*Sigh*

... and now the ad hominem. You're really on a roll here tonight, aren't you ttbn?

Aidan,

Seriously, that hurt ! 'On the Right' ?! No, I haven't got there yet.

If we're talking about multiculturalism, I would have thought that exclusivist MC, involving segregation, different (and inferior) rights, and exclusion from opportunity, would have been hall-marks of a right-wing approach - while my preference for an inclusive MC would have met Left-wing criteria. Of course, many on the Left would support an exclusivist MC, believing in their charming and childish stupidity that it is somehow preferable, maybe because it is 'cultural' and therefore good. Poor dumb bastards.

It really is pointless these days to use terms like Right and Left. There are so many mixed stances - after all, in France, for example, it's possible that an extreme pseudo-Leftist, really a Trot, like Melenchon, is very likely to urge his first-round voters to vote for le Pen in the second round. i.e. Communists voting for a semi-Fascist. My mum reckoned once that that sort of thing happened sometimes in the 1930s, when she was a young communist: they worked with the New Guard to smash up Labor Party rallies, that sort of thing. Maybe I heard her wrong.

But it still smarts, Aidan :(

Joe

//You're really on a roll here tonight, aren't you ttbn?//

\\You're really a troll here tonight, aren't you ttbn?\\

Fixed.

Toni, I do believe it was monthly "waffle" night at the rest home, and the bingo did finished early. Unfortunately 'Nursey' didn't give ttbn his nightly sedative, just a double dose of laxative by mistake, we can now see the result!

Joe, we have talked about Left and Right previously, as I said then the French have a lot to answer for on that score. In the Australian political context I much prefer the terms Progressive and Conservative.

"in the 1930s, when she was a young communist: they worked with the New Guard to smash up Labor Party rallies, that sort of thing. Maybe I heard her wrong."

cont

cont

Joe, you did not hear wrong on that. I had many a long discussion with the 'Old Man' about the New Guard and particularly their hatred of Jack Lang the NSW Labor Premier, Dad was both a friend and strong supporter of Lang, Lang was also hated by the Communists, but for different reasons. He was in fact a vehement anti communists, but a socialists at the same time. There was a supposed New Guard plot to assassinate Lang as he drove himself home to Auburn late one night along the isolates Parramatta Road, the Primer drove himself around in his own car in those days, Lang had a unmistakable big black monster. There was also the famous incident when Francis De Groot of the New Guard slashed the ribbon before Lang could open the Sydney Harbor Bridge in 1932. The New Guard believed it was an insult to the King that the GG was overlooked by Lang to do the honors. The turbulent years of the 1930's seen the extremes of politics make strong inroads in Australia. Like for The British Fascists Party, events of 3rd September 1939 saw the New Guard evaporate. The New Guard had openly claimed Hitler was both a political messiqh, and social genius, and according to them, a man like Hitler was certainly what Australia needed at the time, to fix things up, as had been done in Germany! members spent a lot of time in working class pubs trying to sign up new recruits, and they had much success. If they had the internet in the 1930's I could see a few of the OLO forumites signing up and forming their own platoon.

Hi Paul,

Yes, I used to puzzle over how some intellectuals around 1920-1930 (like Sorel, G. B. Shaw, etc.) could praise both the Bolsheviks AND Mussolini's Fascists -I didn't realise that, from a certain perspective, they weren't all that different: they both stood for State power over-riding democracy (in the name of the people, of course), State control of production, they both had semi-mystical Utopian ideologies, they both crushed any dissent as 'against the people', i.e. against them, in the most brutal ways. In short, they were BOTH Fascist movements. One would think that all that might have occurred to Gramsci in his prison cell.

Senator Gichuhi is now an independent senator in her own right, and all legally above-board. I wish her well. Well, until she starts to go too 'conservative' - IF she does :)

We'll see: wouldn't be dead for quids !

Cheers,

Joe