smiths » Tue Sep 11, 2018 8:14 am wrote:Destruction of the ecological basis sustaining the present global civilization and human population level is not a conspiracy
Former PM of Australia as he was knifed from office in a bizarre coup
""The reality is that a minority in the party room supported by others outside the Parliament have sought to bully [and] intimidate others into making this change of leadership that they're seeking."
Who are those "outside the Parliament" who worked to remove him from the leadership?
"there is a campaign being waged against them ... News Corporation (Murdoch) [is] waging a war against the Prime Minister of Australia.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal ... 4zz7f.html
[snip]
In this country at least, there definitely has been a conspiracy to manipulate the public debate and understanding of climate science and the climate change crisis,
it has been run by the big mining companies and the coal lobby, and it it has used Murdoch and right-wing elements of the right-wing Liberal Party of Australia
attempts to deal with the mining lobby and teh coal lobby have cost 2 PM's their jobs
How is this a conspiracy? You just named the actors involved! You specified some of the means they employ. It's all legal. These are chartered shareholder and private corporations. Now I don't know if there were any violations of Australian law in the course of these actions, but I doubt it. You can be sure that when something like this was done in the U.S., the brokers doing it strive to keep it legal.
This is exactly what I mean when I say that "conspiracy" is the wrong frame for a larger understanding of power, which is right in front of you. I'm not saying ignore it, I'm saying adopt a language that actually describes it. (Hint: The c-word you are looking for is probably capitalism.)
Lobbying and political pressure and even backroom deals are not illegal. They are also not really secret, even if they are obscured and downplayed and misinterpreted in the corporate media. So they're not conspiratorial. If threats or inducements were delivered to certain parties involved in the decision to topple Turnbull, that might be illegal, but it also might not be. Conspiracy is still not the defining term. Framing it that way is a mystification that these powers-that-be will welcome. They will call you a "conspiracy theorist" to discredit you just for describing what you can see. But by using the label where it does not apply, you cede this ground to them freely. You do a massive disservice to understanding and the ability to fight back by accepting the enemy's attack label, especially where it does not apply.
Private lobby action in your country as in others effectively chooses the political leaders. These guys hang out together, sometimes (nowadays) even in front of papparazzi. They write the laws so that what they do is legal. Of course, criminal conspiracies may be involved as tools in these actions. They may also arise among networks within the power elite for personal gain or so as to pursue some outlandish vision. But most of the "vision" is not outlandish, it arises from the system dynamics and anyone can figure it out. (For example: Buy cheap, preferably by stealing it from the weak; sell dear, and advertise it; squeeze the labor; keep the repressive apparatus well-oiled. Keep the politicians in terror or at the money-teat.)
The central elements at work here are system ("mode of production" if you prefer). It has a logic. It results in a distribution of wealth and power among groups, which are usefully called classes, not conspiracies. Power is exercised mainly through institutional control. Probably the most important element is the continuing hegemony of capitalist ideology and its particular form of "democracy," which isn't. People accept that Murdoch owns your media, since he bought it legally. Probably most of the people who disagree with his politics still accept that it's his "freedom of speech" to run your society from the brainstem. He and his get to meet your politicians and their factotums all the time. That's disliked but accepted, at least as a fact of life.
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