G'day Michael K,
> For example, our recent IMF discussions led into
> considerations of the British state, which is certainly relevant when
> looking at the transformation of Australia over the last 25 years or
> so. How was Gough Whitlam deposed? Why? With what means? Is it just a
> coincidence that, as Harold Wilson was being undermined from within, > another scion
>of the British power elite intervened to depose a > democratically elected
>government that threatened the status quo? At > around this time East Timor had just
>been brutally annexed, was being > brutally subjugated, while the British secret
>state was administering > its own "justice" and "order" upon Northern Ireland (and
>getting > ready to do the same elsewhere if necessary), Chile was being >
>"cleansed" by Pinochet, Argentina's Peronists were toppled,
> Italy was a violent, corrupt anti-Communist mafia protectorate,
> Vorster et al. were getting to work in South Africa (and elsewhere in > Namibia,
>Angola, Mozambique), while "the West" huckled the Soviet > bloc into the Helsinki
>Accords in 1975. The screws were tightening > internationally as the Jeane
>Kirkpatricks, William Simons, Samuel > Huntingtons, Margaret Thatchers and Rupert
>Murdochs prepared to > remake and remodel Western capitalism whilst declaring
>Cold War II. > That's a very large structural adjustment whose reach
> and consequences went far beyond the dreams of its protagonists, > never mind
>its victims.
Yeah, it occurs that a combination of global recession and gawd-knows-what
intrigue really hit governments with even a skerrick of welfarism in their kits:
September 1973: Chile - Salvador Allende dies in right-wing military coup
May 1974: West Germany - Willy Brandt (Günter Guillaume scandal)
August 1974: New Zealand - Norman Kirk dies (Labour loses election following year)
November 1975: Australia - Whitlam sacked by Governor General
March 1976: The Perons overthrown in right-wing military coup
April 1976: United Kingdom - Wilson resigns
June 1976: Right-wing military coup in Uruguay
July 1977: Pakistan - Ali Bhutto overthrown in right-wing military coup
(Kissinger had just warned that Bhutto "would have to pay a heavy price," for
his nuclear weapons policy)
That's most of the Anglophone world, Latin America and the Subcontinent all
nicely parcelled up in less than four years - and the bloke in charge of the
CIA during most of that time went on to become president and launch a dynasty,
too ...
Cheers,
Rob (Ludlum)
