Opposites don't attract

I've been thinking about opposites a lot the past few days, you know, war and peace, good and evil, love and hate. Last night a young lad, 18 years old, has (allegedly) run amok and (allegedly) stabbed some policemen and wound up on a mortuary slab as a consequence. Very sadly, things like this happen from time to time; far too often, but there it is. But this is not how this unfortunate incident is being reported. The media headlines are all about a 'known terror suspect' being neutralised by heroic coppers, just doing their jobs, protecting 'all of us' from 'extremism'. Vast swathes of the populace are now expected to be locking their doors and quaking in their boots lest balaclava-clad 'terrorists' come and try to decapitate them in their beds.

Maybe it's Grand Final season, but people seem to have formed up faster than usual into two opposing camps, talking about the 'East' and the 'West' and the 'left' and the 'right', 'good' and 'evil' as if these terms had any meaning, except to widen the gap between understanding and compassion. Facebook and Twitter have been alight with slanging matches between those for and against getting involved in Gulf War III. The debate, quite heated and rather sweary in many instances, is mostly conducted by people who have very little knowledge of the history and politics of the region, or the vital (but little discussed) importance of a steady supply of oil to the US military industrial complex. People are accused of being 'traitors' if they question the wisdom of Australia getting involved in a civil war on the other side of the world when we (allegedly) can't afford to fund education or health. People are accused of being 'morons' or 'trolls' if they are in favour of it. There is much ill-informed debate about the tenets of Islam, the wearing of burqas and why 'they hate us'. In fact, 'they' have many good reasons to hate us, and our plasma TVs are nothing to do with it.

It seems pretty obvious to me, that the government is trying to tell us that black is white, up is down, war is peace and 'baddies' can be made into 'goodies' by killing as many of them as possible, torturing them, kicking them off their land and confiscating their stuff. If they have the nerve to rebel violently against this treatment, it's because they want to invade us, because they 'hate our way of life', and because, well, violence is just part of their nature (yeah right, unlike 'us', eh?). We're also told that in order to protect 'our freedoms', we citizens should submit meekly to more surveillance and new laws restricting our movements.

Of course, as Dr Martin Luther King once famously said 'darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that'. But, as usual, the knee jerk reaction is to do the exact opposite. When will we learn to engage with others and seek out areas of agreement before it comes to blows? When will we learn that in order to end conflicts, we need to understand what the root cause is and attend to it? When will we learn that if we don't learn to share the Earth's resources equitably, and treat everyone with dignity and respect, we will never, ever have peace? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that shouting propaganda at each other won't help with any of this.

Karma in action

I've been thinking about 'karma' the past few days because I got talking to someone about it recently (as you do). His view was that 'the universe' is in control of all our lives and decides if, when and why we should 'suffer' - from stubbing our toe to being hit by a meteorite. The good news (allegedly) is that this is all for our own good and part of the plan (...mmm hmmmm....). I explained to him that he was getting a few different religious beliefs mixed up for starters. The guy swore he wasn't a 'religious nut' or anything. He said he just believed in the 'ancient wisdom' handed down from 'Tibet' on this topic. (Sigh). I tried to be reasonable with him. But I had to say, if this is all some kind of a plan it doesn't seem to be going too well so far. Surely, after tens of thousands of years of 'suffering' all this 'karma' we should be there by now? Are we really such slow learners? How much longer does 'the universe' plan to take with all this? Seems like a pretty dud deal to me. I'd be sacking the CEO if I was a shareholder in this enterprise... He didn't think it was funny. Oh well.

But it got me thinking about the way that people will kid themselves into thinking that anything and everything is someone else's fault and it's all beyond their control. We have fundamentalists in the USA saying that the conflict in Gaza is not being caused by the aggression of Zionists or greed of land-grabbers and weapons salesmen. It's the work of God, as predicted in Revelations. We have climate change deniers saying that climate science is nothing but human hubris and 'God' is in charge of the weather. It's not just God getting up to mischief though. We have conspiracy nuts who blame EVERYTHING on the mysterious Illuminati and/or the 1% (who may or may not be the same shadowy group depending on who you talk to). Others just mutter darkly about 'the government' tracking our movements with Myki cards, or any number of other fearful things, in order to control everyone, for dark and dangerous reasons of their own.

Marx famously said: "...Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people." Well, I think he was right, as he was about a lot of things. But these days we have way more excuses for taking an apathetic view in terms of our destiny than just religion. We have way more things to feel 'spiritless' and 'heartless' about nowadays than the downtrodden Russian proletariat. Maybe that's just how 'they' like it? 'They' like it if the people aren't causing too much fuss, and are all cowering at home in front of their TVs (buying things for preference). Well, I'm here to tell everyone that you are not helpless. It's not hopeless and there is a LOT you can do to make the world a better place, to alleviate suffering, to change unjust laws, to end violence against the weak and to do something about climate change.

 Now don't get me wrong. Doing something doesn't have to stop you believing in God or the universe or the Illuminati or whatever-you-fancy if it pleases you. But, believing in any of those things does not excuse you from taking action that will make the world a better place either. Action speaks louder than words, so they say.

Popularity, populism and propaganda

It seems 'populism' is a bit of a dirty word in these Orwellian times. Populism seems to be especially on the nose, mind you, when people like Clive Palmer or the Greens resort to it. Seems that giving the voters what they want is a shocking thing to do in a secular liberal democracy. Saying that leaving young people without any social safety net for six months will drive them to commit crimes or harm themselves is apparently not common sense, it's 'populist'. Saying that socking everyone with a great big new tax to go to the doctors is unfair isn't plain-speaking, it's 'populist'. Saying that the budget is robbing the poor to give to the rich isn't stating the obvious, it's 'populist'. But, according to the twisted logic of our times, implementing a laundry list of extreme ideologically driven policies, dreamt up by a privately funded right wing think tank, is the responsible 'adult' thing to do. Announcing policies dreamt up by mining magnates, without running them by the public service (or anyone else) for a sanity check first, is very sensible and wise too I suppose?

So, hang on a tick. What's going on? Last time I checked our government was employed by the people to act on behalf of the people, to do what the people want. They have a 'mandate' to spend the people's money on things intended for the welfare of the people, to protect the assets that belong to the people and to uphold the rights of the people. I'm not sure exactly when things changed, but lately it seems to me that our governments believe that they are working for the 'business sector' (which is code for banks and miners) in order to support 'the economy' (which is code for the stock market). They want to protect the assets and welfare of the business sector, to give the business sector 'certainty' (unless they're in the renewable business of course), to listen to the views of business and enact the policies that business wants. They put representatives of 'business' on the boards of public organisations and commission them to write reports on what should be done with public assets (privatise them of course). Why else are we considering lowering minimum wages, fracking farms, dumping spillage in the Great Barrier Reef, killing the renewable energy target, gutting the ABC and CSIRO, removing taxes on the mining sector and banning public demonstrations while increasing surveillance on every citizen? Why indeed.

 As those who have been watching the ICAC proceedings have seen lately, 'business' is well and truly having a corrupting influence on the old parties and we are seeing the results in public policy. You know what they say 'he who pays the piper calls the tune'? Well, it's 'the people' who pay for our governments, so why is it we no longer seem to call the tune? It's obvious that 'business' does not have the best interests of the people at heart. They are apparently hell bent on destroying the whole planet at break neck speed. As long as their share prices stay up, that's all that seems to matter. It's short-sighted, selfish and stupid, but that doesn't seem to matter to most of them. The only thing standing in their way is a rather inconvenient flowering of 'populism' now that the people are able to talk back to governments and 'business', and to each other, via social media. It's time for people power to kick the corporations out of the halls of power, back into their board rooms where they belong.

The Greens have been saying for years that election campaign funding needs a major clean up. At first, as usual, we were laughed at. Now in the US, there's a growing movement to do just this. How much longer can it be until it happens? Well, I suppose that depends on how loudly and long the people demand it. It won't fix everything overnight, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction.