Trigger warning ahead - delete immediately if you might be triggered

Dear ,

It’s amazing how much you think you know about people and how little you really know. Perhaps if I’d read more widely about Ron Manners I wouldn’t be urging you to attend his book launch this Wednesday at Holy Trinity Church Hall, Fortitude Valley at 6:00 for 6:30.

(If, after reading this you are still game and would like to attend, click here, but I wouldn’t advise it, it won’t be a safe space).

The Ron Manners I thought I knew is an energetic 88-year-old mining entrepreneur from WA who is a proselytiser for free markets and open societies who has put more than 2,500 young Australians through scholarships at his Mannkal Economic Education Foundation thus spreading the word to a younger generation.

But in my reading yesterday I discovered that he is a member of a shadowy spider’s web run by the Atlas Network in the USA, and involving the Mt Pelerin society, that is seeking to “Americanise” Australian politics and subvert our democratic mores as a catspaw for the fossil fuel industry.

Ron may even be the Svengali of this network as he is a director of the Mt Pelerin Society and is on the board of overseers of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.

I came across these facts in an article on a site called Australian Independent Media Network, and you know you can trust anything with “independent” in its name. The thrust of the article was summed-up in this paragraph:

MacLean’s presentation highlighted the fact that the figures who held these “public choice” theories, devised by James Buchanan and largely funded by Koch (and peers), knew their ultra free market ideas would not win majority votes and so set out secretly to cripple democracy by any “technology” they could devise. MacLean drew attention to global attacks on democracy and surging autocracy, featuring the Atlas-connected money and “think” tanks that drove the Brexit vote as well as promoting far-right and neofascist politics in Europe. Both movements are tied to climate denial.

To compound Ron’s bad reputation he is also mentioned in association with such organisations as the CIS and IPA who are double-damned because they were involved in the successful NO campaign against The Voice. Apparently the correct academic nomenclature for these organisations is "junktanks".

I was disappointed to scan the article and not find one mention of the Australian Institute for Progress, but it appears we have yet to go down in infamy.

So, it’s too late to cancel the function, but I feel I should issue a warning that you may be tempted to the dark side if you attend. If we are going to save democracy we need to destroy it first – can’t have independent thinkers and independent actors deciding for themselves what is the truth, that would be anarchy.

No, let’s hear it for mindless conformity and the corporatist state.

You’ve been warned. Only click here and book if you are a consenting adult and really want to run the risk. We’ll have waiver forms at the door to protect us, just in case.

Regards,

GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR