“ ….increasingly, the political reality of the West is replicating that of authoritarian regimes….”

Albanese Australia is certainly guilty of that. And all the silly gimme, gimme voters are enabling the process. There will be no “revolutions and movements” from them while the bribes are so good. And when the money runs out, it will be too late.

In American mythology, the individual tower against oppression of the unjustness of the system was Davey Crockett: in Australia our own ubiquitous Ned Kelly.
In America, Crockett was embraced, in Australia, Kelly was ostracised.
Today, Trump leads a revolution against criminal entrenchment of the political system, today in Australia, no courageous individual is on the horizon.

It has been suggested that Australia needs a new party like the UK's Reform; a party not “afraid of its history, its power, its glory, or even its own shadow”.

A mixture of One Nation and the Nationals comes to mind.

Australia's current two-party system is stagnant.

Right now we have a deadbeat government. We are more isolated, irrelevant and insignificant on the world stage now than we have ever been.

Australia is behind the rest of the world.

Australia is not a serious country.

WTF?
Why select Davey Crocket as an example of someone fighting against injustice?

His take on injustice waxed and waned so much it can hardly be described as towering.

He hunted native Americans and then later advocated on their behalf.

He went to Texas as a mercenary hoping to be granted land as payment.
The anglo-Texas often came from Southern states with their slaves. Mexico had outlawed slavery and this is arguably a major cause of the uprising. Hardly a just cause.

Crocket's inconsistency is identifying injustice is, however, mirrored in the current inconsistency of justice that the see in the U.S. today.

As for Ned Kelly? An Irish-Australian killing Irish-Australian police officers was just the sort of distraction those in power needed.

This article’s a good example of what happens when you confuse complexity with conspiracy and fetishize invisibility.

Like a true conspiracy theorist, Ala has taken the messiness of modern politics and reinterpreted it all as evidence of a grand, scripted illusion controlled by an invisible elite. Evidence-free, guided only by suspicion and paranoia.

The “three layers” metaphor sounds very clever and scholarly until you realise it’s just a dramatic way of saying, “There are things happening behind the scenes.”

No kidding.

That doesn’t mean it’s all fake or centrally orchestrated by some faceless producer in the shadows. It just means politics involves more than what’s on the front page.

And comparing the Covid response to a “movie-like stunt” isn’t just wrong - it’s offensive to the people who lived through the chaos, the health workers who bore the brunt of it, and the families who lost loved ones. Public messaging and policy coordination during a crisis isn’t proof of conspiracy - it’s basic governance. Clumsiness and inconsistency are going to be inevitable, too, in a global and unprecedented event.

Ala’s entire worldview rests on the idea that because something isn’t fully visible, it must be sinister. Not a lick of critical thinking in sight. He’s not unearthing the truth here, he’s spinning stories where power is always untouchable, politics is always a performance, and nothing can ever be real unless he’s the one revealing it.

If you want to critique political dysfunction, there’s plenty to work with. It may not be as exciting as a good conspiracy, but it would at least be real.

"The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Illuminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.”
Alan Moore

It might have been just possible to get away with claiming a guiding hand behind western politics a few decades ago. There wasn't, but it was possible to imagine it. But technology has wiped all that away. X and Facebook and all the others allows the masses to by-pass whatever levers of power exist. Even authoritarian regimes struggle to keep the truth (or at least the alternate truth) from their people. (Iran is now trying, unsuccessfully, to stop their people accessing Starlink.)

We humans want to believe there is order to things. That somewhere somehow there is control and purpose. Its why we have created an omnipotent deity. Its why there are untold volumes written trying to decide what is the meaning of life.

But the reality is its messy. Its out of control.... but still marches forward - usually