Commentary, No Solutions...
Before life so suddenly & tragically interrupted my... well, life, really... I'd been thinking about a lot of the things people have been saying & writing in the aftermath of our Federal Election, desperate to find some global trend to hang it on. Somehow, people seem to think that just because our conservative Liberal party won against what opinion polls indicated were insurmountable odds, a lot of people & especially pundits are really trying to tie it into Trump, Brexit, & the rise of the far-right. Even though the far-right candidates for both upper & lower Houses didn't fair particularly well anywhere, even in Queensland (famously described as our Alabama, by a past politician) - much to a lot of people's audible relief
Thinking about all of that, especially given our kind of sad longing to be part of a global movement, or epidemic (Again!!! Every half-baked loony with a gun here is quickly & erroneously linked to Islamic terrorism, as if we really want to be able to say "Look! See!! Us too!!!"), made my thoughts turn to where it's gone wrong, not just for Australia, but for the world in general. Okay... mostly the Western world, but that's the one I live in & feel qualified to comment on... Because I think the rise of globalism, mostly via ever more impressive technology designed to 'bring us together', is actually splitting us apart
To try & put it on a postcard - the more people of lesser opportunity, education & status see of the rest of the world, the less they like it. They're having a hard enough time hanging on to what they see as theirs, without the threat of the rich, over-educated, or overseas masses taking it away from them, let alone the horrible realisation that there aren't just a bunch of people in your own country getting better jobs than you, but they're everywhere!!!. And what if they come for your job & your path of opportunity, broken & torturous as it may be - it's still yours!! Even if you never actually get around to walking it... be damned if anyone else is going to. And possibly, the more you're fed images of fabulous no-talent nobodies having a fabulous time, the more you want that lifestyle & the angrier you get when it remains unachievable. Rightly or wrongly, the divide between rich & poor is not only growing, but it's being pushed in your face very time you look at your phone, or your 'smart' TV, or your computer - which you're struggling to keep up the payment plans on
Here in Australia, the far-right One Nation party can't seem to decide if Asian &/or Muslim immigrants/refugees are here to take your job, or take all the Government Welfare. It doesn't seem to matter that, surely, they can't do both... either message gets through to people who see themselves as having been left behind by the march of global technology & economy & are easily preached to, swayed, then mobilised to vote for racists with no solution, plan, suggestion, or agenda - other than a white one that involves saying 'No' to anything that threatens to advance Australia beyond the good old post-WWII days that nobody can really remember, but seem to represent some kind of (white) golden era...
... where women were encouraged to leave school at 16 to become a secretary, marry a middle-manager, quit the job & start breeding, Aboriginal people were not recognised as 'people', domestic violence wasn't frowned upon, or even much talked about, polio, rubella, smallpox, tuberculosis & skin cancer all did their part in keeping the population down & asbestos was the fibre of the future... Oh boy, it certainly was!
To put it on a postage stamp (remember those??), xenophobia, chronophobia, prosophobia & technophobia are the new fuel for the fires of the 21st century. Easily started & fanned large enough to start burning books in... or phones, computers, non-Christians, or eventually, just anyone who looks at you 'funny'
Thinking about all of that, especially given our kind of sad longing to be part of a global movement, or epidemic (Again!!! Every half-baked loony with a gun here is quickly & erroneously linked to Islamic terrorism, as if we really want to be able to say "Look! See!! Us too!!!"), made my thoughts turn to where it's gone wrong, not just for Australia, but for the world in general. Okay... mostly the Western world, but that's the one I live in & feel qualified to comment on... Because I think the rise of globalism, mostly via ever more impressive technology designed to 'bring us together', is actually splitting us apart
To try & put it on a postcard - the more people of lesser opportunity, education & status see of the rest of the world, the less they like it. They're having a hard enough time hanging on to what they see as theirs, without the threat of the rich, over-educated, or overseas masses taking it away from them, let alone the horrible realisation that there aren't just a bunch of people in your own country getting better jobs than you, but they're everywhere!!!. And what if they come for your job & your path of opportunity, broken & torturous as it may be - it's still yours!! Even if you never actually get around to walking it... be damned if anyone else is going to. And possibly, the more you're fed images of fabulous no-talent nobodies having a fabulous time, the more you want that lifestyle & the angrier you get when it remains unachievable. Rightly or wrongly, the divide between rich & poor is not only growing, but it's being pushed in your face very time you look at your phone, or your 'smart' TV, or your computer - which you're struggling to keep up the payment plans on
Here in Australia, the far-right One Nation party can't seem to decide if Asian &/or Muslim immigrants/refugees are here to take your job, or take all the Government Welfare. It doesn't seem to matter that, surely, they can't do both... either message gets through to people who see themselves as having been left behind by the march of global technology & economy & are easily preached to, swayed, then mobilised to vote for racists with no solution, plan, suggestion, or agenda - other than a white one that involves saying 'No' to anything that threatens to advance Australia beyond the good old post-WWII days that nobody can really remember, but seem to represent some kind of (white) golden era...
... where women were encouraged to leave school at 16 to become a secretary, marry a middle-manager, quit the job & start breeding, Aboriginal people were not recognised as 'people', domestic violence wasn't frowned upon, or even much talked about, polio, rubella, smallpox, tuberculosis & skin cancer all did their part in keeping the population down & asbestos was the fibre of the future... Oh boy, it certainly was!
To put it on a postage stamp (remember those??), xenophobia, chronophobia, prosophobia & technophobia are the new fuel for the fires of the 21st century. Easily started & fanned large enough to start burning books in... or phones, computers, non-Christians, or eventually, just anyone who looks at you 'funny'