New Hope in the World

Dissatisfaction with Tweedledum politics-as-usual is escalating. In Italy the Five Star movement has won a significant number of seats in the national parliament. In Spain 15M (The Indignants) have polled well in local elections. In Lebanon the people have begun mass protests under the slogan You Stink.

Could this happen in Australia?  Independents held the balance of power in our House of Representatives from 2010 to 2013, enabling Labor to govern with a minority. Today independents and minor parties hold the balance of power in the Senate, much to the frustration of the Liberal government.

It's not enough. The pace of change is not quick enough.

As in other countries, government alternates between two major parties which have both become distant from the people, self-serving, and incompetent. Both major parties are locked into a top-down view of the world in which the Economy is a beautifully oiled machine. As long as we fit into its needs the government will be able to balance the budget and the country will prosper.

That's a lie. For many years now the beautifully oiled machine has only served to concentrate power and wealth increasingly in the hands of a few.

One reason is the decline of trade unions. Unions still exist - they just don't do much. They effectively gave up the fight thirty years ago, persuaded by the myth of a trickledown wonderland just over the horizon if they kept the peace. "We" would all roll up our sleeves together in a spirit of co-operation and the country would prosper.

It didn't happen. Union membership declined. Union officials, with nothing much else to do and now very friendly with politicians and business leaders, began to concentrate on winning themselves seats in parliament. It does not take much talent to win a seat in parliament, but there are not enough seats to go around. So the least talented union officials took the next convenient course and began embezzling union funds. Which is why there is now a commission of inquiry into union corruption.

Lacking effective unions to fight for fair wages and decent conditions and job security, we have all been sliding backwards. We are told now that in addition to the uncertainties of casual/contract work we will probably have to re-train and change careers five times in our lives. Which will keep us all very busy and leave no time to form effective unions to fight for fair wages and decent conditions and job security.

And all the while power and wealth have been trickling up into the hands of fewer and fewer people.

You can bet that Gina Rinehart will not have to re-train five times in her life. This is the same Gina Rinehart who complains that Australian workers want too much money for their hard labour and has spent much of her time in recent years trying to swindle her own children out of billions.

That's how the rich operate.

The Tweedledum politicians appeal to our sense of community and patriotism. We must all "share the pain" when they make "difficult decisions". In fact they make these decisions easily and the pain is never shared. We know who feels the pain. We know who feels no pain.

It is a fraud, repeated again and again. Labor or Liberal, that's how they operate.

Am I dreaming to hope that a Five Star army of Indignants might arise in this country, that there might be enough people left with enough hope and energy to fight, to reclaim democracy, to affirm that we are the country, that we are the Economy, that we may govern ourselves in any way we choose?