This country's going to the dogs, or: 'My Manifesto' (draft)

[V-Agent]

I've just spent the last few months digesting my country's business and political agenda, and I am not happy... no sirreee bob... quite frankly, I'm ropeable, and I'm looking at moving up to federal politics proper, because basically, as of the 1st of January, there will be no more local grass-roots politics - the "anti-terrorist" series of new laws have taken care of that.

Join me, in a walk down memory lane...

Once upon a time, back a long, long time ago during the 80s, Australia was known as the 'Lucky Country'.
Great weather, awesome surf, happy people, free education, a labour market you could pay off your mortgage by doing one job and still have time to pick up the kids, a thriving arts industry where even talentless drips like Ken Done were able to make a fortune from mass produced childish prints and a music underground that produced a whole slew of talented self-produced bands like INXS all tied up in a pretty package known as the 'fair go' principle...

Wind the clock forward 15 years and the resources are still there but monopolised by British and US 'interests' under a "boom economy". People are unable to even spend dinner with their children, let alone pick them up from school because of the second job needed just to pay bills, the mortgage but a distant memory after having to have sold the place because of the games the banks are playing to line their foreign 'interest' share holders pockets, an 'upfront fee' education system geared towards overseas students making the 'Clever Country' into a second class citicenry good only to work part time/no benefit open shifts at *insert name of GE/M sister corporation here* all the while watching the boom economy benefit the few.
As for the arts industry, well... Ken Done is still doing well... in Japan... oh, and no more music industry: it's all US controlled now, and they don't like anyone but their own getting a break, but they sure love foreign markets with lucrative tax incentives.

The weather and beaches are still there, but mostly empty on the days during the king tides as companies don't like their employees spending money on surf boards when the bill revenues to the sub corporations they own need boosting.

Sad bloody times I tells ya, mark my words...

But hey, what am I worrried about - controlling shares in two well performing companies, real estate, an enviable lifestyle of clubbing and haute cousine... nothing to worry about, right? Right?
Yeah, it'd be all too easy to ignore the writing on the wall and blame people for not doing enough for their own futures, after all - it's a "boom economy" - there's enough for everyone... dole bludgers, the lot of em'...

If only it were that simple...

What's it worth when the very people who helped make me can't even afford to live... let alone live with any dignity?
What's it worth when the vinyard can't even keep up with orders for the wine because of foreign demand when it was the locals who payed our way?
What's it worth when the radio station is churning out ads for corporate bullshit that once was taken up promoting our culture, our people... us - you know, Australians?

I'll tell you - it's worth nothing, when the very society you loved and respected and catered to is now quickly slipping into becoming the working poor only the 'superpowers' were known to possess, all the while the CEO wage rises outstripping the ever rising profit margins.

And they tell us it's a boom economy - sure... for the corporations and middle-sized businesses like mine, and future profits are looking good.
But here's the kicker - what is money worth when only the few possess it?
Nothing... nothing at all.

This is the reality sold by the neo-con corporate elite and their political henchmen with their ever growing grip on the media selling us a fairy tale of international terrorism and a need to tighten sedition, public gathering and labour laws.
And don't give me any crap about Al Queda and a need to upwardly integrate the international economy: I have the most sophisticated news wire network in the south and the last 20 years of trade papers telling me otherwise, so please: keep your fairy tales for your kids - if you can afford them.
It's a well co-ordinated attack at our basic human rights, all over the west to enable a continuing future for the long out of date dinosaurs know simply as "corporations"...

F~uckers, the whole lot of em'
Sad, pathetic sub-human hominids ruled by the little, tiny greed centre in their shrunken brains with their greasy fingers in every country's political pie... Howard, Costello, Downer, Bush, Chaney, Blair... no-good political gangsters, hell bent on tightening their grip on a status-quo, controlled by the purse strings of their masters.

What a future we have... how revulsed our future generations will view us... all because of money: something that in itself has no intrinsic value.
Value - you know: happyness, affluence, a bright future for the generations to follow - all the things our politicians tell us they are there to protect, yet with the same breath sell to the highest bidder...

I've had enough, I think it's time to put some of that green toward the only escape option we now have open to us: the long promised Australian Republic.
A Republic made for us, not "the economy", and I'm ready for war, so come get some ya gormless, snivelling corporate impotent little worms, I'm ready, and no more Mr. nice guy.

You have your war on terror, I have my war on lies, and may God have mery on us all.


Long live the Republic!

[Arcadia]

nice to hear the news... !!!I always thought about australians only as british far away home (the cause was my english text book during the eighties). Good luck!!
saludos,

Arcadia

[Zlatko Waterman]

Slight correction, V-Agent, in an otherwise complete analysis of how consumer capitalism eats "the good life" ( meaning sustainable, renewable goods among other things . . .) alive:

I speak for myself.

If you mean by "you have your war on terrorism . . .", American citizens--

I hasten to remind anyone attributing something to me of that ilk that George W. Bush ( sometimes known to me and my friends as "The Presidunce") HAS HIS WAR on "terrorism" . . .

I'm doing every goddamn thing I can ( including hitting the pavements) to turn this alleged "electorate", who gave us the savage, murdering, torturing and burning as a foreign policy in the person of DUBYAKILL, away from DUBCO and its minions . . .

Thanks for the fine analysis and personal insights.

In friendship,


Zlatko

[V-Agent]

I need to clarify: when I said "you have your war on terrorism" I was posing a hypothetical direct message to the politicians and business "leaders" I have an axe to grind with, not American citicens at large.
In essence it was written directly at people like GWB, for the very same reasons you yourself have pointed out.

As far as I am aware, American citicens, too are facing the same downward trend we are of a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, an overall lowering standard of living and an economic and political despotism forced on us by a narrow and ultra wealthy and powerful elite.

We're all in the same boat: GWB is dragging you guys into the pit, while John Howard is doing the same to us, and you know what?
They are closely allied and are carrying out the same plan.

I hope this cleared up that point, because you're right - THEY have their war on terrorism, while most normal, thinking humane beings are as incensed as we are.


Sincerely,

V.

[abcrystcats]

As far as I am aware, American citicens, too are facing the same downward trend we are of a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, an overall lowering standard of living and an economic and political despotism forced on us by a narrow and ultra wealthy and powerful elite.

You can say THAT again. Almost everything you said of Australia is equally applicable here. While it appears to some very delusional affluents that we are in a BOOM time, it appears to many of the people living on average paychecks that we are in a DEPRESSION.

My boss, who comes from an upper middle class background, and lives off the fat of the land now, still believes that most people will pay more for a product if they can get a better value. I have yet to crack that thick noggin of hers and get her to realize that MOST people can't afford the "value" even if they wanted it. Most people buy for price, because they are forced to. And it's only going to get worse. The times when families could live off one paycheck, and live well off of two, are a thing of the past.

Your characterization of families is correct for here, too. Many parents are literally leaving their grade school age children at home alone in the evenings, with no supervision, because they have no choice. They must work, or they go downhill FAST. The choice is between child neglect and starvation, and so what would you choose?

Your rant rings true for me and I have never SEEN Australia.

Ditto those who said that George (WMD) Bush has HIS war on terror and we have OURS. Our war is against the political terrorists who happen to hold public office. George's war is against these fictional shadows he created out of the paranoid greed of his own unfortunate mind.

How disgusting.

So. There is no escape, even in Australia.

[V-Agent]

As far as I am aware, American citicens, too are facing the same downward trend we are of a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, an overall lowering standard of living and an economic and political despotism forced on us by a narrow and ultra wealthy and powerful elite.

You can say THAT again. Almost everything you said of Australia is equally applicable here. While it appears to some very delusional affluents that we are in a BOOM time, it appears to many of the people living on average paychecks that we are in a DEPRESSION.

My boss, who comes from an upper middle class background, and lives off the fat of the land now, still believes that most people will pay more for a product if they can get a better value. I have yet to crack that thick noggin of hers and get her to realize that MOST people can't afford the "value" even if they wanted it. Most people buy for price, because they are forced to. And it's only going to get worse. The times when families could live off one paycheck, and live well off of two, are a thing of the past.

Your characterization of families is correct for here, too. Many parents are literally leaving their grade school age children at home alone in the evenings, with no supervision, because they have no choice. They must work, or they go downhill FAST. The choice is between child neglect and starvation, and so what would you choose?

Your rant rings true for me and I have never SEEN Australia.

Ditto those who said that George (WMD) Bush has HIS war on terror and we have OURS. Our war is against the political terrorists who happen to hold public office. George's war is against these fictional shadows he created out of the paranoid greed of his own unfortunate mind.

How disgusting.

So. There is no escape, even in Australia.

It is disgusting - incredibly so.

However, I do believe we have an escape option: rewrite the political landscape.
I know, I know... that's quite a call, and by no means an easy feat, but let me put it this way: it wasn't easy for the French revolutionaries either, living in a society even more stratified than our own.
All that is needed is enough people to start thinking along similar lines and the sheer weight of numbers will get things started.

Perhaps it's a dream - a phantasm even, but I'll be damned before I stop daring to dream and attempt to do something about it.
Luckily for us in Australia, we still have the option of going to a Republic and if that happens, there is no real limit in how much of our politics we can change... like the whole bloody lot.

For you guys, perhaps an outright rebellion is needed - because unlike us, you have the numbers.
It may well sound a tad fantastic and anarchic, but lets face it, revolutions are no new thing, even the infinitely preferrable bloodless ones and they are usually the end result of untenable political despotism... such as the one threatening us today.

If we know one thing from History it's that it has a habit of repeating itself, and in this case, it looks a lot like the fall of Rome.
Perhaps it's time for the gladiator's revolt...

[Lightning Rod]

V-A
Now you've gone and destroyed my dreams. I always told myself that if it gets just too oppressive and economically and politically lopsided here in the States, that my fallback option was to move to Australia and go dig opals in the Outback. Thanks for shaking me out of my little illusion.

I would still like to come and see your land though.

Nice piece.

[V-Agent]

V-A
Now you've gone and destroyed my dreams. I always told myself that if it gets just too oppressive and economically and politically lopsided here in the States, that my fallback option was to move to Australia and go dig opals in the Outback. Thanks for shaking me out of my little illusion.

I would still like to come and see your land though.

Nice piece.

Thank you kindly.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still rather live in Australia than the states (sorry, I'm not trying to start anything, but I spent enough time there to trust my instinct on that one), but I must admit that the call of Hungary is getting louder by the minute...

If you want to live in the outback digging for opals, you'll be glad to hear that it's one of the few Australian institutions still left relatively unchanged.
For example: a few months back, the entire town of Coober Pedy boycotted the (only) local Pub when they decided to introduce poker machines.
Now think about that for a minute... a bunch of hard working, hard drinkin' and hard f~ucking prospectors decided to forego the daily tradition of a cold beer or twelve after work (and it's bloody hot up there!!!) to keep the character of their little township alive.
The pub saw the light, decided not to introduce poker machines and the old salts went back to getting tanked and having the occasional friendly blue (punch up).

So by all means, it's all still there, and if you ever decide to make the trip, drop me a line. I have friends who go up to Coober Pedy and Lightning Ridge for a few months every year.
It's definately worth doing, I've been up there a few times (for minerals in general, not so much the opals) just don't expect to get rich, and I hope you like digging holes in solid 45 degree C. days for months on end.

[Zlatko Waterman]

We all have escape fantasies, or at least used to have them, LR and V-Agent.

And, as V-A rightly observes, we "have the numbers" for a revolution all right.

But when people vote against their own self-interest, and the BUSHREICH THOUGHT POLICE have complete control of complacent tv, the only contact the average dunderhead has with the outside world, things are grim indeed.

On another channel of S8, firsty cheers the Dover, PA decision about intelligent design, as well he should.

But that story is only beginning. The next stop for the Rapturers is the Supreme Court, and the really big funding from the really big ID funders hasn't been seen yet. They let this one go by because it looked hard to win. I read an analysis on their game plan, and I can't link it here because it was a print-only source, but the article about right-wing strategy on this issue seemed very believable.

Thomas Frank's book is the one to read about the Midwest ( and millions of others) voting against their own self-interests in favor of "moral values."

George Will recently wrote an article challenging Frank's argument in the book. But one knows how and why Will exults the numbskulling of the US.

Frank is sadly right-- on an emotional level, if not always on a statistical one.

All this is old news. The Christian Anticommunists were powerful during the Vietnam War, and the nuttiness of Barry Goldwater's "restoration of real values" ( and his advocacy and promise that "field effective" nukes would be used by his presidency in Vietnam) in the US wasn't more than forty years back-- I remember it when I was a politically active college student.

(Christian Anti-Communist Crusade link)


http://rightweb.irc-online.org/groupwatch/cacc.php


( a review of Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 73T7S1.DTL





--Z

[Zlatko Waterman]

And by the way, if you think all this is just leftwing pessimism on my part, look at this story-- in light of the revelation of illegal domestic spying, advocacy of torture, indictments, opposition by his own party etc. etc.:

( link)


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032586/



--Z

[abcrystcats]

With words, in caps, like "BUSHREICH THOUGHT POLICE", it's time for Zlatko to make a mental note to self to keep phone conversations in his home to an absolute minimum. Never know who could be listening.

In association with the whole NSA thing, I briefly read an article in today's paper about how the NSA has wiretapped charitable organizations, animal advocacy groups and so on. They claimed to be looking for evidence of terrorist money laundering, but I can't help wondering why the targets of these operations are almost unfailingly liberal in nature. Are they looking for terrorists, or are they looking for "th' terr'rists" in Bush's overworked overconservative imagination? How close are we to a repeat of the McCarthy era? Or, ahem, are we already in one?

The bright terrorists are probably doing their money laundering through UNICEF and the United Way knowing, as they do, our President's obsession with liberal nonprofit agencies.

As for Australia -- any country founded by convicts and by the adventurers and nonconformists of other lands, is bound to be interesting. Too bad it's gotten to be so much like here. But we used to be a nation of nonconformists too. Look what we did to ourselves.

[V-Agent]

We all have escape fantasies, or at least used to have them, LR and V-Agent.

And, as V-A rightly observes, we "have the numbers" for a revolution all right.

But when people vote against their own self-interest, and the BUSHREICH THOUGHT POLICE have complete control of complacent tv, the only contact the average dunderhead has with the outside world, things are grim indeed.

On another channel of S8, firsty cheers the Dover, PA decision about intelligent design, as well he should.

But that story is only beginning. The next stop for the Rapturers is the Supreme Court, and the really big funding from the really big ID funders hasn't been seen yet. They let this one go by because it looked hard to win. I read an analysis on their game plan, and I can't link it here because it was a print-only source, but the article about right-wing strategy on this issue seemed very believabe.

Thomas Frank's book is the one to read about the Midwest ( and millions of others) voting against their own self-interests in favor of "moral values."

George Will recently wrote an article challenging Frank's argument in the book. But one knows how and why Will exults the numbskulling of the US.

Frank is sadly right-- on an emotional level, if not always on a statistical one.

All this is old news. The Christian Anticommunists were powerful during the Vietnam War, and the nuttiness of Barry Goldwater's "restoration of real values" ( and his advocacy and promise that "field effective" nukes would be used by his presidency in Vietnam) in the US wasn't more than forty years back-- I remember it when I was a politically active college student.

(Christian Anti-Communist Crusade link)


http://rightweb.irc-online.org/groupwatch/cacc.php


( a review of Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 73T7S1.DTL





--Z

Curious how history has a habit of repeating itself, isn't it?
The only difference now is it repeats within the lifetime of a single generation.

The 60s failed for whatever reason, perhaps because of the LSD glut which if certain relatively trustworthy sources are to be believed was the government's plan of attack to undermine the growing dissent and power of the liberal movement through the infiltration of CIA drugdealers in the youth underground.
Now that times are different, TV takes the place of LSD, and the Fox network the place of the smiling CIA candymen.

So we now have all the facism, but none of the drugs... damn.

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear Kat:

You bet. I hate phones anyway. I don't own a cell, or a microwave.

But we did buy a hybrid car, just to show we noticed the twenty-first century was here.

In "Nineteen-Eight-Four" ( the spelling Orwell preferred), O'Brien, Party member and agent of The Thought Police ( at a very high level) is interrogating Winston ( named after Churchill deliberately by Orwell), and after asking him many questions, on his way to "re-educating" Winston, O'Brien allows his victim, connected to wires and belts and electric prods, to ask a question himself:

(earlier O'Brien has spoken this short speech)

" . . .The command of the old despotisms was "Thou Shalt Not." The command of the totalitarians was "Thou Shalt." Our command is "Thou Art" ( viz. Fox tv and my other post on Thomas Frank's book, "What's the Matter with Kansas ?" . . .")


SO, I say, Winston is given a chance to ask a question of his torturer ( think of Guantanamo--Abu Ghraib . . .)

( continued quote from Orwell)

"Does Big Brother exist"? ( Winston asks . . .)

"Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party."

"Does he exist in the same way as I exist?"

"You do not exist," said O'Brien.

( end of quotation).

Why do I find this one of the most powerful moments in Orwell's novel, as I told "mnaz" when he visited recently?

Because, in that dramatic retort, O'Brien asserts what Guantanamo, "Black Sites" and "Abu Ghraib" stand for: the ability to erase a human life, brain, and soul for profit or military advantage.

It happens every time the nervous 20-something-year-old US reservist shoots an Iraqi child by mistake, or a 500 pound bomb
( aimed at "terrorists") falls on a wedding.

And Kat, I wish I could not exist as far as the Thought Police might care about me.

Just today, if you can believe this, I heard ( on NPR, not Pacifica) former Republican Congressmen, as well as investigative journalists who cover the FBI and NSA assert that there were over 500 members of P.E.T.A. who have been routinely ( without their knowledge or permission), monitored by the NSA because their activities on behalf of animals, "could lead to inappropriate behavior" toward "people in authority".

Read: "Thoughtcrime."



--Z

(N.)

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear V-Agent:

Thanks for clipping out my post.

I thereby had a chance to insert an "l" into the word "believable", having left it out the first time.

I think we should, by the way, "believe-abe" ( Lincoln), except when he argued for the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War . . .

Cheers and friendly greetings for the opal prospectors down under,


--Z

[V-Agent]

With words, in caps, like "BUSHREICH THOUGHT POLICE", it's time for Zlatko to make a mental note to self to keep phone conversations in his home to an absolute minimum. Never know who could be listening.

In association with the whole NSA thing, I briefly read an article in today's paper about how the NSA has wiretapped charitable organizations, animal advocacy groups and so on. They claimed to be looking for evidence of terrorist money laundering, but I can't help wondering why the targets of these operations are almost unfailingly liberal in nature. Are they looking for terrorists, or are they looking for "th' terr'rists" in Bush's overworked overconservative imagination? How close are we to a repeat of the McCarthy era? Or, ahem, are we already in one?

The bright terrorists are probably doing their money laundering through UNICEF and the United Way knowing, as they do, our President's obsession with liberal nonprofit agencies.

As for Australia -- any country founded by convicts and by the adventurers and nonconformists of other lands, is bound to be interesting. Too bad it's gotten to be so much like here. But we used to be a nation of nonconformists too. Look what we did to ourselves.

What makes it tragic is that overall the vast majority of normal, everyday Australians do not want to emulate America, but our government, which now also has complete control of the senate and as a result carte blanche to put through whatever legislation it sees fit, does.

So we are now in a situation where for the first time in living memory, the governement is quite literally against the people, with such extremely unpopular legislation as the new Industrial Relations reforms (making the Australian labour market identical to the US), the "Anti-Terrorist" bill (similar to the patriot acts) and of course the "war on terror" for which the PM decided to send Australian forces to Iraq without senate approval at a time he still didn't control it (and which is a requirement by our constitution - I don't know how he managed to get away with that... also a very US style decision, as the President can send troops without senate approval from what I know).

It keeps coming back to the same thing: we are now in a situation where we will need to overturn entire slabs of legislation if we are to have a hope for a 'Lucky Country' again, and the only real option open to do that is to become a republic, create a true constitution (not the "constitutional" monarchy we have now) and our very own Bill Of Rights.

Removing the Queen's tenure is just the cherry on top.