The election which is coming in Australia has brought into sharp focus the immense problem that democracy has with a two-party system and the ease with which the masses are manipulated by unscrupulous politicians.In this country, as in America and Britain, political parties are roughly divided into two separate groups: on one side there are the conservatives who represent the interests of capitalists, entrepreneurs and the wealthy. On the other side we have a party that used to represent the interests of the working class but now tries to sit with a foot in both the union camp and the employer's citadel. With Howard's help, the citadel is an immensely powerful fortress.
Howard's Industrial Relations Laws have stripped worker's rights, lowered their wages, reduced the power of trade unions, and made dismissal of employees a simple matter. This, combined with Howard's gross duplicity and craven support of George Bush plus our ridiculous involvement in Iraq, has led to a backlash against the Conservatives and currently, according to the polls, they are about as popular as a pork chop in a Synagogue!
Undeterred, the Conservative Prime Minister, John Howard, and Business lobby groups are going to run the Mother of all Fear Campaigns during this election in an effort to be re-elected. The adds have already begun running. They promise, should the Socialist Party win the election (I use the word Socialist loosely): union domination of workplaces, a large loss of jobs, steep increases in mortgage interest rates, the ending of the current surplus in the economy, a rise in the Goods and Services Tax, an inept Government run by Unions, an Australia at an increased security risk, in other words: the end of civilization itself Down Under!
The average Australian voter, ill-prepared to understand what democracy means or their responsibilities as citizens to ensure it works, when confronted by massive advertising promising dire consequences for them (plus the subtle pro-business bias of the major media organizations who are themselves entrepreneurs), does not have the political or economic knowledge to sort out the wheat from the chaff. They are too busy trying to survive the dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest world which, thanks to conservative influence, surrounds them. The election result therefore may not truly represent the will of the people but more the power of advertising, the success of using fear as a political weapon and the use of blatant political bribes!
The two-party system and failure of the political education of the masses makes any democracy into a complete joke. That's why we end up with fools like Bush, Howard and Blair and a dangerously conflicted world. We need to put our current political system on the scrap heap where it belongs and start again.
The idea of government by the people, for the people, is good. It has been high jacked by carpetbaggers, corporations and self-serving politicians who seek ever more money and power!
We need to make democracy work for everyone's sake and soon, while we still have a world!
7 comments:
All based upon greed I'm afraid. The majority of people want to improve their lot. They see what other people have or what they are being brainwashed into needing by advertisers, and want it. A basic human flaw perhaps? It must have been recognised by the clever chaps the wrote the book of exodus.. Thou shall not covet! Not only that, but many of those old commandments made perfect sense. The cleverness being that who ever wrote them realised that people might not see them as realistic so they threw in a few more by inventing a God to back them up with fear...pretty much like the politicians are still doing....Ummm, Rumour has it that King James had Shakespeare on the Job. Would make perfect sense. Get the best fiction writer of the time! I wonder who Bush is using, Stephen King from the looks of things!
It's amazing that humans can take any fine ideal, any noble concept and destroy it completely, turn it into a cruel parody, a depraved mockery of what it was intended to be.
What manner of foul creatures are we? To liken us to animals is to insult all animals.
At least they have some instinctive values!
I always thought the Australians were more skeptical and better educated in the political sense than most Americans. Am I wrong?
If I am correct, the advertising will have little effect. If I am wrong, you will travel down the same path the USA has done.
Of course if you 'vote incorrectly', as some countries do, others may step in and correct matters for you, as happened in Canada recently.
We're just as poorly educated here as anywhere else, Nancy. Beer and footie are the two top Australian interests!
I totally agree. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the people of the world deserve better than this.
My hope is that there is a REAL leftist backlash. And not of an authoritarian flavor. I still believe that freedom of thought is going to win in the end.
These men cannot control the information forever.
I agree, here in the UK the two sides are almost identical and shamefully, both are to the right of centre.
What we need is a new bunch of left wing groups springing up such as UK Respect which grew out of the Anti-War movement.
We Utopians need to start agitating for radical political change. What I see happening in Australia sickens me.
We, the people, are being both exploited and treated with total contempt by the political hierarchy.
We serve them not they serve us!
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