Considering all that is going on around the world and much much closer to home and with the abject failure of those who can and should know better. It is time for the Henry Lawson view of the world. After the simply absurd comments in yesterdays local paper highlighting the contempt that the arrogant ones hold for the rule of law and the dignity common man then Henry says it better than all the rest…
Sing the strong, proud song of Labour,
Toss the ringing music high;
Liberty’s a nearer neighbour,
Than she was in days gone by.
Workmen’s weary wives and daughters
Sing the songs of liberty;
Men hail men across the waters,
Men reply across the sea.
We are marching on and onward
To the silver-streak of dawn,
To the dynasty of mankind
We are marching on.
Long the rich have been protected
By the walls that can’t endure;
By the walls that they erected
To divide them from the poor.
Crumbling now,
they should not trust them,
For their end is drawing near;
Walls of Cant and walls of Custom,
Walls of Ignorance and Fear.
Tyrants, grip your weapons firmer,
Grip them firmly by the helves;
For the poor begin to murmur
Loudly now among themselves.
Hear us dare to say that Heaven
Gave us equal rights with you,
Dare to say the world was given Unto all and not the few.
Tell us that the law has risen,
Make us bend beneath its sway,
Throw our leaders into prison,
Wrong us in the light of day.
Drive us to our dens,
forgetting All our woe as greed forgets,
While our weapons we are whetting
On your levelled bayonets.
Treat us like the beasts you’d make us,
Pen us close in wretched sties.
‘Til our patience shall forsake us,
And like wolves we will arise.
Louder still for this shall rattle Rifle shots,
and sword blades ring
On the blood-wet fields of battle
In the days of reckoning.
We shall rise to prove us human,
Worthy of a human life,
When our starved and maddened women
Lead our armies on to strife.
When our war hymns wake the valleys,
And the rushing missiles shriek
From your barricaded alleys,
‘Til your cannon cease to speak.
Then when Mammon Castle crashes
To the earth and trampled lies,
Then from out the blood and ashes True Republics shall arise.
Then the world shall rest a season (First since first the world began)
In the reign of right and reason
And the dynasty of man.
Historical Note.. For any that are interested in the flag above and why it should be the Flag of Australia not the cringe worthy, colonial relic currently being used try here
Lordy, I actually rose up out of my chair and thumped my left fist to my chest as I was reading that.
And I like the flag mister…
Laugh…Figured you might like it Timdog, tis a rousing republican call to arms. Figured it was time I paid homage to my profile picture. BTW the poem rather aptly is called ‘The Australian Marseillaise”
Should you ever wish to raise the blood pressure of the spoilt n the fore lock tuggers..quote from here..
A couple of hundred to choose from
by the same bloke
I’ve always been intrigued why the Eureka Flag and the Eureka Stockade is such an iconic Lefty thing in Australia, bearing in mind that the flag has also been co-opted by a number of nutjob Righties as well. The miners were petit bourgeois chancers who started the tradition of moaning about the cost and incidence of taxation on small and medium business which continues to this day. Yes it was a colonial government, but it had obligations to provide the framework for the capitalist exploiters to have their gold assayed, sold and transported. The government also had obligations to the poor and ill, as well as the original inhabitants, whose welfare it was trying to protect. Businessmen dodging their fair share of tax is an Australian tradition which began at Eureka and a few rounds of grapeshot into the current bunch of tax dodgers may well be a useful remedy.
Well after concurring that the flag was very much hijacked by some of the more militant unions in Australia particularly in the 70S and 80s I must I am afraid say…Oh pleaaaseee…
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A little bit of history (and its really not hard to research)
Victorian gold miners suffered under a number of injustices. They were without political rights; they were not entitled to vote in elections, and were not represented in the Legislative Council aka the Victorian parliament (taxation without representation..mmm not a new theme). Essentially only the landed gentry and her colonial whores had the right to vote, land for settlement was not readily available the dispersal of Crown Land was effectively controlled by the landed gentry, squatters, and merchants (these would be your capitalist exploiters not the miners. Worse the taxation provided for no infrastructure or government protection..
“The government also had obligations to the poor and ill, as well as the original inhabitants, whose welfare it was trying to protect” Not even car insurance salesman could put a more false spin on the colonial government intentions, seriously the original inhabitants??? These would be the people that were classed as fauna and refused the vote until 1960s by successive governments. The government treatment of the poor in 1850s..seriously do you want to debate that?
Lastly, how does support for the Eureka flag make one a lefty anyway?
Oh and unless the new meaning of “petit bourgeois” means bones of your arse hard scrabblers then hardly an apt description of the miners involved. The title could however be well applied to the colonial whores who controlled the government and the lands at the time.
Tx, Oigs, I pressed all the buttons…. have a good ‘un
Always a pleasure..viva the Republic
By “local paper” are you referring to the Jak Post or an Oz one, Mr. O.
Whatever, right on, bro.
Thanks J, as for which paper…sandals, bananas and hired thugs
Aah …. Australia.
Capitalism?
Hi Bonni, Capitalism? I think not, capitalism as most of us would understand it has lifted more of the human race out of poverty than ever before. That said the moment we see unmitigrated greed replace compassion for our fellow man then those at fault deserve the wrath they reap.
Indonesia for instance does not suffer from Capitalism but rather a failure of her leaders to ensure the rule of law is applied equally and with compassion to all.
However, you cannot entirely sit back and blame those insensative, blood sucking parasites when it is the people who could make the changes sit by and allow it to happen. It is said a country gets the government it deserves, perhaps that is correct. Even on IM look at the number of comments on the amusing but inane Dating Indonesian Girls thread compared to the threads highlighting abuses of power towards those that cannot defend themselves.
Oops that reads a bit harsh..it’s meant a general commentary not specific
” …the people who could make the changes sit by and allow it to happen.”
If you mean the rakyat, then that’s a bit harsh, O. They’ve only had a dozen years of ‘free choice’ and are still learning what demokrasi could mean for them.
Personally, I’m encouraged by the number of well publicised ‘protests’, not so much the workers blocking toll roads en masse which cause resentment, but the collections of flip-flops and bunches of bananas for vindictive cops.
Such sparks will have a greater effect in the long run because they are ‘pushing the envelope’ and ‘thinking outside the box’ – what inane expressions – and capture the imagination.
Rakyat…Depends on what you called rakyat J. Do I mean the hard scramble, hand to mouth majority then no I do not mean them. Do I mean the significant but uncaring mall trawlers and the mall rat offspring then yes I do mean them. In fact I believe they are more to blame than the parasites themselves.
BTW. How come I agree with you now? Which one of us has changed over the past few years?
And I meant to add this link to amplify my reasoning.
Hi J, no doubt I have changed as humans should. However I am still a big believer in Capitalism and wealth creation as the only way to lift the living standards of all. That does not mean an absence of compassion.
Despite the rantings of some of the more demented, I would still be considered a conservative (in the human form not the creationist loony form that is resurgent at the moment) and lean to the right.
To see the failings of left in modern politics, you only have to look at the dysfunctional rabble currently in Australia effectively ruining 12 years of good governance by the right.
There must be other factors at play than Capitalism as the pre-eminent source of wealth creation. How come China with its state-controlled economy has been able to pull itself out of the morass in merely 30 years while Indonesia with its pro-foreign capitalist policies still lags behind despite its so-called economic take-off – almost exclusively in the extracting sector – which favors foreign investors, compradors and corruptors in the first place.
IMHO, it has more to do with the general mindset of the rakyat, be it the hard scramble, hand to mouth majority or the uncaring mall trawlers and the mall rat offspring. If petty passtimes like Facebook, sinetrons and selebriti gossip on TV and as long as religion – whichever it may be – takes up most or almost of productive time and intellectual energy, no major breakthrough in material gain, scientific interest or social restructuring is to be expected. The onset for economic development may come from the higher spheres of government policies, if they are not supported by pro-active forces from the lower strata then their effect will be just like leaves falling from a tree.
Hi ET,
Well it would be fair to say that China has pretty much adopted a very severe and nasty form of Capitalism albeit a governmental crony controlled. That said, I for one very much thing the Chinese emergence as the new global economic powerhouse is very much over hyped.
Hardly out of the morass with over 200 million people living below the poverty line, a currency government rather than market controlled, a very restless population and environmentally unsustainable growth all points to a huge bubble to burst. Unfortunately, the tendency to lash outwards rather the reflect inwards this all points to a very unhappy Asia in the years to come. The morons who protest the US in SE Asia have seen nothing yet.
Mind you, the point that religion of any kind is nothing more than a mind numbing drug for the masses and stifles development is valid and has been throughout the ages and all religions.
China has some big problems coming its way. Many countries face the challenge of an aging population, but its worse in China due to the one child policy. There are not enough young people to support those unable to work. Also, most Chinese are still dirt poor. This disparity of wealth often causes big problems when the dispossessed want a piece of the pie.
The point that China will have to face a serious demographic problem due to their 1 child policy is valid but they had little choice else at the time it was introduced due to the famines created by natural causes and mismanagement by Mao’s regime.
As far as disparity of wealth is concerned this is a common and per se not unsound phenomenon in developping nations. The creation of a stable middle class is the first requirement to start the trickle down effect to the masses below. How this trickle down effect will occur is a matter of social policies by the government. If not introduced and followed-up correctly then upheaval and riots lie ahead. Free trade unions that have the full support of their members may play an important part in this process.
Well they can have the ones in Australia, they have not served a useful purpose there since 1960.
But I’m sure they must have played their role in the past to make Australia a place where social justice has become a fact and where everybody now can enjoy a holiday in Bali (ahem).
Yup up until about 1960 after which they became self centred, greedy little thugs representing about 11% of workforce (less in reality) and very few of them had ever had a real job. Pretty much the same as the Australian Labor Party today, once the party of the working man but you would be flat out finding a single elected official who has ever worked outside the public sector in the Labor party today.
Even then its long bow to draw to suggest that the Australian Unions were the sole or even the main reason for social justice in Australia today.
The left of centre parties used to represent the working class masses. They have now tranformed into elitist social engineers, pushing the rights of “minorities”. They often portray the working class majority as ignorant unenlightened rednecks.
If your a struggling working class Aussie ( of European decent & not gay or disabled) it must be hard to know where to turn for representation.
ET, I would refer to Mao’s regime as being an awful lot more than mismanagement. Maybe you have been listening to that pompous old fool Noam Chomsky and actually taking him seriously. Next you will be telling us that Pol Pot’s organic farming paradise was way ahead of its time.
Free from the shackles of Suhartoism, it seems that Indonesian trade unions are beginning to stretch their wings.
That they achieved their short-term aim, a rise in the local government sanctioned minimum wage in Bekasi, through intimidation – the en masse blocking of the nearby toll road and thuggery against workers who didn’t want to join the strike – may prove to be a self-inflicted blow.
Hopefully, they will learn to be inclusive rather than combative; they have a steep learning curve before they become an accepted (and acceptable) force for the good.
Jakartass, that does not sound much different to the early day of Unions generally. They are not above such tactics, even now, in many countries that do have an established Union movement and a few workers rights enshrined in law.
Sadly, in Indonesia the Union leaders will probably just get paid off. Or their cause will be hijacked by those with motives other than workers rights. (Just like in the West)
You’re probably right, Stevo. That’s why I say “hopefully’ rather than mention any expectations.
Ho hum, eh?
For some reason my email address has landed on Rick Santorum’s begging list and I was exhorted today to contribute at least $ 40 to his campaign – It could be a scam but one part of his message sounds authentic enough: “ … Americans are looking for a blue collar, Reagan conservative – not a Massachusetts moderate. ”
Santorum can hardly be called “blue collar” (his father was a clinical psychologist, his mother a nurse, and he himself has ever had jobs reserved for the academically trained) but he knows well enough that blue collar voters are prepared to vote for those who want to economically screw them provided they are humored in some conservative prejudice or other. In Santorum’s case it might be his stance on same sex marriage, among other things.
The pattern seemed to be quite clear in the last presidential elections. Ron Brownstein wrote:
One can of course not identify without further ado “non-college white voters” with blue collar voters but it is a safe bet that the last category is more widely represented among them than among the college-trained types.
That blue-collar voters are often inclined to vote against their own economic interests has, over time, attracted quite a bit of attention. One of the latest publications was the bestseller “What’s the matter with Kansas” by Thomas Frank. Here is a summary:
Australian conservatives have got away with this game as well. They have, for instance, played on deep seated Australian fears of an invasion from the North (whether by the yellow or brown peril) by systematically exaggerating the threat to Australia’s border security coming from the “boat people”. Though they know well enough that far more asylum seekers arrive by plane that issue is not visibly juicy enough. The boat people have to do the job. So Howard used the appearance on the horizon of a Norwegian ship, the Tampa, that had a number of refugees on board it had saved from drowning, as a threat to national security and an election winning issue. These unarmed and undernourished people, of whom quite a few were in ill health, saw to their bewilderment the boat they were on boarded by a squad of heavily armed SAS personnel. Later the government saw fit to lie about asylum seekers having deliberately thrown their children overboard to force Australian rescuers to pick them up.
Of course, using emotionally sensitive side issues to push through a conservative economic agenda is a game that can only be played so far. When the Howard-government came up with “WorkChoices”, falsely portraying it as liberating the “average worker” from their union chains, that average worker woke up. The government’s pretence that employers and individual employees could encounter each other in the market place as parties with equal power to negotiate an equitable work agreement quickly floundered on people’s actual experience.
Sydney University’s Workplace Research Centre undertook a large study of these new agreements in the retail and hospitality sector in the first nine months of 2006.
Judith Brett comments:
The conservatives have realized by now that in WorkChoices they went a bridge too far and Tony Abbott, an erstwhile enthusiastic supporter of it, has sworn that he will not revive it. But the conservative strategy to push through an economic agenda that mainly serves entrepreneurs by harping on side issues (the boat people are still providing a ready smoke screen here) goes on unabated. One can of course not entirely rely on those old chestnuts. Misleading propaganda about the possible effects of some “left wing” measures such as the mining tax and the carbon tax has to do the rest.
This is typical of the arrogant “we know best what is good for you” attitude of academic liberals.
What you have failed to mention is that, all around the world, left of centre policies have failed to deliver. Black voters in America are beginning to wake up to this and see that Obama’s skin colour is not really very helpful when the bills come rolling in. What they need is more than appealing rhetoric, which is all Obama has delivered to them.
You also failed to notice how the left is well versed in using emotive nonsense and exaggeration in promoting their agenda. (Your post is a great example of that actually)
Anyway, let us get back to your central question (which I will paraphrase to do away with the bullsh*t content); why do ignorant working class stiffs continue to vote for conservatives, rather than the enlightened liberal academic elite (who know best)?
Well Arie I can help you out on this. Once upon a time the left stood up for them (the ignorant redneck masses) and gave them a voice. The left represented what the average working class person believed in. That has all changed. The left has been hijacked by those with other agendas. Rather than represent the masses, they seek to socially engineer them. They are guided only by their own insular ideology and not by the concerns of those they pretend to represent.
As an example, the average Aussie does not feel the way you do about boat people, or anything much else actually.
Damn Ari, I find myself with you and agin you.
Firstly, work-choices was never the demon you make it be and the majority of employees (including myself at the time) appreciated the opportunity and freedom to come to an understanding with the employee that worked for both parties rather than some union ratified nonsense that prevented me from working how and when I wanted. Don’t forget Work Choices also had to pass a no disadvantage test.
Frankly the system now in place is leading Australia straight back to the union dominated and unproductive seventies. The Carbon tax, is just a radical green pandering, job destroying tax with absolutely no benefit to the environment, in fact it actually is counter productive as high pollution industries are pushed off show (aka Indonesia, China) where environmental controls are essentially non insistent. Mining Tax was just and still is legislative rubbish, with exceptions, loopholes, inconsistencies and was never going to fly. It was more about consolidation of federal power than tax anyway. Having said that its still fun to laugh at the Western Australian loons demanding secession as they will live on the mining royalties forgetting the past 100 years of life support from the rest of the Commonwealth.
Asylum seekers, if ever a dog whistle to the lowest and most base fears of the community it is this one and it certainly brings in the dogs. Invariably, we manage to allude to Sharia Law, pack rapes of innocent white women and general invasions. Fact are the numbers are insignificant (this year the number is to be 20,000 which means three years just to get a good footy crowd) and Australia is crying out for more immigrants to fill gaping holes in both age and labour demographics. Yes, the system should be managed better, yes there should be more stringent controls on the road to citizenship but until we get away from the polarizing nonsense not likely to happen.
One of the more stupid claims is these people are just economic immigrants (that’s when they are not the fifth column Sharia Mullahs), Firstly, in most cases that is obviously rubbish, second so what even if it was true. We seem to forget the mass herds of ten pound poms, who in many cases just created their own little welfare ghettos (Elizabeth South Australia for instance) filled with no hopers and petty union delegates or the riots and upheavals with the workers brought in for the Snowy River Project. Who would benefit Australia more? A educated, family man from Iraq looking to build a new life or yet another EDL throw back waiting to join the Boover boys of Australia’s urban slums.
By the way, the current government of Australia, a mishmash of looney independents, greens and ex union lawyers and hangers on will probably be remembered as the worst in post war history. Fortunately, they will be slaughtered in the next election, unfortunately the incoming party is essentially an intellectual desert who will win power not because they have something to offer but because the Rangy government is just simply so bad.