ahhh.
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| Yeah. Just think about it. Don't DO anything...just think. |
Another day where I make my merry way into my job being the government guy.
I've been a government guy for a few years now, I just got to be government guy in exciting locations where I got to dress down and drive over mountains and eat questionable food at road houses.
These days - I'm a government guy in a capital city, on the 12th floor of a government building.
It's a different way of working...I still get to travel a bit (I help direct health programs in remote areas...it's complex) but it's always to a regional centre.
I'm pretty government-y these days.
I still get to see the direct results of my efforts assisting getting programs running so they have the most effect on people who need them though - which is what I liked about my old jobs - I got to make a clear difference, I could see real change in the efforts I was making.
In the past few weeks the spring in my step was occasionally dampened by being abused by some people living in tents in a park who wanted to tell me what an awful person I am.
Lets call them "occupy Brisbane" because "shouty person in a tent", or "the morning drumming circle" just doesn't do them justice.
A protest with no real leaders that started by AdBusters Magazine.
The founder: Kalle Lasn here is a little bit of info on him.
The reigning in of the ability of corporations to be a profit machine with no social responsibility, or not paying enough back to the governments that allow them to exist in the form of taxes.
That's a great point.
You don't have to dig too much to find a Union Carbide type of company that was able to make squillions in profits, but didn't exactly set the standard for social responsibility.
If you've never heard of the Bhopal disaster, or the Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster, go have a look - I'll be here when you come back.
There are plenty of examples.
Hardy asbestos fun and games.
entertain yourself with this
The fact is - when the companies bugger of to become a company in the Netherlands, the government picks up the pieces, so we need to make sure we can afford all this prosperity.
So - after a fashion, the key messages of the "99%" seem kind of right on, and I can totally back those sorts of ideas.
However - in a "leaderless movement" there then exists the possibility of "Message creep". and so as the "Occupy" guys started to set up - both here and in the States, each camp started to get all of the other little "add ons" that happen when there is an open mic and an angry drumming circle.
For instance - the signs that started to creep in about any one of the people in the parks pet conspiracy.
For instance - the signs that started to creep in about any one of the people in the parks pet conspiracy.
Like the signs and lectures about "Chemtrails".
if you aren't hip to it: "The chemtrail conspiracy theory holds that some trails left by aircraft are actually chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for purposes undisclosed to the general public in clandestine programs directed by government officials"
You CANNOT convince a hippy that Chemtrails don't exist.
If there is a flu epidemic and an aeroplane has gone over anytime in the last 3 years - it's Chemtrails."Supporters of this conspiracy theory speculate that the purpose of the chemical release may be for solar radiation management, population control, weather control, or biological warfare/chemical warfare and claim that these trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems"
So - the central message about corporate responsibility rapidly became about the redistribution of wealth, and then it dissolved into how the secret society known only as "The Pentaverate" who meet every year in a secret location are putting things into KFC to make you want to eat chicken.
..but you know, no need for a non-cool structure.
we're taking back Wall Street. or in this case...the park land on top of post office square that people eat their lunches in as it's on top of the food court.
We don't actually have a Banking or Stock market district...so I guess that had to do.
Not sweating the details is the real thing here.for instance...Yoko Ono is a supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement. She is from a Japanese Banking family so powerful and upper class that she went to a exclusive school with the EMPEROR, and now manages the dollars her late husband's estate generates. (just to remind you - he was a Beatle, and half of the Lennon-McCartney song writing team).
But yeah - corporations...bad...seems like a cool idea, so yeah...she's totally behind it.
She could buy the freaking park that the "Occupy" guys are on and give it to the protesters if she wanted, but let's not sweat the details ok?
So... a message on corporate responsibility, made all that more relevant in light of how only a small number of companies were responsible for the financial crisis that the USA went through recently, ended up getting blurred, and achieved...not very much.
in the end they:
- Made everyone who walked past them in the morning think "I haven't been camping in ages"
- Ruined a park that had to be used for the Remembrance Day services.
- Yelled at people getting coffee about what victims they are
- Did a couple of hilarious live Internet broadcasts (Don't leave the cameras on - Vox Pops is not a good idea with that made acid casualties around).
- and kind of made it look like we need Americans to dictate our social consciousness as well as our foreign policy.
..and the really annoying things is - I clearly agree with some of the better articulated things they were upset about.
It's all about appropriate protesting.
If you just want to get your message in the media - then - what ever you need to do I guess can be justified.but at some point when you are jumping up and down saying "look at me, look at me, look at me" someone is likely to say "ok, we're looking at you - what do you want?" and you have to have a better plan that to then say "When will you all look at me? why are you not looking coward?" because obviously people were, and...you had nothing to say.
One of my pet peeves is the people who complain to security guards at airports about...security at airports.
If you catch the minister for defence or transport doing the screenings - go right ahead. lay it on them, ask some poignant questions.but if it's a guy who had 2 days training and get $20 bucks an hour - mind your goddamn manners.
they clearly do not dictate the federal legislation that gives them their jobs.
They are happy to have a job, and you are a jerk, If anything you are saying "Please abuse the small amount of power you have to teach me a lesson in manners and appropriate behavior" - we can that a bag search that takes forever and messes up your clothes.
I had a professor in a lecture I was in say smugly "I always ask them "have you caught any terrorists yet?""It annoyed the bejesus out of me so I interpreted him to ask why he was doing that - and what did he expect to happen as a result of that behavior.
A man as educated as him should know better. The rest of the class were a little shocked, but he took my point and after the class told me I was one of the most articulate people he'd ever met. so I guess I didn't offend him too much.
It's not a form of protest to annoy those guys, it's just being a dickhead.
In Alice we once had a bunch of kids bus in from Sydney and Melbourne to protest Pine Gap. They yelled at the local security guards that worked at the outermost gate (Not Americans - just local guys), annoyed everyone in town, and as they packed up set fire to a camp site that was near sacred sites.
Can you imagine the Minster of Defence losing sleep over that?
I've worked as the guys who has to draft a response when you write to a minister.
It's awful, but it's the best way to get something out there.
The responses have to be factual, there is a time limit on how long till you get a response, and someone high up has to approve them. If you really ant to get an issue to a minister's attention - write to their office in their electorate, and then they will find the right department for a response.
You will probably get twice as many Ministers involved. Especially if it's in an election year, and you get a few people to write.The reason is - a minister will have to assume that each letter is representative of a percentage of people in their electorate. If you are writing then they will have to assume there are a whole bunch of other people who are upset too - but can't be assed to write to them.
If you get a couple of people - that my friend is a LOCAL ISSUE, and they get to weigh up if it's worth getting involved in.
Grass roots works, grass roots with a bit of media works too.
Ground swell works too - but there has to be an actual ground swell.
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| Most Social problems can be solved by drumming circles at 7:48am. |
I don't know how many Australian know that the James Hardy company is now registered in Ireland. or that the government basically let them sneak out the door and now claim that they have absolutely no association with the shelf company that they left behind to pay for the damages their products have done.
I do know that though and you know what - It does make me a bit angry.I'm not going to sleep in a park and yell at people going to work, but it makes me angry enough to sign a petition, or forward an email to a minister.
Protesting by yelling at the people who work at the company they left holding the baby won't help.
I, like many Australian, protest with my Vote.
We vote governments out - not governments in.If you want to set an agenda for the next election - here's my hint.
The Ministers don't live in the park.
KFS.
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