Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Check the label.

“Liberal democracy” was a short lived experiment, between circa 1946 and 1986. It grew to be too much of a threat to the autocratic kleptocracy it briefly rose above, and has been slowly wound back ever since.

The Middle Class in which many of us grew up or aspired to join was a pleasant result of that short experiment, but the autocratic kleptocrats could not accept that so many people were suddenly joining in the common wealth and began a relentless campaign to turn worker against worker, to teach those outside the middle class to scorn them, and thus began the class war that would only ever result in one victor, the kleptocrats.

Workers were told they now had the best of all possible worlds, that Unions were only there to take their money, and as people dropped out of Unions, Unions became weaker and either folded or merged. That set off a massive ‘land grab” by employers as wages and conditions were wound back, as people were sacked from full time jobs and replaced with part time, casual, or contract workers. Another few years and we will see all work return to the “pick up” system that once ruled the wharves where men seeking work would gather outside stevedore’s offices and wait to be called and given a back breaking job at bank breaking wages. The only Australian workers whose wages have kept pace with or exceeded inflation in the past decade are those in the few industries with strong and fearless union leadership.

What is happening in Germany is no different to elsewhere in Europe with Turkey and Hungary setting the tone while Italy, France, the UK et al fall into line.

things as banal as retweeting a meme that takes the piss out of a government minister is likely to have that minister personally file a complaint with the police under the law of “impeding a public officer in his duties”, which will get your house searched by the cops and see you with a hefty fine backed with the threat of jail time.

Same here in Oz. Right now we have imprisoned a man who exposed how Australia’s ASIS (external security agency) bugged the East Timor cabinet rooms in aid of a corporation, Woodside getting a greater share of East Timor’s Oil, another for exposing malfeasance in the Australian Taxation Office, and a former military lawyer who blew the whistle on war crimes in Afghanistan. All of these men are heroes and should have been feted as such.

And only moments after the government took the kudos for finally repatriating Julian Assange and saving him from America’s wrath for telling the truth, they have rolled over for a tummy tickle from Uncle Sam and are handing over a man whose only crime is to teach flying to the Chinese. Our entire economy is underpinned by China’s purchase of coal and iron ore and every year our Universities earn billions of dollars educating Chinese students, but apparently engineering, medicine, architecture, law, economics, and arts are all AOK, but not flying.

Liberal democracy? Don’t make me laugh.