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Title: Do You Hate Politicians?
Author: James Hutchings
Language: en
Topics: Angry People, Australia, class struggle, introductory
Source: Retrieved on January 1, 2005 from http://www.cat.org.au

James Hutchings

Do You Hate Politicians?

Kerry Packer: a media baron

John Howard: the Prime Minister of Australia

Pauline Hanson: a racist politician — the reference to her theory about

Aboriginals eating people is from a book her followers put out.

The Eureka Stockade: a rebellion by miners last century

These are tough times.

Every day we can see rising prices, unemployment, racism, environmental

destruction and poverty. Many people are afraid that their kids will

never be able to find jobs. A lot of the jobs there are, are underpaid,

frustrating and pointless. Someone once said that no one ever dies

wishing they’d spent more time at work, yet people are encouraged to

think about nothing but making money.

No one seems to know what to do. The Liberals contradict themselves. On

the one hand they say that the world economy has changed so that full

employment isn’t possible any more, on the other they say it’s the fault

of unemployed people. In other words, they blame everyone but

themselves, even though they’re the government. The Labor Party has

become more and more like the Liberals. Some people say ALP should stand

for Another Liberal Party. Once their leaders came from the working

class, now they seem to be middle class trendies or even rich business

people. As for the various Communist groups, the less said about them

the better.

Most people don’t think much of politicians. And with good reason:

politicians don’t seem to have any answers to unemployment, rising

prices, child abuse, the environment or anything else. They can’t create

a proper public transport system let alone solve the big problems. Most

people also see them as arrogant and out of touch. Even councils, which

are supposed to help local communities, can be like this (as you’ll know

if you’ve ever tried to get them to do anything). [note: It’s important

to remember that ordinary council workers aren’t responsible for this,

any more than factory workers are responsible for the actions of factory

owners.] The one thing politicians are good at seems to be making

excuses.

Governments are supposed to allow the best people to make decisions: the

experts in other words. But if the government is out of touch with

everyday life, how can they be experts on it? How can a community know

less about itself than a collection of people who’ve probably never even

been there? The experts are not the political hacks and their hangers

on. When it comes to your own life and your own community, you are the

expert.

Then there’s the argument that we get to choose our government. But we

don’t choose the judges, the police or the political advisers. We don’t

choose the ministry or the party leaders — that’s done behind closed

doors by political factions. And we don’t, most importantly, choose the

people who have the real power in our society — the upper class.

In law, everyone has exactly the same rights as millionaires like Kerry

Packer. If you want to sink millions of dollars into a major media

network, then you have the right to. However, this doesn’t mean much.

It’s obvious that society is divided into people who have wealth and

power and people who don’t. It’s also obvious that most people don’t.

Most of us are pretty much in the same boat. We either work to make

someone else rich (or, if we work for the government, to make some

politician look good), or we try and get by on the dole. Either way, we

aren’t our own boss: we have to take shit from bosses, case managers,

supervisors etc. This is the situation that most people are in, whether

you’re a blue collar worker, office worker, shop assistant, unemployed,

housewife or whatever. Your basic position in society is also called

your social class. The people who are rich or have power, the John

Howards and Kerry Packers of this world, are called the upper class.

People with a bit of power, for example managers, are called the middle

class. The people who have none, most people, are called the working

class.

A lot of people are surprised to hear themselves called working class. A

lot of people think of themselves as ‘middle class’, because they’ve got

a decent house or a slightly better job. People who work in offices

often think of themselves as ‘better’ than people who work with their

hands. People who have jobs often look down on the unemployed. Male

workers often resent women workers. But all this is absolute rubbish.

The differences between us aren’t nearly as important as the

similarities. We all have the same basic position in society, we all

have the same basic problems, and we all have the same enemies.

We’re supposed to live in a democracy, where we have the same rights and

the same say as the rich and powerful. But it doesn’t work that way.

Politicians ignore the wishes of ordinary, working class people in

favour of the wishes of the rich and powerful upper class. There’s one

law for the rich and another for the poor: if you want justice you have

to pay for it. Working class people don’t get a say, because the TV and

radio stations are all owned by members of the upper class. When money

talks freedom is silent.

People and communities won’t be able to control their own lives and

solve their own problems as long as the rich and powerful can lord it

over the rest of us. We think that the only way to solve our society’s

problems is to stop having politicians and an upper class altogether. We

want to replace rule by politicians with direct democracy — everyone

having an equal say in things that effect them. In fact this is the real

meaning of democracy: ‘rule by the people’. We also want an end to

inequality of wealth. Instead of some people having everything and the

rest of us having to struggle just to get by, we want everyone to be

able to do an equal amount of work and get an equal reward.

A lot of people would say that all this is a nice idea but it could

never happen. In other words, they say we’re idealists or dreamers. But

really, the dreamers are the people who think that the current system

can be made to work for the people. Do you think that the rich are going

to give away their money? Do you think that politicians can run your

life better than you can? Communities based on equality and freedom have

been set up and run before, for example in Paris and parts of Spain.

It’s always taken the guns of the wealthy to tear them down. And it

isn’t a thing of the past either. Today, a Mexican group called the

Zapatistas is putting these ideas into practice, taking on their

government and that of the United States — and they’re winning. Of

course, since the rich own the TV stations etc, they don’t tell anyone

about any of this, so most people don’t know about it.

Ordinary people might not realise that they can win, but the upper class

certainly does. They spend a lot of time and money trying to stop this

happening. They mostly try to ‘divide and rule’. They’ll encourage

snobbery, especially against the unemployed. They’ll say that anyone who

stands up for themselves is a ratbag and un-Australian, as if the Eureka

Stockade happened in some other country. They’ll encourage white people

to blame other races. Pauline Hanson is of course the current master of

this. As if BHP closing down the steelworks in Newcastle was caused by

refugees, as if banks sending farmers bankrupt is caused by Aboriginals,

as if the stock market crashes because of immigration — her latest

brilliant theory is that Aboriginals eat people! You can believe this if

you like. To us, it just shows that politicians will tell any lie to get

power and support.

The upper class has a lot of power and a lot of wealth, and they won’t

give up without a fight. But we think that the things we’re fighting for

are right, and are in the interests of most people. We also think we can

win. If the other team’s a lot bigger, we’ll just have to play better.

Will you help us?