents. Our bent good cop-bad cop duopolies have gotten impatient, and revealed how little they value democracy & Human Rights, in their push for swifter power consolidation over those they were lent power in order to fairly represent. Given the deterioration of democracy & media, it may even be a case of 'it's now or never' for those seeking to return worthwhile governance without bloodshed or decades-long peaceful campaigns.
Excellent analysis - Sub-Imperial Power by Clinton Fernandes is a great book for people looking for greater theoretical clarity on Australia's relationship with America.
https://open.substack.com/pub/callumscolumn/p/book-review-sub-imperial-power-by?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&shareImageVariant=overlay&r=6lwvok
Economically, China is more important to us than America, but our defence thinking has fallen behind economic reality.
Marles is the perfect executor for AUKUS: a venal dullard, utterly bereft of imagination and easily manipulated. Bonus attributes for the required butt-kissing of Trump & his flunkies: he loves golf and is an unctuous toady.
I submit that this horrid behavior is likely less ignorance, and more disavowal. The Labor (Australia, Aotearoa, UK) and similar (Liberals in Canada, Democrats in US) governments this century have all been good cop to the opposition's bad cop. They have all moved towards authoritarianism, militarism, and Neoliberalism, but at a sufficiently slower rate to pretend to their more compassionate electorates that they are not the sociopaths they appear to be. These ostensibly 'leftist' but actually center right parties have long been more often complicit than not, in the sick bipartisan normalization of rightist ideology. They are not ignorant of their militarism, authoritarianism, and Neoliberalism. They are disavowing their bad behavior, and criminalizing protest of it, and hoping that the apathetic will believe, or at least tolerate it enough, to allow them to continue committing their crimes against humanity (like the G3n0c1d3 Convention & Arms Trade Treaty). History confirms this with countless examples:
'After a delay of more than half a century, the Commonwealth Government finally legislated in 2002 to make genocide a crime in Australia. Although the Government had been under domestic pressure to do so because of Indigenous issues, it was the establishment of an international criminal court with jurisdiction over the crime of genocide where a national jurisdiction is unwilling or genuinely unable to carry out an investigation or prosecution that finally prompted the Australian Government to act, and to do so in such a way as to avoid providing a basis for litigation on behalf of the ‘stolen generations’.'
https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AUJlHRights/2004/22.html
I contend that the US and other occupying 'frenemy' states are less likely to force Australia to apply Human Rights laws, and more likely to threaten us to not enforce Human Rights laws.
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/un-experts-statement-08aug25/
Expect little external salvation from US or UK or EU or Russia or China or India, and therefore little UN salvation, as powerful Nation States chase personal power, and ignore fair global governance. So salvation must come from us, despite our passionate desire to avoid this thankless, endless responsibility.
I suggest we should each take our remaining opportunities to replace our toxic (ecological devastation, wars of aggression, Neoliberalism, sundry other dehumanization) duopolies with genuine ecologically-conservative, Human Rights-conservative, egalitarianism-conservative, and socially enlightened ('Progressive') parties like The Greens. I am confident that now is the best time remaining to us to prepare for the next elections, to prepare to replace the harm normalization of irredeemably corrupt duopolies with humane Parties and independents. Our bent good cop-bad cop duopolies have gotten impatient, and revealed how little they value democracy & Human Rights, in their push for swifter power consolidation over those they were lent power in order to fairly represent. Given the deterioration of democracy & media, it may even be a case of 'it's now or never' for those seeking to return worthwhile governance without bloodshed or decades-long peaceful campaigns.