Tag Archives: authoritarianism

Sydney University – exposed for what it is

Posted on by under Australian culture, Australian servility, authoritarianism, Capitalist ideology, convict culture, Western supremacism, White supremacism
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Protesters throw a statue of slave trader Edward Colston into the Bristol harbour this week

Natassia Chrysanthos, ‘Subjects on US slavery and fascism slated for cuts at Sydney University’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 11.06.20

History subjects about the making of the US, American slavery, fascism and anti-fascism are nominated to be cut from the University of Sydney’s arts and social sciences faculty due to budget-saving measures. …

It comes as the statues of slave traders are torn down in Britain and thousands worldwide protest against police brutality in the Black Lives Matter movement, after the death of George Floyd in the United States.

History student Annabel Pettit said she was hoping to study American slavery next semester.

“It feels like a vital time to be thinking critically, and learning as much as we can about what has led us to this particular moment in history,” she said.

“It’s disappointing news to hear as a student, and deeply concerning given the current global anti-racist movement and the upcoming US election.”…

Seventy history students have written to the arts and social sciences dean, Annamarie Jagose, petitioning to save the subjects.

“These are vital subjects to study in a world where the mass Black Lives Matter movement has been threatened by the US President with military action to disperse protesters,” they wrote.

Senior history lecturer David Brophy said students felt they were being denied the opportunity to study topics that were “really important at this point”.

“It’s not a good time for Sydney to be weakening its offerings in these areas,” he said. “We’re in the middle of a global uprising against racism centred in America, and we’re stripping away these units that speak directly to the current context.

“There’s also an intense discussion that’s sparked up again about the way we speak about history, the debate about the commemoration of figures involved in slavery. They would normally be expected to attract significant interest in a time like this.” …

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The state is under threat! Bushfires and state sponsored fear

Posted on by under Australian culture, authoritarianism, Capitalist ideology

What causes bushfires?

The warning is out for tomorrow, at least right across NSW – we will be facing the ‘catastrophic’ threat of fire. Many schools will close! Keep to the cities! Keep out of national parks! etc. etc.

I have never read and heard the word ‘catastrophic’ so often as I have over the last couple of days – the media is full of it – and the only cause referred to is climate change.

The message appears to be totally rational. But that it is not is indicated by what is totally absent from this relentless fear-mongering – the least mention, questioning or discussion of fire/these fires being caused by human action, particularly deliberate.

From the Australian govt./Australian Institute of Criminology website: ‘It is estimated that 50 percent of fires are either deliberately lit or suspicious in origin as shown in Figure 1.’ Figure 1 itself (above) is even more interesting – it shows that at least 85% of the causes of fires in Australia are human related – 13% deliberately, with another 37% ‘suspicious’ and 35% ‘accidental’.

Why the urgent drum-beat of this co-ordinated fear campaign, and why now?

Is this a trial run for something much bigger, later?

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This is the Australia I know – a racist, authoritarian culture gagging on its ‘decency’

Posted on by under Australian culture, convict culture, White supremacism

Video of the tear-gassing of a child in prison

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What provokes a convict spirit and fills it with the desire for revenge?

Posted on by under Australian culture, Australian shame, Capitalist ideology, tall poppy syndrome

Another Aussie, any Aussie, who refuses to ‘know their place.’

‘I see an independent spirit in your eyes. Go away or I will crush it.’

The same disease – ‘tall poppy syndrome’: ‘I’m on my knees looking up. I will ensure that you kneel, not stand, beside me.’

The origins of this lie in the underbelly of a developing English capitalism in the 18th century – authoritarian, exploitative, brutal.

Edward Backhouse ‘A chain gang, convicts going to work near Sidney [sic], New South Wales’, etching, 1843, National Library of Australia. Text below image: ‘You may save or print this image for research and study. If you wish to use it for any other purposes, you must declare your Intention to Publish.’

Edward Backhouse ‘A chain gang, convicts going to work near Sidney [sic], New South Wales’, etching, 1843, National Library of Australia. Text below image: ‘You may save or print this image for research and study. If you wish to use it for any other purposes, you must declare your Intention to Publish.’

Branding of a convict during transportation to Australia in the 19th century.

Branding of a convict during transportation to Australia in the 19th century.

‘Salt bath’ torture of a convict after being flogged, during transportation to Australia in the 19th century.

‘Salt bath’ torture of a convict after being flogged, during transportation to Australia in the 19th century.

 

A convict ploughing team breaking up ground at a farm at Port Arthur, Tasmania, 1926

A convict ploughing team breaking up ground at a farm at Port Arthur, Tasmania, 1926

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aboriginal prisoners on Rottnest Island, 1920s

Aboriginal prisoners on Rottnest Island, Western Australia, 1920s

An Aboriginal chain gang, c. 1900, going to work at Wyndham, Wester Australia. The guard is on the extreme right.

An Aboriginal chain gang, c. 1900, going to work at Wyndham, Western Australia. The guard is on the extreme right.

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Images from top: 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th/6th

Question Authority: The Need for Anti-Authoritarians in the Medical Profession

Posted on by under Culture

Hello Michael,

I actually posted a long comment before I reblogged your excellent post but when I clicked ‘Post Comment’ my modem crashed and the comment was lost.

Given the worth and importance of your post I will do that comment again.

A few weeks ago there was a show, ‘At Their Mercy’, on Australia’s ABC Four Corners, on authoritarian abuse in the medical profession in Australia.

Young trainee surgeons spoke about the vicious bullying they had experienced from senior surgeons and of that behaviour being endemic in their profession. One spoke of having been pushed to the brink of suicide.

Another (then) trainee female surgeon told of her supervising surgeon inviting her back to his office and once there, inviting her to go down on him (sic).

She reported him and immediately found herself faced by a wall of authoritarianism. She took action against him and won compensation but she will never be able to work in a public hospital again.

When she spoke on the show (and I think this was now some years after the above events) she was still clearly deeply offended by his betrayal and behaviour and clearly traumatised.

She is also highly respected and valued by her patients, several of whom spoke about her.

A senior female surgeon (a few weeks before the Four Corners show) was reported in the media as having said that if she had been advising the young surgeon, she would have told her for the sake of her career that she should have given him a blow job (sic). Can you believe that?

That senior female vascular surgeon was interviewed on Four Corners and came across as shell-shocked, saintly and hurt by all the criticism she had got for her comments. She was praised by the male head of one of the doctors’ organisations – who gave no praise to the young surgeon for her courage.

All of this exemplifies for me the thinking and behaviour of a band of power-crazed, primarily male authoritarians for whom viciousness is one of the tools in their kit bag and who are, in my view, virtually out of control.

At the cost of her career, that surgeon stood up to these pretentious, cunning primitives and I think if more people on the receiving end of similar behaviour could do so, those thugs might begin to think twice about how they behave towards decent people.

You have an excellent blog,

Best regards,

Phil Stanfield

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Disrupted Physician

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Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously.  images-24To evaluate the legitimacy of  an authority it is necessary to:
1. Assess whether they actually know what they are talking about.
2. Assess whether the authorities are honest in their intentions.  When anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority.
There is a paucity of anti-authoritarianism in the medical community concerning groups who have gained tremendous sway in the regulation of the medical profession.    There is an absence of anti-authoritarian questioning  of  what is essentially illegitimate and irrational authority.
images-26In order for these organizations to maintain power it is necessary that their authoritative opinion remain unquestioned and unchallenged.  Consciously manufactured propaganda has persuaded regulatory and public opinion of their value and to maintain power it is necessary that this authority remain insulated from outside evaluation because the entire system is based…

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