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The Queen’s Coup

declassifiedaus.org

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Re: The Queen’s Coup

#81

Post by vagrantJin »

nomdep wrote: post #48
Taniwha wrote: post #37

People may remember that the CIA also had a hand in this sordid episode, documented in the movie The Falcon and the Snowman (based on a real case) where someone working in signals (much like Edward Snowden) watching all the telexes go by realised that the US was taking part in the downfall of another democratic government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falcon_and_the_Snowman

During the 60s an 70s, taking part in the downfall of democratic governments (see South America) was an usual Tuesday for the CIA

Also see Africa.

Case in point of the modern US meddling for "freedom" is Libya.

Once seen as a model of development African countries can look to, has spiralled into filth with open slave markets.

I don't know whether to applaud the US for destroying a such a promising country with such effortless guile or spit on disgust that other powerful nations looked on and did nothing.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#82

Post by skissane »

vermilingua wrote: post #35
skissane wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is analogous to a “government shutdown” in the US - the Senate refuses to pass appropriation bills, which will cause the government to run out of money to operate. While in the US either the House or Senate can do that, in Australia effectively only the Senate can - each “Administration” (we say “government”) gets its power from a majority vote of the House, so if the House votes against the budget, the government…

I'd argue that sacking our executive head-of-state is a lot harder, as the only known process for doing so rhymes with begicide. /s

That, or use the Australia Act 1986

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#83

Post by SllX »

bee_rider wrote: post #78
3pt14159 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this seems weird to outsiders, but as a Canadian I quite like it. Having PMs elected by MPs means that it is harder for a single rabble rousing politician to sweep to power and distort the use of, say, the military. Having Governers General appointed by PMs, and confirmed by the monarch, means that someone outside of politics (usually a well respected figure like a university president or astronaut) holds the…

Is your system notably different from most parliamentary systems? The PM is usually selected by seeing who can put together a large enough coalition of parties, in terms of the sum of MPs in those parties, right? Is the difference that your MPs actually vote, rather than it being assumed that they follow their party leadership, or something like that? But I imagine the parties must have a way of keeping their MPs in…

Well, it’s more like if XP had never died and was seeing continuous ongoing development. The kernel isn’t patched often, but the layers above are very very actively maintained by Congress, State Legislatures, Governor’s Mansions, the White House and a diffuse network of courts from SCOTUS to the lowliest traffic court in the little towns that can’t really afford them but charge obscene fines to maintain their traffic courts.

If you’re only interested in XP’s kernel rather than the rest of it, you’re going to have a bad time.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#84

Post by cryptonector »

This particular use of reserve powers probably made it harder to use those same powers in the future due to the outrageous failure to follow protocol, and the consequent deceit involved.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#85

Post by SllX »

bee_rider wrote: post #69
orangepurple wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

This is sort of tangential, but it doesn’t match what I’ve seen at all. Democrat ic Party voters are notoriously flaky, turnout is a constant struggle. Every election starts with a struggle between the progressive and centrist branches. The Democratic Party generally represents a larger chunk of the populace than the Republican Party but turns that into middling electoral success (which doesn’t seem to indicate much…

Or: both parties constantly view themselves as the minority party even when they have the majority and complain about how the other party always wins and they never get to.

It’s more nuanced: as results go in national elections, they have roughly equal success within the parameters of the electoral system that we have. Some localities are effectively single-party, and some are purple. Personally I think the people that live in purple parts of the country are the lucky ones and wish my own State were solidly purple, but one of the party’s here really doesn’t know how to run for election and win here anymore.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#87

Post by retrac »

urthor wrote: post #28
tragomaskhalos wrote: post #5

Crucial to this piece is "blocking of supply"; unfortunately there is no explanation of what this actually means.

Supply == The Australian Government's budget. Unlike the United States, By law, and by basic common sense, there MUST be a bill passed that contains the budget for the coming year. Otherwise no money is made available to public servants. Any government must be able to secure support for this bill once a year. Otherwise the entire civil service will not be paid. What the Queen established was the precedent that, inste…

Well, having a shutdown is just... inane. Should the government ever get wedged into a spot where there's no budget and no Parliament, the Crown has a duty to enact the most conservative (i.e. identical to the previous) budget as feasible and hold an election ASAP. The issue has never actually arisen in those terms here in Canada, but it's generally understood that is the constitutional procedure. If the government is not functional, then prevent society from collapsing in the meantime, and get a new government elected ASAP. Really, that's the essence of the reserve powers of the Crown.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#88

Post by derefr »

3pt14159 wrote: post #59
anonymous_sorry wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monarchy means that prime ministers, who are generally only directly elected by people in a small geographic constituency, get to exercise the power of a head of state, via the monarch. Even weirder in this case, the prime minister (not directly elected by the general populace) appointed an Governor General (not elected at all) to a position with monarchic powers, and that power was used against him.

I know this seems weird to outsiders, but as a Canadian I quite like it. Having PMs elected by MPs means that it is harder for a single rabble rousing politician to sweep to power and distort the use of, say, the military. Having Governers General appointed by PMs, and confirmed by the monarch, means that someone outside of politics (usually a well respected figure like a university president or astronaut) holds the…

In est, you can think of the GG’s appointment as being done by the Sovereign — just with the nomination process delegated to the country’s current PM in order to minimize the Sovereign’s workload (especially for the Commonwealth, where they don’t live anywhere near the country themselves, and so don’t have an independently-legible candidate pool to choose a GG from. Back when Canada first became independent, appointing a GG independent of the PM would have meant a transatlantic voyage!)

Likely, if these countries were only just de-colonizing and ratifying constitutions today — where the existence of an intelligence service with global reach, directly reporting to the Sovereign, can be assumed — then the GG appointment for each country would be probably be done directly by the Sovereign, with MI6 analysts doing the nominations and then the countries’ PMs (or trusted delegate cabinet ministers) merely doing recorded interviews for the Sovereign to watch and evaluate.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#89

Post by DocTomoe »

znpy wrote: post #23
sofixa wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Italy and Greece Governments have been effectively overthrown by the EU (or ECB/IMF) in fairly open ways with technocrats put in charge. How, exactly? I don't recall the EU appointing technocratic governments there, i recall elections and the Greek and Italian people making a choice. Choice in specific circumstances that probably influenced them, but same as any election during a crisis.

Can you please help me remember exactly when the Italians voted in elections for Mario Monti as prime minister? I just can't recall that!

In most European countries - and so in Italy, you don't vote for a person, you vote for a party. This is usually a good idea, but can lead to unintended side-effects (See: United Kingdom).

Monti was supported by both democratically-elected Houses of Parliament, otherwise Napolitano would not have given him the task of creating a government.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#90

Post by anonymous_sorry »

rgavuliak wrote: post #71
anonymous_sorry wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monarchy means that prime ministers, who are generally only directly elected by people in a small geographic constituency, get to exercise the power of a head of state, via the monarch. Even weirder in this case, the prime minister (not directly elected by the general populace) appointed an Governor General (not elected at all) to a position with monarchic powers, and that power was used against him.

> not directly elected by the general populace Why does this matter? A Prime minister is the result of a general populace choice.

It's a factor, but in a general election voters have to balance multiple considerations. From which local candidate is going to be a good advocate for my area, via which policy platform is best, all the way up to who should have the nuclear codes.

And then the candidate Prime Minister you (partially) based your decision on might resign, and the MPs of the governing party will pick a new person to exercise those powers, with no recourse to the electorate.

This is not theoretical. In the UK it's happened twice in the last six months.

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