POLITICS AND OTHER THINGS PART 2

I am no good at coming up with headings. Even when it comes to email headings I am terrible. Thus reusing the heading from my last post. When it comes to rambling on however, that comes easy. Thus this is another ridiculously long post.

(Bad joke coming). I’m not a doctor. Thus I don’t have any patience (bickity bam!). Thus I called (90 minutes on the phone) the woman who has been on my mind constantly recently to ask her out to the premier of a series of interrelated short plays that I had tickets to. She said yes, and we went out again on Friday night. I took her to a very nice (and very expensive; $150 for dinner for two!) Indian restaurant overlooking the water at Woolloomooloo at 6pm. We went to the play, and after that finished at 10:30pm it was her that suggested we go have a drink or two. We bar hopped after the first bar we went to closed for the night, and subsequent ones we went to were too noisy to talk. This went on until 2am Saturday morning at which point we got shared a cab home.

Between 10:30pm and 2am there were a number of developments. We had a number of very personal conversations, and, being fortified with alcohol, I decided to lay my cards on the table. I told her that I really liked her, not just for the obvious reason that she was very beautiful and had especially beautiful eyes, but because she was such a nice, intelligent woman. I said how much I admired her for changing her career (from marketing/market research which she had studied at university), gone back to study sociology at Uni part time and gone to work at a charity, even though it meant working anoyher job part time. I then indicated that I’d really like to spend more time with her and continue to get to know her.

She didn’t seemed phased by this, but thanked me and said how much she admired what I do and that she enjoyed spending time with me and would also like to continue to get to know me more. We continued to talk and she really opened up to me; she told me how her father had questioned what she has done and became upset. I reassured her that I admired her for what she has done and indicated that the only person who has the right to question what she has chosen to do is herself. I reached over the table and tried to comfort her by rubbing her arm; I don’t know if it did any good, but it definitely didn’t do any harm.

At the end of the night when she got out of the cab I reiterated that I really liked her and that I would like to spend more time to get to know her. She said that she really enjoyed herself and that she would definitely make time for this over Christmas. We kissed each other on the cheek (given what had happened earlier I didn’t think it appropriate to try for anything more intimate, though I think she may have been, I’m not too sure) and hugged, and the evening was over.

So people, these were all good signs weren’t they?

Given my lack of patience, I really want to see her again soon. Thus I sent her roses this morning. She SMSed thanking me, saying how beautiful they were and what a pleasant surprise they were and that we would speak soon. The question is do I wait for her to call me, or is it fine for me to call her? People?

Now onto politics. Firstly to answer some things from my pervious post.

Clokeeeey, the role of an anarcho-syndicalist is to educate the workers, not to lead them. Having a leader/leaders means that you are imposing you view upon others, instead of educating them about the way to change things; these changes are then implemented for the common good of all as determined by everybody, not as determined by the few. As for each era building upon the other, my feeling is that each era is about the elite trying to maintain the socio-economic status quo in increasingly sophisticated ways.

AOF, Yes the Greens participate in the Parliamentary system. However they believe in power coming from below. Policy is determined by the entire membership, not imposed from above. That is why, as far as parliamentary parties go, they have much in common with Anacho-syndicalism.

Larry, for the most part I agree with you on the Liberals being a proxy for business. However even given this some Liberal MPs are still better than ALP MPs

Guru, Socialist Alliance still believes in the need for a "revolutionary vanguard", an elite who will concentrate power in their own hands. For this reason I still don’t like them.

Chixilub, I’m not too sure what you are trying to say.

Justine, I don’t have anything more against Al-Queda then any other fundamentalist religious group that uses obscure passages in scriptures to justify bigotry and hatred, like Family First.

Now last Tuesday, like some (hopefully many) of you I participated in the IR rally. It was great to see the number of people there and great to see Bob Brown receive a larger and longer round of applause from the crowd, even the real blue-collar types, then Kim "Fucking useless, spineless bastard" Beazley.

However as I indicated to some of you already I was so disappointed when the ACTU showed the statements from "religious leaders" but didn't have any Islamic leaders. The ACTU should be trying to bring together all people being attacked by the Government and encouraging people to defend those other people under attack. This was the perfect opportunity to do this, but they chose not to. It really disappointed me.

However speaking of Bob Brown, I actually got to meet him on Thursday. My Union has been heavily involved in trying to get the sedition provisions of the anti-freedom bill (officially called the anti-terrorism bill)removed. On our behalf and on behalf of other organisations, two people were appearing before the senate hearing on the bill. I went along and sat in the audience for moral support. Afterwards when we all came together, Bob came up and talked to one of the people who appeared before the hearing and I was introduced to him and briefly talked to him. I have now met the two greatest living Australians; Jack Mundey and Bob Brown.

In terms of the sedition provisions removed, we have the support of the Greens, Democrats and a growing number of Liberal Backbenchers. The ALP? That don’t seem to give a fuck about it. Useless bastards they are.

Currently I am reading a book called "The Emerging Police State" a series of speeches given by a Jewish American lawyer who ought for a free, open and just society.

In a speech given in 1971 he says things that are so relevant to Australia today given the bills the government is trying to pass:

"You have no claim – and when I say you I mean all of us – have no claim that we are better or more righteous people than any other people on earth. That we have better instincts, that we’re finer human being, we’re all the same. When the fright’s grown and you permit it to grow, you too will tolerate any indecency, if you are afraid enough….

I think that this issue of violence on your part or the part of the other groups or individuals I mentioned is being used politically and ethically to destroy; to bring about a situation in which all governmental policies, all of the system’s excesses, will pass without opposition, first subtly, and then not so subtly. And there is a chance that at some time, somewhere in the future, we will suddenly wake up one sad and tragic morning and hear those same boots at the door that the Germans began to hear after 1934, and say to ourselves "My God, did it happen? Where did we go wrong? Why can’t we fight back?" By then it’s much too late, and then it’s all gone and you and I may have to live out another nightmare until it comes right again. That should not happen to human being….

You have to ask yourselves without becoming overly frightened or overly hysterical – if it can happen there, it can happen here. If one nation can go mad, so can another. But it doesn’t come overnight. It is not a sudden climatic epidemic sickness. It is the accumulation of the loss of bits of freedom everywhere that suddenly bring that strange and tragic morning I referred to."

He also says something else that I truly believe:

" I guess what I am trying to say, with as much earnestness as I can muster, is that the only life worth living is one which is devoted to the welfare of others. Everything else – the earning of daily bread, the satisfaction of individual ego, the attainment of personal goals – must remain avocation rather than vocation. Only then can the lasting nature of human interdependence be understood and affirmed."

I really do believe this and have for over 10 years now. Who knows, as I get older, or if I develop family responsibilities this may change. However (and here is where I will tie in the two strains of this post) with the woman referred to earlier in the post I don’t think this will happen, because she seems to share the same belief. And this is why in such a short period of time she has got me hook, line and sinker.