Aw man! At least Swan pretends to want something that Springsteen could approve of: to bash the trash.
So, as Paul seems clueless about Rage Against the Machine's ideology.
Or in Tom Morello's words:
"Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn't understand them. (…) And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine". (See here)
The blogosphere is a funny thing. You find all sorts of stuff: the good, the bad and the ugly. And this applies to both, the bloggers themselves, and those souls, sometimes kind, sometimes not so much, commenting their posts.
Peter Martin is a lucky blogger: often his comment threads are fairly good. This one I'm commenting today is not good, it's excellent, thanks to both the commentators and Martin himself.
Martin's post starts by remarking that 54K Kiwis moved to Australia in the year to July, which is a "dramatic increase from the same period a year before". (See here)
Why are Kiwis moving to Oz? According to Martin's information, because unemployment in NZ is higher than in Oz (6.8% vs. 5.2%) and wages in NZ "are around 20% lower than Australia's when measured in terms of purchasing power."
In short:
" 'These are economic refugees,' New Zealand Council of Trade Unions secretary Peter Conway told The Age."
This might be only me, but the difference in unemployment rates doesn't seem excessive; the difference in wages, if true, should be much more meaningful.
Regardless. This is where the following exchange between some users and Martin adds a lot of value to the original post:
Anonymous said to Martin: "So we are getting economic refugees from New Zealand. I thought New Zealand was showing us the way with policies like cutting government spending during an economic slowdown, something applauded by the economic dilettantes in the Coalition."
Marek (another user): "I imagine that NZ's unemployment numbers would look worse if it wasn't for the mass exodus".
Martin: "In the same way as United States employment numbers would look worse if it weren't for prisons. That's a line actually doing the rounds in NZ".
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One could interpret that NZ, which the Coalition sees as model for Australia, could be exporting their unemployed to the other side of the Tasman.
Mind you, I have nothing against Kiwis. But wherever they come from, migrants will need jobs once they arrive in Australia.
And this is where the problem lies. According to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations' latest release (August 2012):
"The Internet Vacancy Index (IVI) decreased by 3.1% in July 2012 in trend terms. Over the year, the IVI has fallen by 15.6% and is now 48.0% below the March 2008 peak. The IVI fell over the year in all states and territories, with the smallest decline being recorded for Western Australia (down by 4.3%) followed by Queensland (13.4%). The largest decline was in Tasmania (down by 23.3%)." (See here)
And that under a nominally pro-worker Labor government! Just wait until the next Coalition government decides to follow New Zealand's example and stimulate job creation by cutting government spending (including sacking public servants), throwing the unemployed into the garbage bin, and cutting taxes to the rich.
After that, we should expect our wages to go gangbusters and increase, I suppose.
Frankly, I am not much of a John Lennon fan. I don't hate him, either. And I'm more than happy to admit he had some very good songs.
"Working Class Hero" is, perhaps unsurprisingly to my regular readers, my favourite. What really surprised me is that this song appears to be quite popular.
Think about it: whenever the media covers John Lennon, apart from a selection of The Beatles era, "Woman" and, above all, "Imagine" are likely to appear; but never WCH.
Perhaps one could explain this because WCH contains some "coarse language". As the f-word is so fucking unusual, respectable audiences would feel understandably shocked by hearing it, I guess.
Or maybe it's just that "Woman" and "Imagine" are less confrontational, more up-lifting, in a "Kumbaya My Lord" sort of way.
Be that is it may.
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But check YouTube for that title. And surprisingly lots of versions pop up.
Marilyn Manson (yes, believe it or not, the Antichrist Super Star in person!) is here. I'll admit it, I never imagined Warner singing this song and I do own each of the post-"Smells Like Children" albums. Anyway, it's a very good performance and Warner's voice, half anger, half melancholy, suits it very well.
But, to be honest, my two favourite WCHs were these two:
Tina Dico (from
Denmark). Excellent singer, about whom I know nothing apart from what
her Wikipedia entry says. Anyway, very well interpreted and produced, in
a professional manner.
But the top of the sample, for me, is the video below. Obviously not as well
produced, the singer (I think her name is Zoe Louk, apparently from Israel) is a good interpreter. The lack of production gives
the video a touch of sincerity that won me:
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There was a time when people would say that if one works hard and keeps one's head low, one gets ahead in life. If you're young, ask your old folks.
The most optimistic would say that the sky is the limit. The more level-headed would say that things shall get better for one's kids.
The cynic among us would have added that maybe hard work wouldn't be enough. Perhaps one would have to suck up to one's boss, too; adopt the "each man for himself" frame of mind, that's the smart thing to do. Above all, don't rock the boat; be humble. If the road was humiliating and degrading, full of bitterness, the destination was worth it.
Like the song says:
There's room at the top they are telling you still But first you must learn how to smile as you kill If you want to be like the folks on the hill
And, let's face it my friends, many of us did that. Look around you, many still do.
Where did that take us? This is now the best we can get:
"Much of the change being imposed on various industries will inevitably involve redundancies. The most workers can expect is decent redundancy pay, the avoidance of excesses designed to impress the sharemarket, and a preference for redundancies to be voluntary." (My emphasis. See here)
This is how the song puts it:
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV And you think you're so clever and classless and free But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
And ask Ross Gittins (author of the quote above): he'll say that there's no point in screaming and kicking.
So, let's keep being humble, reasonable, clever. Don't rock the boat. It didn't work before, but it will sure work now.
Image Credits
[A] The Exploitation, by Diego de Rivera. Wikipedia.This file is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. I can't claim Diego de Rivera in any way endorses my usage of his image. Among other things, because he is dead.
"Over the last six, eight months, I've noticed something. Am I still called to provide criticisms of capitalism? Yes. But something new has happened – call it the maturation of the critical movement here in the United States and the rest of the world. It's no longer enough. They want to know, OK, you're right, capitalism sucks -- for many of them that's a big step, I don't want to in any way minimize it. But they're saying to me, OK, we've read your stuff, now give us an alternative." (See here)
This is when right-whingers among my readers would say: "Bah! Nonsense. There is no alternative. Only naked self-interest can make a firm productive: greed is good".
