While the Corporate Media host a bread and circuses celebration of Anzac Day, some of us feel that sack cloth and ashes might be more appropriate.
Bread and circuses
AUSTRALIA: Happy Anzac Day. A day in memorial of our Imperial betters ordering Australian troops to attack another country unprovoked. It stands alongside Iraq and Vietnam as a very regretful thing our nation has done.
Gallipoli is almost forgiveable, since it was so early in the 20th Century. Australia had been a Federation for little more than a decade and a nation, in the Anglo sense, for little more than a Century. Corporate media focuses on a footy game, the contemporary equivalent of bread and circuses, while some of us feel that sackcloth and ashes might be more appropriate.
Most people these days consider the war in Vietnam, Australia's involvement at least, to have been completely illegitimate and nothing to be proud of. As for the unprovoked attack and invasion of Iraq for a Corporate business agenda, a Melbourne Uni lecturer predicted at the outset that it would be another Vietnam. Now that our first serviceman has lost his life, it seems the prediction was on the money. What are we doing there at all?
The same lies that fooled US citizens into allowing their Government to attack another country over resources, like Japan in WW2, were used on us. We were lied to and our troops were deployed in violation of our constitution, being sent in without the approval of the citizens or Parliament of Australia. Now that a life has been lost, where does that leave us legally, I wonder?
The Australian public are stereotypically depicted by Corporate media as being too happy-go-lucky and distracted by bread and circuses to be appropriately ashamed of our Government's behaviour. However, there has been plenty of protest and even street marches in opposition. Australia is using a 200 year old system of Government comprised of a House of Reps and a Senate. Normally one expects the Senate to act as a balance for Government. Currently the Howard Government has control of both Houses and is using its power like the Nazi's in 1930's Germany. The most recent abuse was the creation of unconstitutional laws allowing the Army to be called out against Australian citizens! And our troops are currently overseas enjoying a lesson in psychological abuse with the people who ran Abu Ghraib.
Like many in the US and UK, a lot of Australians are horrified and deeply embarrassed by the Howard Government. Like rebellious youngsters tricked by their own greed into drug-trafficking, they are seduced by the easy, sleazy money and power offered by Global Corporations. They prance about enacting "greed is good" policies, obliging every whim of those in Board rooms wearing the real power.
The Australian public are left wondering when justice will step in, like a Customs Officer pulling on the latex gloves, and bring our representatives back to actually representing the Citizens.
Despite their current arrogance and refusal to account for their behaviour, the Government is still our representatives. They are elected and employed by us. The Citizens of Australia. This is not Burma or Pinochet's Argentina. We have laws here. The judiciary has not yet outlived its usefulness. The Howard Government must either remember its obligation to the Australian people or be reminded by Law.
Corporations and Banks in Australia have been permitted to advertise like pimps in velvet suits offering drugs to young homeless children. See these beautiful houses and cars? See all this consumer bling? Sign on the dotted line for a loan or credit card and it can all be yours! Unfortunately many of us signed, only to find we're now hocking it on the treadmill, slaving away only to hand over a large portion of our income to the pimps.
The Howard Government was able to successfully play on people's fears of either having to work harder or losing the house because of interest rate rises. Unable to manage a wheat sale successfully, it seems terrorising the public is a forte of the Howard Government. Come to think of it, that may be their only talent. When was the last time they knew anything about anything? And they want to be trusted with the Australia Card?! Not bloody likely!
Despite the Corporate media ignoring the growing questioning and protest among the Australian public, many of us are very unhappy with the current state of affairs. We may have not wanted a bunch of incompetents managing the economy, but we did not vote for a recreation of Nazi Germany.
In their book "Unveiling Empire", Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther examine the dark side of Empire with reference to the Book of Revelation. Rather than descending into another distorted attempt to translate a letter to a bunch of first century house churches in Asia Minor into a Nosatradamus copycat, they view the criticisms of the Roman Empire as they were intended. With some frightening parallels to current situations.
Many Christians are well aware of the Corporate media's predictable (and illegitimate) stereotype of the Christian faith as militant puritanical moralism, and attempt to hold to real human rights ethics in spite of it. What many of us might not be aware of is that the same misappropriation of authority went on in Roman days. Populist leaders of wealthy states pretended a semblance of religious devotion in order to imply authority, which they then abused. Wealthy, powerful people stayed comfortable and powerful at the expense of the majority. Sound familiar?
Howard-Brook and Gwyther examine the criticisms of Imperial agendas made by St. John and are not afraid to make analogies to current circumstances. While obesity is one of the leading causes of ill health in wealthy countries, the two-thirds world is kept on the edge of starvation by trade sanctions and power-mongering. This is the beastly system Christians are called to resist.
While Hollywood (and certain Governments and Corporations) might be completely obsessed with violence as an answer to everything, St. John was under no such illusions. Peace through superior fire power is a lie. September 11th proved that. Violent revolution gives us "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Changing the talking heads or stuffed shirts in Parliament doesn't alter the basic functioning of the system that produced the illegal and imoral invasion of Iraq.
There are 300 billionaires in the world today, do you think they lose any sleep over whether the Howard Government gets re-elected? Governments are puppets. Nasty ones, sometimes, but only puppets nevertheless. There's no point really in having John Howard wood-chipped like Chucky, if the Australian public remain enslaved to Corporate pimps.
The resistance advocated by St. John in the first century, commented upon by Howard-Brook and Gwyther, is a personal non-participation in the systemic abuse. This does not mean complete asceticism. We've had enough opportunity to learn from the mistakes of puritanical perfectionism. What it means is not exposing ourselves unnecessarily to the manipulations of Corporate media and Imperial agendas of control and greed. Don't let yourself be sucked in to thinking that Government is about the economy. Don't be sucked in by the fabrication of enemies in order to support a grab for power. Don't be fooled. Those in power in the Empire, any human Empire, don't give a rat's what your life is like. You can choose to get rich at the expense of others, as they endorse, and face oblivion if you make one false step... or you can choose to embrace real human values. Learning to trust other people is the only antidote to political scare-mongering. It's hard to be jerked into fearing Islam if you spend the odd weekend around the barbie eating Middle Eastern kebabs.
Remember treating strangers as if they were friends? How about, do unto others...? Or: Blessed are the peace makers?
Two thousand years ago we were given a recipe for changing out of all the scare-mongering and political and corporate greed. Things haven't changed. If we get back to the basics of each managing our own lives ethically, we can make a big difference. It's the only thing that can.
Revolution is nothing if it's just a change of guard. Humans are all the one species and we really need to evolve out of greed and cannibalistic competition. Such a change of heart is at the heart of the Christian faith, as it is other religions. Buddhists, for instance, have been advocating an internal change for happiness for each person since forever. As does Islam, where the original jihad was the "holy war" each person fights internally against grasping human nature, the "old self" that keeps us from living in peace and contentment.
In the Book of Revelation, such change was pictured using the symbolic "New Jerusalem". A city large enough to house everyone, open to people of every nation, tribe, kindred and tongue. The gates are always open so people are free to enter or leave as they will. There is no violence or coercion or terrorising the public with scare campaigns. This step in human evolution was predicted in St. John's vision, charmingly similar to the vision James Redfield has for humanity in "The Celestine Prophecy". Its impossible to live forever in fear. It exhausts a person and results in despair or early death. Fortunately we're wired to change for the better.
So it's really quite encouraging to have a national holiday to celebrate Anzac Day. A day for us as a nation to remember the mistakes we've made by following greedy Imperial agendas. A day to remember the real cost of being unwise about our politics, hundreds and thousands of lives lost in an attack on another peaceful nation, so someone on a Board somewhere can make another billion dollars.
A day to think about what we really want from life. Is consumer bread and circuses all there is? Do we want to become another Nazi Germany? Is Pinochet's Argentina or Mussolini's Italy our role model?
What we need is not more political rhetoric, coup, violence or fear-mongering. What we need is a change of heart, people deciding for themselves whether they want to get off the treadmill and begin to think about life after economic rationalisation.
Anzac Day is a national day of shame, for us. A day to remember all the good reasons to start building the New Jerusalem in our own lives.
http://users.bigpond.com/lisui/
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/111544.php
Gallipoli is almost forgiveable, since it was so early in the 20th Century. Australia had been a Federation for little more than a decade and a nation, in the Anglo sense, for little more than a Century. Corporate media focuses on a footy game, the contemporary equivalent of bread and circuses, while some of us feel that sackcloth and ashes might be more appropriate.
Most people these days consider the war in Vietnam, Australia's involvement at least, to have been completely illegitimate and nothing to be proud of. As for the unprovoked attack and invasion of Iraq for a Corporate business agenda, a Melbourne Uni lecturer predicted at the outset that it would be another Vietnam. Now that our first serviceman has lost his life, it seems the prediction was on the money. What are we doing there at all?
The same lies that fooled US citizens into allowing their Government to attack another country over resources, like Japan in WW2, were used on us. We were lied to and our troops were deployed in violation of our constitution, being sent in without the approval of the citizens or Parliament of Australia. Now that a life has been lost, where does that leave us legally, I wonder?
The Australian public are stereotypically depicted by Corporate media as being too happy-go-lucky and distracted by bread and circuses to be appropriately ashamed of our Government's behaviour. However, there has been plenty of protest and even street marches in opposition. Australia is using a 200 year old system of Government comprised of a House of Reps and a Senate. Normally one expects the Senate to act as a balance for Government. Currently the Howard Government has control of both Houses and is using its power like the Nazi's in 1930's Germany. The most recent abuse was the creation of unconstitutional laws allowing the Army to be called out against Australian citizens! And our troops are currently overseas enjoying a lesson in psychological abuse with the people who ran Abu Ghraib.
Like many in the US and UK, a lot of Australians are horrified and deeply embarrassed by the Howard Government. Like rebellious youngsters tricked by their own greed into drug-trafficking, they are seduced by the easy, sleazy money and power offered by Global Corporations. They prance about enacting "greed is good" policies, obliging every whim of those in Board rooms wearing the real power.
The Australian public are left wondering when justice will step in, like a Customs Officer pulling on the latex gloves, and bring our representatives back to actually representing the Citizens.
Despite their current arrogance and refusal to account for their behaviour, the Government is still our representatives. They are elected and employed by us. The Citizens of Australia. This is not Burma or Pinochet's Argentina. We have laws here. The judiciary has not yet outlived its usefulness. The Howard Government must either remember its obligation to the Australian people or be reminded by Law.
Corporations and Banks in Australia have been permitted to advertise like pimps in velvet suits offering drugs to young homeless children. See these beautiful houses and cars? See all this consumer bling? Sign on the dotted line for a loan or credit card and it can all be yours! Unfortunately many of us signed, only to find we're now hocking it on the treadmill, slaving away only to hand over a large portion of our income to the pimps.
The Howard Government was able to successfully play on people's fears of either having to work harder or losing the house because of interest rate rises. Unable to manage a wheat sale successfully, it seems terrorising the public is a forte of the Howard Government. Come to think of it, that may be their only talent. When was the last time they knew anything about anything? And they want to be trusted with the Australia Card?! Not bloody likely!
Despite the Corporate media ignoring the growing questioning and protest among the Australian public, many of us are very unhappy with the current state of affairs. We may have not wanted a bunch of incompetents managing the economy, but we did not vote for a recreation of Nazi Germany.
In their book "Unveiling Empire", Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther examine the dark side of Empire with reference to the Book of Revelation. Rather than descending into another distorted attempt to translate a letter to a bunch of first century house churches in Asia Minor into a Nosatradamus copycat, they view the criticisms of the Roman Empire as they were intended. With some frightening parallels to current situations.
Many Christians are well aware of the Corporate media's predictable (and illegitimate) stereotype of the Christian faith as militant puritanical moralism, and attempt to hold to real human rights ethics in spite of it. What many of us might not be aware of is that the same misappropriation of authority went on in Roman days. Populist leaders of wealthy states pretended a semblance of religious devotion in order to imply authority, which they then abused. Wealthy, powerful people stayed comfortable and powerful at the expense of the majority. Sound familiar?
Howard-Brook and Gwyther examine the criticisms of Imperial agendas made by St. John and are not afraid to make analogies to current circumstances. While obesity is one of the leading causes of ill health in wealthy countries, the two-thirds world is kept on the edge of starvation by trade sanctions and power-mongering. This is the beastly system Christians are called to resist.
While Hollywood (and certain Governments and Corporations) might be completely obsessed with violence as an answer to everything, St. John was under no such illusions. Peace through superior fire power is a lie. September 11th proved that. Violent revolution gives us "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Changing the talking heads or stuffed shirts in Parliament doesn't alter the basic functioning of the system that produced the illegal and imoral invasion of Iraq.
There are 300 billionaires in the world today, do you think they lose any sleep over whether the Howard Government gets re-elected? Governments are puppets. Nasty ones, sometimes, but only puppets nevertheless. There's no point really in having John Howard wood-chipped like Chucky, if the Australian public remain enslaved to Corporate pimps.
The resistance advocated by St. John in the first century, commented upon by Howard-Brook and Gwyther, is a personal non-participation in the systemic abuse. This does not mean complete asceticism. We've had enough opportunity to learn from the mistakes of puritanical perfectionism. What it means is not exposing ourselves unnecessarily to the manipulations of Corporate media and Imperial agendas of control and greed. Don't let yourself be sucked in to thinking that Government is about the economy. Don't be sucked in by the fabrication of enemies in order to support a grab for power. Don't be fooled. Those in power in the Empire, any human Empire, don't give a rat's what your life is like. You can choose to get rich at the expense of others, as they endorse, and face oblivion if you make one false step... or you can choose to embrace real human values. Learning to trust other people is the only antidote to political scare-mongering. It's hard to be jerked into fearing Islam if you spend the odd weekend around the barbie eating Middle Eastern kebabs.
Remember treating strangers as if they were friends? How about, do unto others...? Or: Blessed are the peace makers?
Two thousand years ago we were given a recipe for changing out of all the scare-mongering and political and corporate greed. Things haven't changed. If we get back to the basics of each managing our own lives ethically, we can make a big difference. It's the only thing that can.
Revolution is nothing if it's just a change of guard. Humans are all the one species and we really need to evolve out of greed and cannibalistic competition. Such a change of heart is at the heart of the Christian faith, as it is other religions. Buddhists, for instance, have been advocating an internal change for happiness for each person since forever. As does Islam, where the original jihad was the "holy war" each person fights internally against grasping human nature, the "old self" that keeps us from living in peace and contentment.
In the Book of Revelation, such change was pictured using the symbolic "New Jerusalem". A city large enough to house everyone, open to people of every nation, tribe, kindred and tongue. The gates are always open so people are free to enter or leave as they will. There is no violence or coercion or terrorising the public with scare campaigns. This step in human evolution was predicted in St. John's vision, charmingly similar to the vision James Redfield has for humanity in "The Celestine Prophecy". Its impossible to live forever in fear. It exhausts a person and results in despair or early death. Fortunately we're wired to change for the better.
So it's really quite encouraging to have a national holiday to celebrate Anzac Day. A day for us as a nation to remember the mistakes we've made by following greedy Imperial agendas. A day to remember the real cost of being unwise about our politics, hundreds and thousands of lives lost in an attack on another peaceful nation, so someone on a Board somewhere can make another billion dollars.
A day to think about what we really want from life. Is consumer bread and circuses all there is? Do we want to become another Nazi Germany? Is Pinochet's Argentina or Mussolini's Italy our role model?
What we need is not more political rhetoric, coup, violence or fear-mongering. What we need is a change of heart, people deciding for themselves whether they want to get off the treadmill and begin to think about life after economic rationalisation.
Anzac Day is a national day of shame, for us. A day to remember all the good reasons to start building the New Jerusalem in our own lives.
http://users.bigpond.com/lisui/ http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/111544.php
