I find it hilarious that warrantless wiretaps, secret detention facilities, torture, extraordinary renditions, and criminalizing the act of walking around without identification apparently merit a shrug at best, and an AMERICA FUCK YEAH at worst, while detailed x-rays and a bit of precautionary sack-tapping merit OUTRAGE!!1 and threats of massive civil disobedience.
And by “hilarious,” I mean “might as well say fuck it, and start sniffing airplane glue in the basement.”
A lot of people were/are outraged about those other things, too, but it’s a lot harder to act on them, since we don’t have any direct contact with the people who are in charge of or enforce them. I’m still upset that none of the decision-makers were taken to task over the torture we committed, but I’m not aware of any direct action I can take to change that, whereas I can easily protest the full-body scanners by flying as little as possible and opting for the more time-consuming pat-down when I do have to fly.
[Annotation added to XT’s Secret Police file, subfolder “Interrogation Methods”]
Bwhuh? Are you serious? Australia is the least likely place to have a revolution pretty much ever. I mean, you can’t even get us to get excited about getting rid of the Queen, for pete’s sake…
nm
I dunno: authoritarianism, certainly; but I can imagine a cult of the strong man and the state while still tolerating diverse religions and minorities (say) as long as they paid obeisance to the central authority.
Missed edit window: you might say that’s not Fascism but simple authoritarianism. But if you’re confining your definition to Fascist with a capital “F,” there’s probably too small of a sample set to really say one way or another.
I’ll give you that politicians and parties and governments within democracies can exhibit fascistic tendencies and policies. Such as the witch Thatcher, for example. But that doesn’t make them fascists.
Serious, well no, not entirely. Though if food or mass transportation of food fails, you may be surprised what starving(aussie read:no beer) people(armed) are capable of.
You guys really should get rid of the Queen, though. Monarchies are so passé.