THE "RESIGN, JEFF!" REVIEW |
RJR 8 | 14 June 1994 | Melbourne, Victoria |
Business Has No Business in Politics Sadly, the Jeff Kennett's of this world will never comprehend the consequences of their action on real people. The anal-retentive EconoRats and their fetish for computer-generated 'forecasts' bearing no resemblance to reality are a mighty hindrance to the evolution of humanity. The Australian Financial Review's recent 12-page pep talk on 'The Victorian Revival'--talk about right wing dogma!--is a classic example. Nowhere in the AFR's 'special report' is there sufficient discussion of the inequities of the Kennett reforms on ordinary people, in particular the blatant suspension of democratic principles. Indeed, Victorians are jumping off the Kennett Express in ever increasing numbers because, in their eyes, they are being made to subsidise a $9 million dollar refurbishment for the Premier's office by reducing the quality of their lives to the tune of a 10 per cent surcharge on utilities, a $100 property levy, and the doubling of Motor Vehicle Registration fees, Kindergarten fees and bank charges, to name just a few. Further, like the Sheriff of Nottingham, the Premier arrogantly jeers them as anti-Victorians for questioning his motives. In fact, he treats those who disagree with him as second-class citizens, or worse, as mere vassals, to be told in no uncertain terms what is good for them. Jeff Kennett thinks of himself as a strong leader, the saviour of Victoria, but in reality he is a vindictive ego-driven tyrant who is systematically laying waste to this state in exactly the same way that Margaret Thatcher ravaged England. No one will argue that business is an integral part of human endeavour; a healthy business community translates to prosperity for all. Yet, becoming a business man or woman is just one of countless vocations and careers to be explored in order to secure a rewarding life. The accumulation of wealth for its own sake is a sign of creative poverty, where depth of thought and self-investigation are exchanged for mere bean counting, where integrity and compassion are exchanged for shrewdness and opportunism. In a healthy and harmonious society, money is the by-product of endeavour; in the Vic Ltd world, money is the prime mover. People are looked upon as pawns to be used with no consideration for the repercussions on their lives. Indeed, those lives, with all their very real joys and sorrows, are held to be irrelevant. In today's world, there is a fine line between what is perceived as good business practice and the all too common shady business deal. We say 'business is business' with a cavalier attitude, meaning that we understand that the rules must often be bent. It has become a way of life for nearly everyone, from fudging figures on income tax returns to putting on phoney sales. It's a big ask for innately honest people to conduct their business fairly, when business savvy infers that honesty and integrity is a recipe for failure. 'Hey, if we don't steal that account, someone else will!' One of the great hypocrisies, as reported in the Herald Sun's recent series on 'The Rumor Tank,' is the number of high-fliers who profess to be devout Christians. When business so often involves condoned duplicities, it must be difficult for these good citizens to uphold the tenets of their religion. Love thy neighbour is in direct conflict with screw thy competitor. This must cause a serious fragmentation in these business people, unless they are cynically using their religion to allay the suspicion that Mammon is their God. Indeed churches are full on Sunday with people who, during the week, blithely engage in cunning deception. In the end, business should be prevented by law from having any involvement in politics; those running for public office should be made to prove they are not involved in business, either for themselves or someone else. History has shown over and over again that the influence of business in government inevitably leads to corruption. Business ultimately has no morality--as exemplified by the arms manufacturers-- while politics is at least supposed to give it lip service. Some of us have this foolish notion of government as elected representatives serving the greater community, to insure that the lives of its citizens run as smoothly as possible. Short of that naive belief, we would at least hope for a government with a minimum regard for its electorate. Unfortunately, the role of government has always been to promote its own agenda with scant regard for the people who put it in power. In this, the Kennett Government excels. Aided by its advisory mates at Vic Ltd and elsewhere, and applauded by the one-dimensional thinking of the Australian Financial Review, this government has taken secrecy, duplicity and total disregard of community needs to the lowest degree of baseness. Perhaps there really are just two kinds of people in the world: those who regard quality of life for all human beings as the highest priority, and those who don't. These two groups, antagonistic by nature, are as fundamental to existence as light and dark. Ironically, the left, with its idealistic need to bring light to one and all, is often driven underground. The right, ever plotting its elitist self-aggrandising skulduggery, is always found hatching its oppressions in exclusive sun-drenched venues, high above the teeming masses. It has always been thus. The human race is still idling in its embryo of potentiality. The RJR would like to float the idea of a class action suit against the Kennett Government for using an estimated $400,000 in taxpayer funds for an advertising campaign against the Federal Industrial Relations Laws. In effect, the government is using the tax money of thousands of Victorians to fight legislation these same Victorians support! After a Hard Day of Bursting with the life force of sun-bleached dog turd lying in the corner of a forgotten paddock, Mr Living Dead retires to his crypt of an evening to write his weekly column of zomboid ruminations for the once-respected Age newspaper. His bloodless body squeaks and groans from articular desiccation as he scratches onto yellow parchment the iniquitous model for his wealth-creation-by-user-pays hell on earth. Too Much Vitriol, Not Enough Razzberries Argghh! It's time for a change. How many ways can we describe an ideology that is almost solely responsible for the woes of humanity? It's been cathartic, but the ideologues remains impervious to criticism. The task, to remind Victorians that they are in the clutches of self-serving larvae, suddenly broadens to become a rescue mission of utmost urgency. The Albert Park Grand Prix, to use one example, is not the worthy effort of visionaries to bring prosperity to the people, but the imposition of a crass value system by sniggering hucksters whose only aims are absolute power (the kind of glory associated with becoming used car dealer of the year) and unlimited riches. Jeff Kennett, their Victorian representative, is a classic case of arrested development in adolescence, a schoolyard bully whose every move is unconsciously calculated to impress the age group to which he has always aspired: the 19-25-year-old free range males so accurately represented in TAC ads. Under his 'leadership,' Victorians are being dominated by a coalition of id and ego, with superego held as a virtual political prisoner. The ideology behind the tyrant and his kind is short-sighted to the point of blindness, the kind of materialistic obsession that recalls Edward G. Robinson in The Ten Commandments, exhorting everyone to worship the golden calf. (With, may we add, about as much class.) Their heroes are Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, whose neo-feudalist economic reforms layed waste to the lives of millions of people while creating a privileged elite. And just recently, gormless John Major, son of Thatcher, complained with not a hint of irony that beggars, the offspring of economic rationalism, were offensive. Will Jeff Kennett win the next election, returned by an electorate conned into sacrificing its well-being for doubtful short-term gains? It may be inevitable. But that inevitability supposes another: the rise of a Victorian Nelson Mandela. One of the sad verities of life on Earth is the need for constant vigilance of those who would steal our freedom. South Africa's decades of oppression brought about the dedicated single-mindedness of men and women like Mandela; they are not bred in complacent societies. And now the pariah of the world has suddenly become what hopefully will be the most democratic nation in the world. Evolution, though slow, is the one inevitability that survives. Our original intention for the RJR was to ridicule the Kennett Government in the best tradition of political satire. Alas, the result has been more like feral snarls. The situation is just too serious, too outrageous. An overwhelming reaction to injustice, especially as perpetrated by vulgar philistines, has left us sour of face and depressed of soul. Thus, for the normally buoyant staff the siren has sounded; it's time for the long break. Our hats are off to the journalists of The Age and Herald Sun and elsewhere for their tireless and disciplined reporting on the repulsive insolence of the Premier and his loathsome colleagues. They are better Gunga Dins than we. As well, we salute the political cartoonists, particularly Tandberg, Knight and Nicholson. We had hoped to do as much with words, but failed. After Jeff Kennett's passing into history, we look forward to their commentaries and sketches of a man who must have made them wince every time they saw his smug face or heard his arrogant voice. But then, there are so many Liberals today, State and Federal, who fit that description. Neither Labor nor National Party members seem capable of such snide and sneering odiousness. Dumb and naive they may be, but rarely so misanthropically hateful. As for the merciless Paul Keating, you have only to put Jeff Kennett next to him to see the difference. Arrogant disdain of ignorance v. arrogant ignorance itself. Have we at the RJR been whistling in the wind? Who's to know, since a return address has never been supplied. We're sorry about that, but paranoia has prevailed. Let's face it, the RJR is a samizdat. Right here in once-democratic 1990's Victoria. Some of the 30-plus 'lucky' people on our mailing list will have enjoyed the ranting and raving, while others will have filed each and every copy in the rubbish. However, whether amusing or revolting, we have decided to suspend publication with this issue. August or September will likely see us back in one form or another. For example, the several special interest groups already organised to fight the Kennett regime cannot be hurt by the formation of another. In fact, what is urgently needed is a COALITION of these groups, with pooled talent and resources, and dedicated, through the use of democratic means, to achieving one end: the prevention of this witless government from further attacks on democracy. To those who have received the RJR, we offer our gratitude for being an uninvited ear. From the Property section of the Age (22/5): SCHOOL SITES SELL WELL The subheading could easily have been: Former pupils being fattened for implementation of slave trade agreement with Indonesia. Still, A Clean, Well-lighted Place Even with culturally deprived simpletons such as our own can-do wanker, Jeff Kennett, Richard 'Pinché' Court, Bronwyn 'dumbcluck' Bishop, and the blithering though still dangerous remnants of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, as well as clueless fossils John Howard, John Hewson, Tim Fischer, and Ian McLachlan, not to forget the chook-brained homophobes in Tassie, and even Paul Keating, Australia remains one of the few sane countries in the world. Notwithstanding the efforts of all the above and all those not mentioned, we continue to live in a fully functioning democracy. But for how long? They're on a roll and determined to take us down the same Mad Max roads their idols created in America and Great Britain. As the world becomes less democratic in the name of free enterprise, it behoves Australians to be vigilant. PRO VICTORIA |
SCUM AT THE TOP is not copyrighted and may be used in whole or in part for any purpose the reader chooses.
Published and distributed by the Political Prisoners of the Future.