I know this blog will probably be read by 2 men and a dog sitting by their computer, also that my Call to Arms will have all the effect on the political discourse of the world at large of a cry in the wilderness, however I decided to set my sights pretty high this time.
I'm as 'Mad as Hell, and I just can't take it any more!'
Now is the time, and Australia is the place, for the Libertarian Social Democrats, my new crew, to enjoin in philosophical battle with the Kleptocrats & Oligarchs. The 'Fightback' has to begin somewhere, and so today I declare War! On the Capitalist thieves in the night of the Taxpayers' Dollar.
The thought crystallised in my mind recently when I had had enough of reading about the full frontal attacks on taxpayers' dollars and how they are being spent, speciously on the taxpayers' behalf, right around the Western World, by resurgent political parties of the Right, for and on behalf of their benefactors and supporters, from the Tories in Britain, who cunningly co-opted the Liberal Democrats from the Soft Left to use as their blind, to the Republicans in the US, and, of course, to the shills of Big Capital in Australia, the Coalition.
What is so unfair about the interrelationship between government and the economy that it warrants a wholesale revision of the system, you might ask? And, if you don't, you should be. Well. The fact that those who are obviously not in real need of taxpayers' dollars, or concessions from the government, are getting them! Why? Because they say that, as taxpayers, they deserve their money back in the form of some sort of 'Benefit' or other! Or, that their industry will not survive, or is 'Too Big to Fail', without taxpayer support, and so will go jobs. What a hypocritical argument. That's not how the taxation system is supposed to work. 'I Contribute, I Employ, Therefore I Am Entitled'. Erm, no, actually.
Virtually since the time of the Post Depression/WW2 New Deal era, which ushered in the concept of the Welfare State, wherein tax collected by government from companies and individuals was redistributed as fairly as possible to those in need of support by the country in which they lived, such as the Disabled, the jobless, and to those causes which needed support in order to enhance the quality of life of the citizens, such as the Arts, R&D, and 'Start-Up' industries with the potential to grow the country's pie, people have agreed that that was a fair redistribution of our taxes.
However, those who have been successful, both in their personal life and in the Business world, have subsequently manouvered themselves into positions where they have determined who gets Taxpayers' dollars and why. And they have used their accumulated wealth to hone their communication and persuasion skills. In fact, for example, at about the time that FM and AM technology diverged so that our radio stations no longer had to play music and talk in about equal amounts, and thus could concentrate on one or the other, such that Talk Radio could become a propaganda tool in the hands of the unscrupulous, the gullible 'mob' have been led a merry dance by the Pied Pipers of the Plutocracy and the complicit shills who spruik for them.
A merry dance that has led to 'Welfare' being considered acceptable, and that is 'Welfare' which=Taxpayers' dollars, to be paid to 'Too Big To Fail' companies, and wealthy, by any reasonable measure, individuals.
What has been sacrificed at the Alter of the Plutocrats to pay to keep them in both business and a style of living to which they have become accustomed, especially after the GFC? The benefits from hard fought for Pension and Welfare schemes that had to be clawed, dollar for dollar, out of the greedy clutches of those same wealthy businessmen in our past, that then came cap in hand with their begging bowls to governments around the world when their financially-engineered money-making schemes collapsed in a heap and produced the GFC.
Up until that point, of course, they had been beavering away on the dual track of deconstructing the Welfare State of the postwar era and/or turning it to their advantage. A process which continues apace especially in America, and which forms the template for the rest of the kleptocracy, where the mantra from the Kochroaches(the Billionaire Industrialist brothers, Charles and David Koch, and their front organisations, such as 'Americans for Prosperity', The Cato Institute, and The Heritage Foundation), wherein they espouse that Social Security MUST be privatised, an oxymoron if ever there was one as Social Security is supposed to be administered by an impartial bureauocracy absent a profit motive which Private companies are bound to consider; and that 'Medicare' must be 'dismantled' and handed to the Private Health companies. Companies whose behaviour led to the disgraceful scenes we witnessed at the end of the Bush era, where supposedly 1st World citizens of the USA had to queue like 3rd World supplicants, once or twice a year, to have their medical and dental needs attended to by 'charitable organisations'. Beggars for the kindness of others. Others, I might add, who on the other 363 days of the year made a fortune off the Middle Class in America by charging them usurious amounts, out of proportion to the real cost of their services, for Health Insurance and Health Care.
It's just not right!
The rich are getting richer. The Middle Class is getting hollowed out, forced to pay an ever-increasing amount of their wages to the kleptocrats to obtain a halfway decent standard of medical care and Education for themselves and their kids, or throw themselves upon the mercy of a Public system increasingly dysfunctional due to underfunding. So their standard of living is inexorably worn down as they scramble to pay for it all, staying one step ahead of the political parties who wish to further erode their standard of living with Industrial Relations policies like WorkChoices(which reared its 'Dead, Buried & Cremated' but not quite dead yet, zombie-like carcass up from the grave this week via the Liberal MP, Jamie Briggs and former Howard government Minister for Industrial Relations, Peter Reith). Moreso in countries other than ours, where the project is further advanced.
Thankfully as a result of the national soul-saving fact that Australians haven't yet been worn down to meekly accept the artificial scenario which has been constructed to advance the agenda of the self-interested Business Class, we are not as far along that 'grubby path'.
Below the Middle Class I can increasingly see forming a Servant/Service Class, or 'Working Poor', which bubbles along just above the mentally and physically infirm on the bottom. Unemployed and virtually unemployable.
So, in this period of time in the lead-up to the Australian Budget in May, and because I have heard murmerings that there are moves afoot to start shifting the balance of the Budget back in favour of those who genuinely deserve help and away from the so-called 'Middle Class Welfare' State which the Coalition prefers as a way of locking in votes and favouring their natural constituency, wherein the more money you make the more concessions and benefits you get from the Taxpayers' purse(such as Abbott's Paid Parental Leave Scheme), I thus wanted to make a few things clear.
The time has come for us to steel the government's spine, and lay it out in black and white that, 'We are as mad as Hell and we're not going to take it any more!'
We're not going to let these conniving bastards who represent a mere 0.5-1.0% of our population but >50% of its wealth, keep successfully appealing to the greed of 'the mob' whilst they stealthily put their hands in our pockets and take our hard-earned for themselves, while at one and the same time giving us back as little of THEIR financially-engineered wealth as possible.
The fightback begins today and with the Budget in May.
Are you with me, or will you stay comfortably ensconced in front of your computer screens yelling mutely into the internet wilderness? We must start voicing our concerns so that we can get the message through that we believe this is a move worth making and which is worthy of a Labor government to do.
All I can say, finally, is that if the dregs of One Nation can influence one of the two main political parties in Australia as effectively as they have recently, then we can try and have the same effect on the other major political party.
Is it possible to make a political party which is supposed to represent the interests of all Australians right down to the least well-off, do more to redress the obvious imbalances which exist in the Welfare section of the Budget? Should there be a push, especially at the upcoming Tax Summit, for Personal Income Tax to be cut, but also for Welfare Benefits, Private Health and Private School subsidies, to be more strictly limited or eliminated, and be directed to go only to those people and institutions who really deserve government/Taxpayers support? That's my theory of Libertarian Social Democracy. True 'Small Government', but with a heart. The 'Bureaurocracy' and the size of government will truly be able to be slashed, but for the right reasons. That is, the churn of Taxpayers' dollars will no longer require vast numbers of Public Servants to administer them.
What do you think?
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