When I was 15 after reading George Orwell's 1984 I went out onto the road outside my home in Belfast and wrote "Big Brother is watching you" on the lamposts with a piece of chalk.
I have had a guilty look on my face ever since...
A week in Utopia
Lies, corporate greed and thousands of ‘Big Brothers!’
Lies, corporate greed and thousands of ‘Big Brothers!’
So I get a call from Origin energy yesterday…
Telephonist:
I’m calling from ‘Origin energy’ your energy provider to save you money……
Not..
Telephonist:
I’m calling from ‘Origin energy’ your energy provider to save you money……
Not..
Excuse me! I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you?….
or
Is this a good time for you to speak?
Not even
Hello?
A scene from George Orwell’s book ‘1984?’
No…much worse…in the good old days, in the real 1984–even in 1994- I remember they would still have at least been polite ..they would have requested my permission to speak in some way.
Hello, sir..is this a convenient time to hear about an offer etc etc.?
But no, the corporate pimps of 2015 have trained the young salesgirl to be ‘assertive’ (and of course cheerful) at all times!
So.. she’s just straight into it as if I was the one who had called her and was asking her to do me a favour...
My hackles gradually rise at the increasingly patronizing and presumptious tone of this corporate skylark.. but in mitigation, I realise its not her fault. She’s not the problem-its her pimp (the corporate trainer) and the corporate management policy with its army of ‘trainers’ who are to blame . So, I control myself..
Oh yes… and how might you be doing that?
By replacing bla.. bla..halogen bulbs… with lower energy bulbs!
The bogus conversation continues with fifteen minutes of humiliating me with her technical explanations. This is part of the corporate script to make me feel intimidated, more compliant and hence more likely to buy her product. After touring the whole house I told her I had 7 bulbs....
Oh.. sorry then ..piped up the skylark… but you will have to pay 30 dollars as you have less than 10 bulbs. This is a fact which the corporate trainer (Pimp) had told her to carefully conceal from me until she had wasted 15 minutes of my time getting me hooked.
So there was the catch–the lie.
Pimp: (Corporate trainer) Tell them its free, get ‘m hooked and then reel ‘m in! ( make ‘m pay)
The young telephonist is basically a prostitute-she has to tell lies and follow this script because her pimp–the corporate trainer tells her to. She doesn’t have to sell her body but she has to sell her dignity by trying to manipulate and trick people.
To make the prostitution process more efficient she will probably have shares in Origin. The pimp corporate trainers do for sure. Both of them probably own corporate shares somewhere. The saddest part of this process is that the skylark and many people like her in entry-level and low-level positions in corporates everywhere actually are persuaded to volunteer to buy these shares themselves–nobody forces them to do it.
What a sweet system for Origin: it is the perfect model to obtain compliance and make profit from Origin’s point of view-and it is the corporate model used the world over.
Schools used to teach us our ethics-and there was some democratic accountability as to how they behaved through parents and democratic voting. But now, corporations do it-and they are only accountable to their shareholders They have taken over. George Orwell was right about big brother being the Government- but we now have thousands of ‘big brothers’ - not just one.
And Its legal.
In order to sustain the corporate predator lying has become essential and legitimate in the corporate world of 'Newspeak'. Orwell was right..the end justifies the means.
There has been a sea change in our cultural values.
A sea change that no-one has seen (no pun intended)
Why have the values changed? Not because of a ‘decline’ in religion but because of the corporatization, commercialisation and bureaucratization of every aspect of our lives; from work and political life to our social life. Even language has been corrupted: we talk of ourselves like prostitutes…I was ‘hired’ to teach English.
The production process has become so ‘efficient’ and our corporates so wealthy that life has become a scramble for the rest of us to get a share of this wealth.
Sounds simple-but In order for this to happen we have to ‘comply’ in so many aspects of our lives -and and scratch each others eyes out in the employment ‘market’.
In politics the colonialists used to call it ‘divide and rule’-but now it is in every aspect of our lives including the workplace.
I don’t like it?
‘That’s the way it is’ has become the norm-the stock answer to anyone who questions the increasing power of corporate cultures.
If you think of it, it is the same model the drug cartels use in Mexico-give everyone a stake in the profits, lie if necessary and make people fight against each other. ‘Divide and rule’ and ‘the end justifies the means’
It’s the model used by a corporate provider of language services at a University in South Australia..
On Monday I thought I was ‘hired’ ( corporatespeak) to teach Monday and Tuesday for ten weeks.
I have worked there for 3 years as a teacher and external examiner on and off.
On Monday (the Monday of the second week) the Director of Studies called me in to the office and said
“Apologies Don, but the classes are too small-I have to collapse yours”
Thump! Thump!
A left hook followed by an uppercut
I was stunned…
Er..? I said not really knowing what to say…
No, I was stupified..
Later, I was to realize that I could hardly remember the next few hours after this rather bland statement. I have a vague memory of re-entering the staffroom to collect my things-the Deputy Director was looking at me guiltily while he pretended to distract himself from the dirty work at hand by talking to another member of staff.
I packed my things and made my way to the Mall in a daze. I can’t remember most of the train journey home or the rest of the day.
I hadn’t felt this bad since…well since ?
Well, since when exactly?
Since I failed the first test I had ever failed in my life?
Yes… and that was?
My driving test …in Belfast
Your driving test??!!
Yes…my driving test. Afterwards I locked myself in the bathroom and wept. I was 17. It was the first time I can remember being made to weep in my life by one of the slings and arrows of misfortune.
I’ll never forget the driving instructor: sixties, tweed jacket and trousers, dark greasy hair combed back and down impeccably. The deadpan look and the humourless monotone. He was creepy and looked like an undertaker. It was 1969. My hair was too long.
Why did I fail, sir? (I was still a schoolboy)
Without humour, he droned in his deep bass voice…‘You nearly knocked the old lady off the pavement while you were reversing, Mr Nixon’
Bad feeling-very bad man indeed. I will never forget his face–or his tweed jacket-or the humourless look on his face. The undertaker didn’t know how I felt. Nobody knew.
But that feeling of failure is different from what I feel now. Then it was the sense of failure which floored me. In those days in school we were taught how to succeed–no one ever thought of teaching us how to fail –how to cope with life’s failures. Nor did anyone tell us there are more failures in life than successes. Perhaps they didn’t want to discourage us.
We didn’t fail–only losers failed. .
But in this case there was no personal failure on my part. I already knew this place was a scam. It was the injustice of the act and the casual brutality of its delivery coupled with the subsequent helplessness which made me feel so ANGRY.
This was not about my competence or hers. I was stunned by the impersonality of this act by a kindly person for whom I had respect. I felt betrayed.
And I still am angry-one week later-because injustice is not easily forgotten (especially by the Irish!)
You’re very sensitive today, Don…..a kindly colleague once told me.
Don’t overreact Don!....many of the well-intentioned (and some of the less well-intentioned) have said to me on numerous occasions
The Director looked at me with just a hint of impatience because she was a good person and felt guilty.
‘Yes I do apologise, but that’s the way it is, Don’
It is the corporate policy and a condition of her contract that she dismiss people in this way even though she feels guilty about doing it. (That’s why she used the word ‘apologise’ and both she and the Deputy Director had guilty looks)
Its about numbers.
She likes me and I like her . I am competent so is she. But this doesn’t matter.
Neither do my 3 years of loyalty to this corporate entity.
Nor do my painstaking and successful attempts to coordinate this 20 days of teaching (my sole income for the year) with the company count for anything.
Nor do my experience, my skills, the needs of the students (ha!)
Nor, least of all perhaps, my own professional or personal needs (Ha Ha!).
As far as my corporate employer is concerned it is ok for 'Blind Freddie' to teach these Chinese and Indian students once the money has been taken off them (before they get here)
The fact that this pleasant and competent, but fallible Director had stuffed up her timetabling-so that it was too much trouble to change doesn’t count either.
Teachers of almost school-leaving age were kept on rather than change the timetable to keep me on.
It was too ‘hard’ to change it
Simpler to ‘let me go!’ Problem solved!
And the silence of my colleagues?
This lady has been a good boss and I have a lot of time for her–but she is forced to behave as a pimp for her corporate bosses.
So why is she doing this to me?
Its a rhetorical question: the answer of course is corporate greed.
This multi national company feels unable to contract itself for twenty days to an experienced and competent teacher because of corporate greed.
How much money has this company saved by this 'insignificant' act? (Insignificant for company,maybe,but not insignificant for myself!)
Mightn’t they have waited at least one more day and given me the Tuesday of this week? Did it have to be so ‘instant’ ?
So …to whom go the plaudits for this scenario?
Yes..its congratulations to all you mighty Thatcherite/ Liberal/ Free marketeers who believe in efficiency and unbridled selfishness as the determinants of infinite productivity and at least (your own ) happiness?
The fact that the world has been sufficiently ‘productive ‘ enough to satisfy its needs since 1930 seems to have entirely escaped your attention. You want more efficiency, productivity, more competition, , more houses (one is not enough), more cars, boats, more comfort, more holidays, more safety, more excitement, more power, more winners…and some losers
…..and of course the Conservative wants some losers. For the mighty Conservative with a capital ‘C’ there have to be losers - so he can blame them for all his problems! Neat!
To the Conservative without some ‘losers’ you can’t have well… more.
And what a brainwave to get people to buy shares–especially in the company in which they work
‘Divide and Rule’
Sheer Genius!
No wonder my colleagues said nothing to me
So now I’m watching the cricket- this most boring of all sports on the planet. It is the first day-night test match with the pink ball..
And why do I listen to the cockatoos: the worn out ‘has been’ celebrity cricket commentators–so absorbed with themselves and their own wit that they talk through the bloody ball when it is being bowled!?
Don’t get me wrong…I love the cricket!.. I adore it!.. I’m a cricket ‘tragic’ if ever there was one – I’m addicted to it, but I only watch it because I have nothing much else to do–and it prevents me from thinking about the realities of life. Like all addictions–it seems to do the trick- and without damaging my health.
But even my beloved cricket has been taken over by the corporate predators who have turned my former heroes into pimps and the players themselves into prostitutes–salesmen for everything from cricketing goods and their own books to the TV channel sponsoring the match and to this new version of the game itself. They are all selling something.
They chatter and cackle like cockatoos and though they used to be my heroes I now believe little of what they say–because they are always selling something or someone. .
In fact, I watch most of the five days of the match with the mute button ‘on’.
You can talk about cricket if you are a celebrity and make a load of money–but what do you know about life?
‘Its usually the toughest moments in sport that make a man’ says one cockatoo
All these former test players would have us believe they know what ‘pressure’ in life is!
But they don’t have a clue . If they failed they were dropped from the test team but they were still able to continue earning their living as shield players. That’s not pressure!
They want to know about pressure? Ask my nephew. Pressure is not having the money to pay for a nurse to look after your mother or your dying grandmother. Pressure is being told your mother will lose her leg if she doesn’t get medication for her infection-and not having the money to pay for it, nor the job to earn it. Pressure is knowing you can’t walk away. Pressure is having no safety net. Pressure is having no shield game to go to.
So stop yacketing on about the bloody pink ball!
I wish I could just ‘mute’ them by looking at them (I have to move my hand to do it now.. Life is such a bitch)
By the end of the week I had worked up the courage to see the Doctor
Doctor?
I think I need to talk to a counsellor or someone ..I have depressed about work and family issues
I write letters to my ‘electronic friends’–my virtual friends-but it seems to be not enough for me.
(although maybe its too much for some of them, ha! ha!)
I’m not really sure because I go for years without seeing some of them-even those who live a few kilometres away.
Soon, we will be able to have our funerals online or on facebook. How many ‘likes’ did he get?
Hmmph! Doesn’t really matter does it?
Yes …there is a panel of medicare psychologists or you can pay privately for a specialist
Pay? I looked away and smirked to myself. (They’re not getting my money!)
Look…I said to him (to myself)
Is there any way I can influence my choice of counsellor?
What do you mean?
I want a migrant counsellor. I think many of my issues are to do with migrating to Australia..
Actually, I’m not a migrant. I never wanted to stay in Australia-I came here on contract and got stuck here. But most Australians patronize me by treating me ( as they treat all migrants) as if I have lusting to come here all my life. In fact, Australians believe this is Utopia and that everybody wants to come here.
But its not true-most migrants and refugees just want to get away from where they are.
So pervasive is this bogus self-congratulatory Australian narrative that in in recent years I have even come close to believing it myself! But it isn’t true.
My slick ‘Bollywood’ movie star Indian Doctor was getting impatient-he’s strangely western in his attitude and demeanour.
There’s a panel–they will see you
How often would that be?
Once a month or every six weeks
The air went out of me-like a slowly deflating balloon.
Oh…I’m not sure that that’s enough
“That’s the way it is”
That phrase again!
Or.. I could give you some pills?
No …thank you.. I think I’ve tried most of those.
Do you want me to do the paperwork for the referral now ?
He obviously wasn’t really interested in the ‘migrant Doctor’ thing ..he was losing patience..
Eh…(not wanting to upset him) . No..I think I’ll wait ..thanks, Doctor
I got back from Mexico 3 weeks ago where I was visiting my family.
Two fines were waiting for me in the post from the police. With all the preparations for my trip to mexico for the first time in my life I had forgotten to re -register my car. I was 9 days overdue. As it happened I had remembered on the 9th day just before we left for mexico but during that overdue nine day period (before I left for Mexico) the police had spotted me and then sent me a fine in the post.
The second fine happened on the day I arrived back from Mexico. Worried that the car battery might be low I took her for a spin around the block. I was fined for doing 65 in a 60 zone. Again a postal fine. I remember the road was almost entirely deserted. I have not had a car accident in 50 years of driving.
Am I a danger to other road users? Apparently.
Each fine was 450 dollars.
In neither case was a human being involved in the process. No-one was interested in the facts or the circumstances surrounding these ‘offences’. Just like my corporate employer the beast which is SA Police demanded to be fed and was baying for blood. There is no grace period to re-register the car-even for a 63 year old. What will I be like when I am 83?
93?
If I had behaved in such an unforgiving way as teacher I would have been sacked for being such a mean bastard in many places
But in Utopia in 2015 no human being speaks to me…
Today in my post–box: a warning form the police. I have been fined twice for speeding in the past 6 months (the other time was 71 in a 60 zone on a road with no traffic). If I am fined twice more in the next 30 months I will lose my license even though I have driven for 50 years without having had an accident.
Last Christmas I was pulled up by the police for driving too slowly!
I must be a dangerous man-and the drivers of Adelaide must be protected from criminals! The government must protect the people from danger! Trust us..we’ll get Nixon off the streets!
Australians wonder why we have one of the highest suicide rates in the world and why half of its young people will have a mental illness before they are 21! I don’t. I’m surprised the figures aren’t worse.
When I am not working it is difficult to get anyone to speak to me. The check-out lady at Woolies is friendly and she likes to talk, but even she is collecting money. Everyone is too busy. No-one wants to speak except to sell me something, collect money from me or tell me I have broken a rule or committed a crime.
I have been here for 25 years–what must it be like for recently arrived migrants or refugees? No wonder they stick together and ‘don’t integrate’
Most of my Mexican friends love Australia–genuinely.
That tells you a lot about Mexico. It tells you a lot about grinding poverty and the insidious, vile corruption of daily life
But it doesn’t tell you much about Australia
What the Mexicans won’t tell you is that in spite of the poverty and the corruption in Mexico they are free to enjoy themselves, have a laugh and even stick their arm out of the window of their car while driving. In Adelaide it is an offence. It will soon be an offence to laugh when you are driving. (Then the Mexicans will be in trouble)
No wonder everyone is so miserable
I feel free in Mexico (but the Mexicans won’t say that)
Here, I feel infantilized and defiled – like a criminal. Every social transaction is functional and based on a need. You won’t speak to me unless you need me-and vice-versa. “I need you to fill in this form.. you need to phone back later…”
I need .. you need…it’s a transaction –a business transaction
This is the Orwellian world of modern-day communication–where no-one ever speaks to anyone else…unless they need to –or are needed.
Banks, shopping centres, workplaces, police, schools, social clubs-even the churches- they are all designed to minimize people speaking to each other (as opposed to someone in authority telling us what to do)
In Mexico (and in Africa and other parts of the world where I have lived) people speak to each other because they like it-they get pleasure from the act itself. Speaking is an end in itself. In Australia it is increasingly a means to an end. Don’t bother me!
If speaking to each other is not ‘productive’ then why bother at all?
This is the way Governments and the corporates–our big brothers- want us to feel…. If we feel like criminals–like refugees – and are afraid to speak to each other then we can be more easily controlled, will be more compliant –and easier to exploit for profit. We will be better consumers–even when we are old and decrepit.
So what to do?
Voluntary work? –Yes, I do it..but it has become almost as hard to get as paid employment. It too has been bureaucratised and the culture corporatized by corporates and the Government
I don’t know
Write letters to my virtual friends I suppose..
I can hear Orwell groaning in his grave.
My the three days teaching won’t cover the fines.
Not even
Hello?
A scene from George Orwell’s book ‘1984?’
No…much worse…in the good old days, in the real 1984–even in 1994- I remember they would still have at least been polite ..they would have requested my permission to speak in some way.
Hello, sir..is this a convenient time to hear about an offer etc etc.?
But no, the corporate pimps of 2015 have trained the young salesgirl to be ‘assertive’ (and of course cheerful) at all times!
So.. she’s just straight into it as if I was the one who had called her and was asking her to do me a favour...
My hackles gradually rise at the increasingly patronizing and presumptious tone of this corporate skylark.. but in mitigation, I realise its not her fault. She’s not the problem-its her pimp (the corporate trainer) and the corporate management policy with its army of ‘trainers’ who are to blame . So, I control myself..
Oh yes… and how might you be doing that?
By replacing bla.. bla..halogen bulbs… with lower energy bulbs!
The bogus conversation continues with fifteen minutes of humiliating me with her technical explanations. This is part of the corporate script to make me feel intimidated, more compliant and hence more likely to buy her product. After touring the whole house I told her I had 7 bulbs....
Oh.. sorry then ..piped up the skylark… but you will have to pay 30 dollars as you have less than 10 bulbs. This is a fact which the corporate trainer (Pimp) had told her to carefully conceal from me until she had wasted 15 minutes of my time getting me hooked.
So there was the catch–the lie.
Pimp: (Corporate trainer) Tell them its free, get ‘m hooked and then reel ‘m in! ( make ‘m pay)
The young telephonist is basically a prostitute-she has to tell lies and follow this script because her pimp–the corporate trainer tells her to. She doesn’t have to sell her body but she has to sell her dignity by trying to manipulate and trick people.
To make the prostitution process more efficient she will probably have shares in Origin. The pimp corporate trainers do for sure. Both of them probably own corporate shares somewhere. The saddest part of this process is that the skylark and many people like her in entry-level and low-level positions in corporates everywhere actually are persuaded to volunteer to buy these shares themselves–nobody forces them to do it.
What a sweet system for Origin: it is the perfect model to obtain compliance and make profit from Origin’s point of view-and it is the corporate model used the world over.
Schools used to teach us our ethics-and there was some democratic accountability as to how they behaved through parents and democratic voting. But now, corporations do it-and they are only accountable to their shareholders They have taken over. George Orwell was right about big brother being the Government- but we now have thousands of ‘big brothers’ - not just one.
And Its legal.
In order to sustain the corporate predator lying has become essential and legitimate in the corporate world of 'Newspeak'. Orwell was right..the end justifies the means.
There has been a sea change in our cultural values.
A sea change that no-one has seen (no pun intended)
Why have the values changed? Not because of a ‘decline’ in religion but because of the corporatization, commercialisation and bureaucratization of every aspect of our lives; from work and political life to our social life. Even language has been corrupted: we talk of ourselves like prostitutes…I was ‘hired’ to teach English.
The production process has become so ‘efficient’ and our corporates so wealthy that life has become a scramble for the rest of us to get a share of this wealth.
Sounds simple-but In order for this to happen we have to ‘comply’ in so many aspects of our lives -and and scratch each others eyes out in the employment ‘market’.
In politics the colonialists used to call it ‘divide and rule’-but now it is in every aspect of our lives including the workplace.
I don’t like it?
‘That’s the way it is’ has become the norm-the stock answer to anyone who questions the increasing power of corporate cultures.
If you think of it, it is the same model the drug cartels use in Mexico-give everyone a stake in the profits, lie if necessary and make people fight against each other. ‘Divide and rule’ and ‘the end justifies the means’
It’s the model used by a corporate provider of language services at a University in South Australia..
On Monday I thought I was ‘hired’ ( corporatespeak) to teach Monday and Tuesday for ten weeks.
I have worked there for 3 years as a teacher and external examiner on and off.
On Monday (the Monday of the second week) the Director of Studies called me in to the office and said
“Apologies Don, but the classes are too small-I have to collapse yours”
Thump! Thump!
A left hook followed by an uppercut
I was stunned…
Er..? I said not really knowing what to say…
No, I was stupified..
Later, I was to realize that I could hardly remember the next few hours after this rather bland statement. I have a vague memory of re-entering the staffroom to collect my things-the Deputy Director was looking at me guiltily while he pretended to distract himself from the dirty work at hand by talking to another member of staff.
I packed my things and made my way to the Mall in a daze. I can’t remember most of the train journey home or the rest of the day.
I hadn’t felt this bad since…well since ?
Well, since when exactly?
Since I failed the first test I had ever failed in my life?
Yes… and that was?
My driving test …in Belfast
Your driving test??!!
Yes…my driving test. Afterwards I locked myself in the bathroom and wept. I was 17. It was the first time I can remember being made to weep in my life by one of the slings and arrows of misfortune.
I’ll never forget the driving instructor: sixties, tweed jacket and trousers, dark greasy hair combed back and down impeccably. The deadpan look and the humourless monotone. He was creepy and looked like an undertaker. It was 1969. My hair was too long.
Why did I fail, sir? (I was still a schoolboy)
Without humour, he droned in his deep bass voice…‘You nearly knocked the old lady off the pavement while you were reversing, Mr Nixon’
Bad feeling-very bad man indeed. I will never forget his face–or his tweed jacket-or the humourless look on his face. The undertaker didn’t know how I felt. Nobody knew.
But that feeling of failure is different from what I feel now. Then it was the sense of failure which floored me. In those days in school we were taught how to succeed–no one ever thought of teaching us how to fail –how to cope with life’s failures. Nor did anyone tell us there are more failures in life than successes. Perhaps they didn’t want to discourage us.
We didn’t fail–only losers failed. .
But in this case there was no personal failure on my part. I already knew this place was a scam. It was the injustice of the act and the casual brutality of its delivery coupled with the subsequent helplessness which made me feel so ANGRY.
This was not about my competence or hers. I was stunned by the impersonality of this act by a kindly person for whom I had respect. I felt betrayed.
And I still am angry-one week later-because injustice is not easily forgotten (especially by the Irish!)
You’re very sensitive today, Don…..a kindly colleague once told me.
Don’t overreact Don!....many of the well-intentioned (and some of the less well-intentioned) have said to me on numerous occasions
The Director looked at me with just a hint of impatience because she was a good person and felt guilty.
‘Yes I do apologise, but that’s the way it is, Don’
It is the corporate policy and a condition of her contract that she dismiss people in this way even though she feels guilty about doing it. (That’s why she used the word ‘apologise’ and both she and the Deputy Director had guilty looks)
Its about numbers.
She likes me and I like her . I am competent so is she. But this doesn’t matter.
Neither do my 3 years of loyalty to this corporate entity.
Nor do my painstaking and successful attempts to coordinate this 20 days of teaching (my sole income for the year) with the company count for anything.
Nor do my experience, my skills, the needs of the students (ha!)
Nor, least of all perhaps, my own professional or personal needs (Ha Ha!).
As far as my corporate employer is concerned it is ok for 'Blind Freddie' to teach these Chinese and Indian students once the money has been taken off them (before they get here)
The fact that this pleasant and competent, but fallible Director had stuffed up her timetabling-so that it was too much trouble to change doesn’t count either.
Teachers of almost school-leaving age were kept on rather than change the timetable to keep me on.
It was too ‘hard’ to change it
Simpler to ‘let me go!’ Problem solved!
And the silence of my colleagues?
This lady has been a good boss and I have a lot of time for her–but she is forced to behave as a pimp for her corporate bosses.
So why is she doing this to me?
Its a rhetorical question: the answer of course is corporate greed.
This multi national company feels unable to contract itself for twenty days to an experienced and competent teacher because of corporate greed.
How much money has this company saved by this 'insignificant' act? (Insignificant for company,maybe,but not insignificant for myself!)
Mightn’t they have waited at least one more day and given me the Tuesday of this week? Did it have to be so ‘instant’ ?
So …to whom go the plaudits for this scenario?
Yes..its congratulations to all you mighty Thatcherite/ Liberal/ Free marketeers who believe in efficiency and unbridled selfishness as the determinants of infinite productivity and at least (your own ) happiness?
The fact that the world has been sufficiently ‘productive ‘ enough to satisfy its needs since 1930 seems to have entirely escaped your attention. You want more efficiency, productivity, more competition, , more houses (one is not enough), more cars, boats, more comfort, more holidays, more safety, more excitement, more power, more winners…and some losers
…..and of course the Conservative wants some losers. For the mighty Conservative with a capital ‘C’ there have to be losers - so he can blame them for all his problems! Neat!
To the Conservative without some ‘losers’ you can’t have well… more.
And what a brainwave to get people to buy shares–especially in the company in which they work
‘Divide and Rule’
Sheer Genius!
No wonder my colleagues said nothing to me
So now I’m watching the cricket- this most boring of all sports on the planet. It is the first day-night test match with the pink ball..
And why do I listen to the cockatoos: the worn out ‘has been’ celebrity cricket commentators–so absorbed with themselves and their own wit that they talk through the bloody ball when it is being bowled!?
Don’t get me wrong…I love the cricket!.. I adore it!.. I’m a cricket ‘tragic’ if ever there was one – I’m addicted to it, but I only watch it because I have nothing much else to do–and it prevents me from thinking about the realities of life. Like all addictions–it seems to do the trick- and without damaging my health.
But even my beloved cricket has been taken over by the corporate predators who have turned my former heroes into pimps and the players themselves into prostitutes–salesmen for everything from cricketing goods and their own books to the TV channel sponsoring the match and to this new version of the game itself. They are all selling something.
They chatter and cackle like cockatoos and though they used to be my heroes I now believe little of what they say–because they are always selling something or someone. .
In fact, I watch most of the five days of the match with the mute button ‘on’.
You can talk about cricket if you are a celebrity and make a load of money–but what do you know about life?
‘Its usually the toughest moments in sport that make a man’ says one cockatoo
All these former test players would have us believe they know what ‘pressure’ in life is!
But they don’t have a clue . If they failed they were dropped from the test team but they were still able to continue earning their living as shield players. That’s not pressure!
They want to know about pressure? Ask my nephew. Pressure is not having the money to pay for a nurse to look after your mother or your dying grandmother. Pressure is being told your mother will lose her leg if she doesn’t get medication for her infection-and not having the money to pay for it, nor the job to earn it. Pressure is knowing you can’t walk away. Pressure is having no safety net. Pressure is having no shield game to go to.
So stop yacketing on about the bloody pink ball!
I wish I could just ‘mute’ them by looking at them (I have to move my hand to do it now.. Life is such a bitch)
By the end of the week I had worked up the courage to see the Doctor
Doctor?
I think I need to talk to a counsellor or someone ..I have depressed about work and family issues
I write letters to my ‘electronic friends’–my virtual friends-but it seems to be not enough for me.
(although maybe its too much for some of them, ha! ha!)
I’m not really sure because I go for years without seeing some of them-even those who live a few kilometres away.
Soon, we will be able to have our funerals online or on facebook. How many ‘likes’ did he get?
Hmmph! Doesn’t really matter does it?
Yes …there is a panel of medicare psychologists or you can pay privately for a specialist
Pay? I looked away and smirked to myself. (They’re not getting my money!)
Look…I said to him (to myself)
Is there any way I can influence my choice of counsellor?
What do you mean?
I want a migrant counsellor. I think many of my issues are to do with migrating to Australia..
Actually, I’m not a migrant. I never wanted to stay in Australia-I came here on contract and got stuck here. But most Australians patronize me by treating me ( as they treat all migrants) as if I have lusting to come here all my life. In fact, Australians believe this is Utopia and that everybody wants to come here.
But its not true-most migrants and refugees just want to get away from where they are.
So pervasive is this bogus self-congratulatory Australian narrative that in in recent years I have even come close to believing it myself! But it isn’t true.
My slick ‘Bollywood’ movie star Indian Doctor was getting impatient-he’s strangely western in his attitude and demeanour.
There’s a panel–they will see you
How often would that be?
Once a month or every six weeks
The air went out of me-like a slowly deflating balloon.
Oh…I’m not sure that that’s enough
“That’s the way it is”
That phrase again!
Or.. I could give you some pills?
No …thank you.. I think I’ve tried most of those.
Do you want me to do the paperwork for the referral now ?
He obviously wasn’t really interested in the ‘migrant Doctor’ thing ..he was losing patience..
Eh…(not wanting to upset him) . No..I think I’ll wait ..thanks, Doctor
I got back from Mexico 3 weeks ago where I was visiting my family.
Two fines were waiting for me in the post from the police. With all the preparations for my trip to mexico for the first time in my life I had forgotten to re -register my car. I was 9 days overdue. As it happened I had remembered on the 9th day just before we left for mexico but during that overdue nine day period (before I left for Mexico) the police had spotted me and then sent me a fine in the post.
The second fine happened on the day I arrived back from Mexico. Worried that the car battery might be low I took her for a spin around the block. I was fined for doing 65 in a 60 zone. Again a postal fine. I remember the road was almost entirely deserted. I have not had a car accident in 50 years of driving.
Am I a danger to other road users? Apparently.
Each fine was 450 dollars.
In neither case was a human being involved in the process. No-one was interested in the facts or the circumstances surrounding these ‘offences’. Just like my corporate employer the beast which is SA Police demanded to be fed and was baying for blood. There is no grace period to re-register the car-even for a 63 year old. What will I be like when I am 83?
93?
If I had behaved in such an unforgiving way as teacher I would have been sacked for being such a mean bastard in many places
But in Utopia in 2015 no human being speaks to me…
Today in my post–box: a warning form the police. I have been fined twice for speeding in the past 6 months (the other time was 71 in a 60 zone on a road with no traffic). If I am fined twice more in the next 30 months I will lose my license even though I have driven for 50 years without having had an accident.
Last Christmas I was pulled up by the police for driving too slowly!
I must be a dangerous man-and the drivers of Adelaide must be protected from criminals! The government must protect the people from danger! Trust us..we’ll get Nixon off the streets!
Australians wonder why we have one of the highest suicide rates in the world and why half of its young people will have a mental illness before they are 21! I don’t. I’m surprised the figures aren’t worse.
When I am not working it is difficult to get anyone to speak to me. The check-out lady at Woolies is friendly and she likes to talk, but even she is collecting money. Everyone is too busy. No-one wants to speak except to sell me something, collect money from me or tell me I have broken a rule or committed a crime.
I have been here for 25 years–what must it be like for recently arrived migrants or refugees? No wonder they stick together and ‘don’t integrate’
Most of my Mexican friends love Australia–genuinely.
That tells you a lot about Mexico. It tells you a lot about grinding poverty and the insidious, vile corruption of daily life
But it doesn’t tell you much about Australia
What the Mexicans won’t tell you is that in spite of the poverty and the corruption in Mexico they are free to enjoy themselves, have a laugh and even stick their arm out of the window of their car while driving. In Adelaide it is an offence. It will soon be an offence to laugh when you are driving. (Then the Mexicans will be in trouble)
No wonder everyone is so miserable
I feel free in Mexico (but the Mexicans won’t say that)
Here, I feel infantilized and defiled – like a criminal. Every social transaction is functional and based on a need. You won’t speak to me unless you need me-and vice-versa. “I need you to fill in this form.. you need to phone back later…”
I need .. you need…it’s a transaction –a business transaction
This is the Orwellian world of modern-day communication–where no-one ever speaks to anyone else…unless they need to –or are needed.
Banks, shopping centres, workplaces, police, schools, social clubs-even the churches- they are all designed to minimize people speaking to each other (as opposed to someone in authority telling us what to do)
In Mexico (and in Africa and other parts of the world where I have lived) people speak to each other because they like it-they get pleasure from the act itself. Speaking is an end in itself. In Australia it is increasingly a means to an end. Don’t bother me!
If speaking to each other is not ‘productive’ then why bother at all?
This is the way Governments and the corporates–our big brothers- want us to feel…. If we feel like criminals–like refugees – and are afraid to speak to each other then we can be more easily controlled, will be more compliant –and easier to exploit for profit. We will be better consumers–even when we are old and decrepit.
So what to do?
Voluntary work? –Yes, I do it..but it has become almost as hard to get as paid employment. It too has been bureaucratised and the culture corporatized by corporates and the Government
I don’t know
Write letters to my virtual friends I suppose..
I can hear Orwell groaning in his grave.
My the three days teaching won’t cover the fines.
No comments:
Post a Comment