crunchysteve

Political violence is the mark of a failing state, but there's nothing new in the idea that the US is failing upwards. Failing all but the most privileged, failing Democrat and Republican. One of the more recent indications of how the US is a failed state was the "admission" by SCOTUS that the President's authority is supreme - this doesn't smell like democracy to me, Plato. I've always held that the concept of a president who rules over Congress is inherently undemocratic, it is in every effect an elected king. Sure, it's not for life, sure, an heir won't inherit.

And today we hear that somebody has resorted to the gun to stop Trump. And failed. And got themselves killed. The wild west is alive and well. And the world's most powerful "democracy" fails again. I declare my view in the interests of honesty, I wouldn't have wept for Trump, but I do weep for the USA.

According to Wikipedia, there have been 18 assassination attempts on US Presidents, 4 of them successful - Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy. 18 out of 46 US Presidents have been subject to lawless insurrection.

In Australia, nobody has raised arms against a Prime Minister but in 1966, an attempt was made on the life of the Labor Opposition Leader, Arthur Calwell. A New South Wales sttate Legislative Assembly Member was murdered in the state of South Australia in 1921, while an unsuccessful attempt was made on the life of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband while visiting "the colony" (as Australia still was, then) wounding the Prince but not fatally.

It might be easy to suggest that comparative population comes into this, but I would argue that Australia, while as severely historically flawed a nation as the USA, sees the vote, not the gun, as the solution. We also have a political system where the leader in the Parliament is only a voice for the majority in the House and Senate, and can be changed by a vote of that majority, while our Head-of-State (the Governor-General) is an appointed ceremonial leader, nominally representative of the Crown, but without authority beyond observing Parliament and monitoring the function of governance of the nation. There's less heat on any individual when the actual running of the country is handled by all of Parliament, rather than a single individual.

If you know me, you know I'm a "revolutionary anarcho/socialist," a Trotskyite. Politically/academically, at least. Like most of the early Bolshevik leaders, Trotsky was power hungry, ruthless and way too inhuman - willing to sacrifice troops for "the glorious revolution!" I understand Trotsky's "endless revolution" to mean power resting in the grassroots of community - local people make decisions locally, send their representatives to larger, national forums to make national decisions and change happens, generation to generation, by the will of community with authority rising from the grassroots, not handed down from on high."

To some extent, this happens in both Australia and the USA. The Obamas work actively these days to get people involved in local politics, because that's where the USA seems to manage the most change for the better, for the people, less so for power and privilege. In Australia, we still have the idea that a foreign King is our leader, that Federal Parliament balances his bidding (via our Governor General) and the needs of the people but, in reality, local government can be an "apprenticeship in politics" here, too. Typically more for conservative political actors, the left choosing charities and community campaigns, instead. I over-simplify, but community is lighter than power and wants authority to rise from the voter, not the candidate. That really is endless revolution.

Look at how the Queer community campaigned for equal marriage rights. It was an awful fight - the hatred evident from some church groups and bigots generally seemed unendurable, but the individual's choice to be themselves is beginning to prevail in that community. There is still, ahem, "pushback" (stupid bigotry) by people who think they have a right to tell strangers what is allowed in private bedrooms but, in Australia, the inherent "guild hall" power structure of grassroots movement "scares" politicians into passing reasonably acheivable laws. Because no songle person holds paramount authority in this country. There is no elected king, just a legal construct of a concept of "The Crown" as the best benefit for, and the will of, the people, in compromise, change as necessary and more decision making heirarchies than power centralising ones.

Yeah, that theory is a bit moist-eyed and idealistic, in practice Australia has an ugly colonial history. Genocidal indigenous policies (Terre Nullius? FFS!), the use of convicted criminals as slave labour, a tax policy culture that advantages wealth and social welfare policies that blame the victims. The truth is, while it's all a little forwards-backwards, historically, the average motion is forwards. Are we as progressive as Central Europe? No. Are we more progressive than the USA? Mostly, although we do tend to still look up to a colonial power and tug our collective forlocks.

Make no bones, though, Australia is a progressive nation. It's political structure, while populated with too many colonial thinkers, is a framework for progressive policy, for "endless revolution." The USA has an education system that disadvantages the working class, a health system that has almost zero patient subsidies and is inherently eugenicist, wealth and privilege have both literal and figurative doors opened for them, while the working class, even the middle class, have fewer and fewer opportunities, because their revolution, all those years ago was a revolution of privileged, gun owning, slave owning colonials - it was landowners with delusions of power that established their system.

Modern Australia was born out of a long, ongoing round-table discussion between the states that resulted in Federation. A roundtable that was born out of the need to prevent another Eureka Stockade, to balance the rise of the union movement, allow it but require it to formalise and have rules, the idea that everybody deserved a fair go, and that every voice had a right to be heard and that the fairest way to hear them was to level the playing field.

This is why Australians rarely resort to firearms and the few who have were either ne'er-do-wells or outliers who slipped through small, systemic failures. Is Australia perfect? Of course not! Like I say, our "guild hall" Parliament has way too many people of privilege and petit bourgoisie, sycophantically idealising the US "free market" (an Orwellian New Speak, phrase, hell yeah) running down the systems that have traditionally helped level our playing fields - but our system resists the influence of privilege, imperfectly, sometimes incompetently, but we are growing as a nation. We even, finally have a treaty negotiation in progress with first nations people. We slip a little backwards, we slip a little bit forwards, nearly always with the ratchet in favour of the fair go for all.

And we have almost never resorted to the gun as a political tool. We have no death penalty, either. These are things to be really proud of.

That said, I roll my eyes at the latest would-be assassin. Trump's ear?! Mate, you had a chance to be a hero...

...instead, you were the goat. A dumb, dead goat. GUN CONTROL! GUN CONTROL WORKS! FUCKEN HELL, MATE!