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.