Jay,

Trotsky's greatest (doesn’t mean good) and most original contribution to Marxism was his theory of Permanent Revolution. I agree, Marxism is at the root of Feminism.

I don’t know if you watched Q & A on Monday night. I myself had given up on the show as it has just become same old, same old, and never any genuine debate about anything. I just happened to watch it as Nick Caver was on the panel. He is a senior editor of the Australian has written a book called “The Lucky Culture and the Rise of an Australian Ruling Class”. He is an English man who escaped the class structures there so has found Oz very refreshing and hence given him more opportunies. With Tony Jones and that awful Sarah Hanson-Young was on it, and Nick became dead meat. He was pilloried by these two. This was the very thing he had written about. Tony and Sarah are clear examples of the new elite. The Latte Sipping crowd – the Progressives/Post Modern Liberals. We are no longer able to have freedom of genuine intellectual debate about anything anymore.

I have a nephew who is an honors graduate from Sydney University and also studied in Paris as part of his degree. He is currently rapidly climbing up in the public service. He is one of these elites that Nick Caver talks about. I’m afraid he has been brainwashed. He has also been taught to be self-loathing of our own disappearing Australian culture. Including no larrikins are permitted and the sus cultural relativism that comes with it. They really do look at themselves as being morally superior.

I’m neither really left or right. The closest political philosophy I can ally with is “South Park Conservative” or Libertaranism. Matt Stone and Trey Parker (or at least one of them) who hate extremists of any kind, but the ones they really deplore are today’s (so called) Liberals - the Progressives who are in fact hardly Liberal at all.

Not exactly, Constance.

>>Hitler did say, "The bigger the lie…the more people will believe it"<<

What he actually wrote was:

"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true within itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."

Mein Kampf, Ch 10. Trans: James Murphy.

The interesting thing about this was that it was not an exhortation to his people to lie, but was directed at the Jews, whom he accused of promulagating the lie that Ludendorff was to blame for Germany's loss of WWI.

Goebbels later shortened this concept somewhat, to:

"The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous."

In both cases, the idea was used as a verbal stick with which to berate the enemy, and can therefore easily be taken for pure propaganda, rather than an intellectual observation.

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Dear Constance,

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You wrote:

"Why on earth have you brought up Darwinism? I don’t mean to be rude but you seem to be a bit of an old dinosaur in your thinking ... how can you ignore even recent history ..."

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That's quite a diatribe, Constance. I suspect you are still fulminating, even in your sleep (given the time difference between Paris and Sydney).

From dinosaurs to newly formed legislations - you have certainly encapsuled much more than just "recent history".

It seems to me that what you are describing here is social, political and economic evolution.

Evolution, which originally derived from the Latin "volva" (womb, female sex organ), was coined in the 1640's. Darwin's "Origin of the Species" was published in 1859.

All Darwinism may well be evolution (though I am not familiar with everything he wrote), but all evolution is certainly not Darwinism.

I did not "bring up Darwinism" and, in my humble opinion, you did not either.

Have no fear, you were not being rude. You were simply making an amalgam between evolution and Darwinism - an understandable Fraudian juggernaut reaction.

You also wrote:

"You can’t take freedom for granted these days. Anything can happen."

Don't look behind now, Constance, but you should never have taken it for granted before either.

Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, the elite, the plebs, socialists, extremists, all those whom you mentioned and many more continue to haunt our memories - and yet you write:

[ “Utopia/dystopia” - yes, dystopia is possible. You are not considering real history. ]

I never suggested that "real history" was dystopia (nor vice versa). I trust that you do not either.

I did, however, express serious doubt that New World Orders are attributable to international conspiracies which was the thesis of Jay of Melbourne you were defending.

I bow to Pericles's erudition on the phrase you attributed to Hitler: "the bigger the lie…the more people will believe it".

Allow me simply to observe that, in my opinion, the same priciple applies "the bigger the truth". The difficulty resides in identifying one from the other.

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Dear Constance,

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You also wrote:

"I hear the French have become émigrés in about the past 8 years or so ... Now they are becoming a socialist state by the sounds of things. Unemployment, not too good?"
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As a foreign resident in France, I abstain from French politics. As I am a member of an association called ABIE (Australian Business In Europe) I often attend meetings at the embassy with visiting Australian ministers, bankers, business leaders, cineastes, artists etc.

There are a couple things about identity I am particularly attached to. One is being a male. The other is being Australian. Though I have been living here for nearly half a century, I have never changed either and never shall.

One night in "Harry's Bar" my (French) boss told me that if I wanted to accede to the General Management of the Group, I should change my nationality from Australian to French. I swallowed my beer and replied that I should be happy to do so if he agreed to change his sex from a man to a woman.

That was over 20 years ago. He is still a man and I am still Australian.

Excuse the diversion. European governments and politicians, no doubt, have their part of responsibility in their countries economic woes but it is not a question of left or right, socialists, communists, centrists, liberals or conservatives. They all have their share of responsibility. None has been any better than any of the others.

The banks choked on the US toxic derivatives that flooded into Europe in 2007. Governments came to their rescue by borrowing huge sums of money on the international market, creating mountains of sovereign debt.

Banks no longer trusted each other and stopped lending money to industry and commerce. The economy collapsed. Research and development ceased. Investment ceased. Growth ceased. Unemployment sky-rocketed.

Australia was saved by the mining boom but that's now on its last legs. And, maybe, Australian banks will no longer be able to hide their own toxic derivatives indigestion:

http://cecaust.com.au/main.asp?sub=releases&id=2013_02_22_CBA_Hiding.html

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Whilst legalising Gay Marriage in Australia may not resolve the debate, is this truly the aim of marriage equality?
Gay and Lesbian couples throughout Australia are asking for equal rights before the law. They do not want to be discriminated against and denied their dignity and worth. Marriage is about love, not gender.
Homosexual couples are not asking to be accepted / married by the church, only the law. As this is Australia, and a modern day at that, religion and law should be clearly seperated.
There will be outcries and continuing debate that rages on after same sex marriage is legalised, but there was the same for inter-racial marriage way back when.
The world is moving forward, recent statistics show that 65% of Australians support same-sex marriage, and 75% of us believe it is inevitable.
Therefore, there may be ongoing debate but wouldnt this be from the minority of the Australian population??

Banjo Patterson

Gobbledygook. Your admiration of Pericles says much. He is intellectually bankrupt and utterly pretentious. And doesn’t seem to believe in anything I think because he’s caught up in his own ego.

“I never suggested that "real history" was dystopia (nor vice versa). I trust that you do not either” ? I never implied this. I’m saying the way things are going, ie the Elitists’ power and control would likely bring us into some sort of dystopia - such as totalitarianism/communism. There are no incentives for private enterprise anymore and there is censorship on anyone speaking their mind. We cannot say anything as it really is.

You have diverted from the crux of my argument and end up talking about some French bloke not turning into a woman. With your namesake it doesn’t make much sense as Aussies are egalitarian to the core. Parisiennes don’t have a reputation of arrogance for nothing. When I visited Paris a few years back, I attained a deeper understanding of the word bourgeois. And they just may be disengaged from the rest of France just like you and Pericles are from reality.

Well seeing you’re part of the Bourgeoisie elite we’re not ever going to have any meaningful discourse, are we?

Here is an example of what’s been going on when the Labor Party lost its soul:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/my-party-was-trashed-by-the-middle-class/story-fn59niix-1225910722814

This is not a conspiracy. We are not living in democracies, more like PLUTOCRACIES.

We are losing our freedoms.