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August 31, 2007
The following is a quote from The Transformation of American Politics: Activist Government and the Rise of Conservatism edited by Paul Pierson & Theda Skocpol:
In many ways, contemporary American politics reflects the ongoing collision, carried out through these new forms of participation, between the rise of the activist state and the emergence of an invigorated conservatism. Conservatives have certainly not destroyed or fundamentally rolled back big, activist government. They have, however, circumscribed and redirected it, upending many of the assumptions made by liberals, who were briefly hegemonic back in the 1960s. Conservatives, moreover, have regularly proved more adept than liberals at using the new institutional and organizational levers available to politically active groups.
A similar situation exists in Australia and it has placed liberals on the defensive. Can we say that these events have meant that a great majority of Australian citizens now seem so unaware, unconcerned, and unmoved by the oppressive, unhealthy and destructive character of the political regime under which they live and are governed? A pathology partially caused by the performance of the country's major TV news and entertainment corporations?
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