I went to the Bolt blog today and I do have to admit to visiting it from time to time. I'm pretty sure there's no way on earth I'll ever agree with him, but I'm always curious to hear other perspectives. I'm not so set in my ways that I'm not open to other ideas.
What I found though was perplexing. From Bolt himself there was the usual. He was defending the PM in saying that Shorten was an economic Goebbels. The line was to be expected - that Labor has also invoked Goebbels, so therefore what the PM said was ok. Sorry Bolty, but two wrongs don't make a right.
Bolt made no distinction between Dreyfus saying that a media campaign was Goebbelian in scope and nature, and the PM saying that Shorten was like Goebbels. They are different things - the PM played the man and not the ball. The PM was wrong, he knew that he was wrong and immediately withdrew his comments.
On the other hand, Bolt wasn't entirely wrong. No, of course I don't agree with the way that Goebbels was invoked today, but I don't necessarily have a problem with the invocation itself. This is our history, and it does us no good to sweep it under the carpet and pretend it didn't happen. On the contrary we should be raising it repeatedly so we can learn from it and ensure that it never happens again.
I admit though that I was surprised when I read the comments on Bolt's blog - because a sentiment that was repeated was that the Labor party were Nazi-like. It went kind of like "why would they be upset about being compared to their heroes" and "well if they didn't want to be compared to Nazi's then they should change their ways".
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would think the Labor Party are like the Nazis. I asked the question Bolt's blog but, unsurprisingly, my comment was not published.
Without having the benefit of a reply from those who made those accusations, I've been left to come to my own conclusions - and I can only come up with the idea that the Labor party are perceived to be Socialist, and there is some resulting confusion between Socialism and Fascism.
I actually can't expend any intellectual effort to justify that position - it's too fucking hard to engage in the mental gymnastics needed to make it work, because it doesn't, because it's just not logical.
I will say, however, that one of the things I learned during my Arts degree (which according to this government is completely useless, but that's another story!), the political spectrum does not exist on an horizon - its a sphere - when you get far enough to the right, you meet up with the far left.
So I do kind of understand how Bolt's bloggers will perceive something so far left that they see it as far right. The Nazi's fascism is far right. Socialism, as it exists within our political discourse, is moderately left. We've really not seen anything since Marx that was far left - certainly nothing worthy of challenging our capitalist assumptions. Yet the political centre has moved so far to the right that anything left of centre is seen as socialist.
I'm not here advocating communism, but surely a little more social cohesion is not a bad thing. Apparently in this day and age anything less than advocating a complete and total free market is seen as socialist. And that's the only way I can logically connect Bolt's bloggers assertions that the Labor Party is in any way Nazi-like - if they appear anything less than completely free-market, then they must be socialist/fascist - far enough left to seem far-right.
I could try to explain that National Socialism is not Socialism. I could try to explain that Socialism is not Communism. I could try to distinguish an economic philosophy from a political one, but in all honesty, I think I'd just be wasting my breath. I would have tried if Bolt had published my comment and his bloggers had engaged with me, but it didn't serve their purpose and so I was shut out.
It's sad that dissenting voices can be so easily shut out. I certainly don't claim to have all the answers, but it would be nice to have a robust debate.
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