GIVE ME BACK MY BUTTERFLY SWORDS!

     GIVE ME BACK MY BUTTERFLY SWORDS!

by Dave Wheeler

   

     In this yarn I will at times go off on a tangent in green italicised font like I am doing now.    
   Before recounting an amusing anecdote that occurred in the Berra related to the martial arts, I will say that I am hoping this post will be of interest to persons other than those who have an interest in martial arts. I say this because it also covers human behaviour and demonstrates how easy it is for people to be sucked in and/or delude themselves when extravagant claims are made which, like the tooth fairy, cannot be disproven but are obvious bullshit to the non-gullible.  This is how cults are established, and some martial arts schools can be very cult-like.    

    I will begin by briefly discussing the martial arts in general and I will also give a brief history of its practice and teaching in the Berra and surrounding districts. And by martial arts I am referring to activities involving training for combat with and without weapons and with and without rules. It therefore includes all the grappling and striking arts such as boxing, kickboxing, karate, kung fu, wrestling, judo, jiu jitsu, etc.

    The first martial artists in the Berra and districts were obviously our indigenous folk, the Ngambri or Ngunnawal, (depending on who you believe are the true local mob and what they called themselves), who have been here for thousands of years. Although I of course was not around to witness their pre-invasion activities we can say with confidence that because history tells us that there has so far been no group of people discovered that has not engaged in warfare, going back to our prehuman days, our indigenous folk within the Berra area would have been no exception.

    The indigenous Australians had the woomera and spear and other weapons for participating in warfare (and hunting) from a distance as well as weaponry for hand-to-hand combat. According to Ngambri member, Paul House, the Ngambri, like most Australian indigenous tribes and just about every indigenous tribe around the world, (including indigenous Europeans when they were tribal) grappled for sport and recreation and/or to prepare for warfare.  

      Grappling, as shown in the above photo taken in the Byron Bay area in 1890, exercises just about every muscle in the body, including the heart and lungs. It also promotes excellent mind-body awareness, sharpens reflexes, assists in balance control and teaches one how to feel the force of one’s opponent in order to use that force to one's advantage. These skills were all needed in warfare and for day-to-day survival. Virtually all tribal people grappled regularly.

   The indigenous folk in the Berra area would have been superb martial artists, because they needed to use weapons in order to hunt, just to survive. For this reason their martial skills would have been finely honed, as many of the skills used for hunting non-human animals would have been able to be used in warfare against their fellow humans.

    In regard to the efficacy of indigenous weaponry, early post invasion history tells us that the muzzle-loading rifles and pistols that were wielded by Europeans were not always enough when they confronted trained indigenous warriors armed with woomeras and spears, as was shown by the activities of the famous Pemulwuy and others. 
    Some of the indigenous folk of Cape York had regular contact with Torres Strait Islanders, and possibly the New Guineans, who used the bow and arrow, but the indigenous mainlanders chose to keep the woomera and spear because they must have thought it superior for what they required. 
     I once recorded a doco which had in it footage shot in the 1920's of a tribal indigenous bloke, with scarring, throwing a spear with a woomera. My reasoning told me that because he would have, in his earlier years, been entirely dependent on his ability to throw a spear with a woomera to get his protein, his technique would have had to have been perfect. I watched the film in slow motion several hundred times and his technique was absolutely beautiful. It confirmed every theory I have in regard to how one should go about using one's body in a manner which is totally efficient and which makes maximum use of the muscles required to perform any task. This allows a person with such knowledge and sufficient skill to be able to generate maximum power, efficiency and accuracy for the movements in which survival depended.

   When it comes to the post invasion indigenous history of the Berra and districts I have recounted some records of conflict between some indigenous folk in a yarn that can be read on this blog entitled “A fight to the death at the Queanbeyan Showground,” but my knowledge on the subject is very limited and I know nothing about any conflicts they may have had with the European invaders. 

    In regard to the said European invaders, if the Berra and districts were like the rest of Australia I am sure the pale-faced folk engaged in organised boxing and wrestling matches from their arrival in sufficient numbers, although I have not seen any documents relating to what was taught and practised in that respect until the early part of the 20^th century. 
   In regard to the latter, I have seen advertisements for boxing, wrestling and Jiu Jitsu being taught in Queanbeyan during the twenties, and I was told, rightly or wrongly, that the well-known Canberra botanist, the late Lindsay Pryor, fought an organised (real) wrestling bout in the Ainslie Rex during the 1930’s, and won. I am led to believe non-theatrical wrestling matches were held regularly in that time period. 
    We also know that the annual agricultural shows, until about  1972, had tent boxers who would take on the local lads, with me being one of them in early 1969 when I was a brainless 16 year old. 
   I can also recall being told, in or around 1968, by an ex shearer aged in his 70’s, how there were often bare knuckle boxing bouts held in the shearing sheds outside Captains Flat, right up until the beginning of WW2.   

    As to during and post WW2, much in the way of tournaments in boxing and wrestling occurred regularly at many different venues. I know my maternal uncle and his mates, being too young for WW2, participated in organised boxing bouts at Corroboree Park and elsewhere during and just after WW2. And when the Turner Police Boys’ Club opened in 1960 many wrestling, judo and boxing tournaments were held there. I can recall walking to the said club with my grandad, the late Bill Guard the 2^nd, in 1961, when I was aged 8 or 9, to watch local boys box and to watch some theatrical wrestling. (Read my post "The establishment of the Turner PCYC" on this site for an interesting summary of its history).

   Up until the late sixties the only Asian martial arts styles that I know of that were taught in the Berra were Judo and Japanese JuiJitsu.  I am unaware of any of the Asian striking styles, such as the various kung fu and karate styles, and muay thai, being taught in the ACT before the late sixties, other than a style which combined some of the Asian grappling styles and some basic karate. That was taught by Peter Morton at Corroboree park, Ainslie, and probably in Queanbeyan. 
   From around 1969 onwards some of the Japanese karate styles were taught in the Berra as well as some Kung Fu styles. Two of the kung fu stylists who were teaching during the late 60’s or early seventies were Dave Crook and Bill Cheung. I will discuss those two in greater detail shortly. 

    During the 60's and early 70's the Asian striking styles held much mystique, and their effectiveness was blown out of all proportion due to few Australians knowing much about them, cheap Chinese and Japanese movies and them not being tested publicly against other styles as they are today in mixed martial arts.

    During my early youth I was told by many ignorant people that karate and kung fu masters were able to remove a person’s heart with one strike and take on multiple opponents who attacked simultaneously, which included professional boxers and top wrestlers and judoka. 
    I also read about a Japanese bloke of Korean descent named Mas Oyama killing bulls with his bare hands and another famous Japanese bloke named Gogen Yamaguchi killing a tiger, again with his bare hands. As a 14 year old I was open-minded in regard to these claims as I had never seen any karate and kung fu men fight, but when I relayed some of the stories to my dad, such as Oyama killing bulls and Yamaguchi killing a tiger with their bare hands, I saw him crack a large smile and begin chuckling to himself.

    As I have said, these people got away with bullshit partly because they made claims that could be neither proven nor disproven, but the main reason was because most people want to believe bullshit. Rather than put in the hard training and receive the pain of full contact combat, which grapplers and those who engage in full contact boxing, kickboxing and mixed martial arts receive in order to attain real skills, it is far easier for them to delude themselves into believing that if they perform a magical dancelike style of martial arts and spar on a non-contact basis, as do most of the kung fu and karate boys, they will becoming walking death machines with secret magical martial knowledge.

    I suppose those who continue to sell gadgets to the gullible which they claim will deliver users a slim and powerful body use the same ploy. The difference however, is that those who continue to use new gadgets in the mistaken belief that they will lose weight easily actually get some exercise in the process and waste only their money, whereas I have known people who have trained in the karate and kung fu styles for many years on a non-contact basis who actually believe they are great scrappers. Letting them believe this is grossly  immoral, as it is very dangerous due to it giving them a false sense of security.

   I grew more sceptical about the efficacy of the karate and kung fu styles as I aged, but I still thought they had more to offer in regard to self defence than western boxing and wrestling, so, after having learnt some basic judo and western boxing as a kid, I began learning a small amount of karate in 1971 and did another karate style more intensely in New Zealand for 6 months in early 1972.  

   When I reflect on what I learnt in regard to karate after having learnt some very useful judo and boxing, I see it as absolute crap, and as a fighter I actually went backwards. My hand techniques became grossly inferior to what they were when I was using Western boxing.

   Classical karate as it was taught with its hard blocks and corkscrew punches was/is absolute garbage, although I believe many karate schools have since drastically changed what they teach, possibly as a result of what occurred when they were in the ring in MMA with boxers, kickboxers and Muay Thai fighters who had better methods and were used to full contact. Many mainstream karate styles now teach a form of kickboxing that uses realistic techniques that have been tested in MMA, as well as some basic grappling skills.

   The Chinese (Wushu) stylists learn more relaxed and flowing styles which are very good for physical and mental health, as they are also very meditative. That said,  they are also ineffective when up against serious opposition, unless the stylist mixes his training with full contact competition, particularly in MMA. I, however, see nothing wrong with sticking to non-contact training for the sheer pleasure it brings, minus the brain damage. And it will be effective against most untrained mugs who have a go at you.

   I began learning a kung fu style in the Berra in the last half of 1972 after I returned from New Zealand, and the style I refer to was taught by the previously mentioned Dave Crook. I stayed with him for several years and went on to learn other kung fu, boxing and kickboxing styles until I had acquired what I now see as the most effective striking style. (I received much valuable knowledge from a Tongan ex Australasian and British Empire heavyweight champion named Kitione Lavemai, some of which goes back to pre-European Tonga).

    Unlike the classical karate styles as they were taught at the time, some of the kung fu styles had more science to them, and it made people better scrappers than they would be if they learnt nothing. But sparring non-contact with the best style that exists is entirely different from mixing it with others on a full contact basis. And as I have said, this gave many people who learnt the kung fu styles a false sense of security, to the extent that if they had natural timidity and/or lack of experience in full contact fighting it would render their efforts useless when confronted by a person with street experience and aggression.
    Although having said that, many of the boys I trained with in Dave Crook's kung fu style and other kung fu styles I studied were by nature tough and fit and had had their share of street brawls. Trond Holgersen, Mal Hoy, Greg Hart, Tony Quinn, Mick Riley, Gary "Kamo" Kaminov and Dennis "Spud" Murphy, who all attended Dave Crook's classes, fell into all those categories and were all able to handle themselves well in real confrontations. 

    Spud and Tony, like myself, had also engaged in some judo and boxing, and persons who had studied those sorts of contact martial arts would have definitely benefited from the techniques they were shown with the kung fu styles, as it meant having a greater arsenal. I am not sure if Bill McCasker, another pupil of Dave Crook, had much street experience, but he showed guts entering several full contact tournaments, and would have learnt much by facing reality.
    As I have said, there is good science behind some kung fu styles, but because it is usually not practised realistically when it comes to them entering tournaments against experienced boxers, kickboxers and Muay Thai practitioners they are usually easily defeated. When MMA came they also quickly learnt that they needed grappling skills, although that also applied to boxers and kick boxers with full contact experience who were devoid of grappling skills. Some of the kung fu and karate men who believed their own bullshit and entered the MMA tournaments with total confidence were absolutely gobsmacked when they discovered how ineffective they were against real fighters.

    I was to eventually find, however, that the essence of the kung fu styles and as such their main original objective, was far more valuable and useful to me than being able to defend myself.
   To elaborate, I find that when practising striking with legs, fists, elbows, etc, with the emphasis being on striving for total efficiency and harmony between mind and body, one can at times achieve a state of absolute euphoria when one "feels" it all fall into place.  
   

    This can include striking in the air by way of shadow boxing or striking a heavy bag. And when practising with a training partner in a manner in which the objective is to not damage each other but to feel one’s opponent’s force and deflect it, the process can also be a total joy. Other than bringing on euphoria, the practice leads to better coordination, a degree of muscular and cardiovascular fitness and good mind-body awareness. It also does not damage the body.

     Back to Bill Cheung, the Berra's so-called Wing Chun Kung Fu grandmaster, who was teaching Wing Chun to small groups of people in the Berra before and after I started training with Dave Crook. 
   Bill Cheung grew up in Hong Kong and learned his Wing Chun there. He was also a mate of the late Bruce Lee. Was he a genuine grandmaster? I doubt it. As far as I’m concerned genuine masters are those who excel in MMA and not those who tell us how good they are without backing up their legendary battles with hard evidence that they actually occurred. And I believe Bill Cheung is one of many who falls into the latter category. 
    I read of one scrap he was alleged to have had on a ship in which he was able to fight off an attack by a gang wielding weapons. Really; it was an insult to anyone's intelligence.

     Having said what I have said about Bill Cheung, I have been told by a few Canberrans that they witnessed some of the street fights he had while living in the Berra and that he did demolish a few people. If those stories are true, however, it must be realised that it is not difficult to flatten the sort of people who are likely to attack you for no reason, as they are usually half-pissed, untrained semi-retards.

    Anyway, while training with Dave Crook sometime in 1972 or thereabouts, Dave told us he was putting on a demonstration at a fete at a primary school. It may have been Holt primary school. He wanted me and others to participate in the demo, but unfortunately I had a previous engagement, which was unfortunate because I would have loved to have attended because of what occurred at the said fete.

   Although the description I am about to give of what occurred I stress is secondhand, I am convinced it is true because I heard it from several witnesses directly after the event, and the descriptions were uniform. But, to try to ensure my memory was not playing tricks on me I rang on the 6/8/2014 one of my old mates who I trained with at the time who was at the demonstration and witnessed what occurred, and I asked him to relay to me exactly what happened as he recalled it.

    The bloke I refer to is named Mal Hoy. He is now a 63 (in 2014) year old with a bricklaying gang. Mal is a very honest down-to-earth sort of bloke who during his youth was naturally very tough and athletic and I am sure his background would have meant what he learnt in the way of martial arts would have worked for him, which is not something I could say for many of the clerical workers who were dedicated to the practice but had never been in a scrap in their lives. 
   The latter types often lose control of their bowels when confronted by real violence and would burst into tears if they received a hard smack to the head. That could not be said for boxers who can often take several hard whacks to the head and shake them off and continue to box on and win. They are physically and psychologically prepared for violence.
    After talking to Mal, what I am led to believe occurred during the demonstration was that Bill Cheung approached Dave Crook and the lads who were giving the demonstration, and after jumping the rope surrounding the demonstration, yelled out something like, ‘This is not kung fu! This is not kung fu!”

    I was told Bill had with him a very large bloke whose apparent job was to fight Dave Crook, who is not a large bloke, with the presumed objective of proving that Bill's brand of Kung Fu was superior to Dave's. 
    If this is what occurred Bill was using flawed logic. If he wanted his student to challenge Dave Crook why couldn’t he have found one of a similar size to Dave and given some notice? Other than that, Bill was a similar size to Dave, and if he was a real master why couldn’t he have challenged Dave himself? Surely a genuine master would not employ a student to do his fighting for him?
    Apparently the audience started abusing Bill and his minder mate, with one person reminding him that he was not in a kung fu movie. Bill and his big mate decided to leave, with Bill apparently telling Dave Crook that they would visit his club and sort things out, or words to that effect, which many presumed was a threat.

    I was also told that as he was leaving he remembered that he had lent Dave a pair of Butterfly swords, which the Wing Chun boys train with, and his last words were, “Give me back my butterfly swords!”
   The next week we were expecting a visit from Bill Cheung and his mate but unfortunately it did not happen. What a pity.

   Above is a photo of butterfly swords. I once saw an idiot (a so-called kung fu master) do a demonstration which involved having someone slice a watermelon with a butterfly sword while the melon rested on the "master's" stomach. The master was supposed to be able to protect himself from the damage of the blade with his "chi,"but after the slicing had been done and the master rose he revealed to the audience a pronounced red cut mark right across his stomach. 

   If what occurred is as I have described, and I sincerely believe I have described what happened accurately, I regard it as being piss weak on Bill Cheung’s part and very childish.

   I have nothing against people who dress up in medieval costumes and pretend to fight each other with swords, because most will readily admit they are just big kids playacting. This is not the case with some of the kung fu and karate men who live in fools' paradises by deluding themselves into thinking they can really scrap. What they do is the equivalent of someone claiming to be a tennis master teaching people how to hold a racket and hit a ball against a wall but never in their lives having played a game of tennis against a decent opponent.

   It’s a pity such so-called martial arts masters cannot just be honest with themselves and practise their styles simply for the sake of their health and the extreme pleasure the process can bring them. There is no need for them to attempt to convince themselves or others they are real warriors and on a par with grapplers, boxers, kickboxers and mixed martial artists, who have all experienced real contact fighting. 

  Hopefully the reader may be able to vicariously enjoy some of the pleasure I have received from the martial arts after reading the following rave then watching the embedded youtube video.

FORTY YEARS AFTER

  The embedded youtube video below combines footage taken in Holt, Canberra, in 1976, that shows two of my mates, Trevor Crook and Bill McCasker, and me mucking around doing some half-paced sparring. The rest of the footage is of me shot forty years later. 

   The bloke singing on the video is the previously mentioned Dennis “Spud” Murphy, a good mate and ex Berra boy, who I trained with in martial arts in the Berra and London and who I also went to school with. The organist was my dad, the late Roy Wheeler. 

    You can see the said embedded video below by clicking on it, and you can watch it on a larger screen by clicking on the broken rectangle that appears on a corner. 

    The second part of the youtube video shows me in recent times, 40 years after the first part of the video was filmed, in which I shadow box and hit a punching bag to music in 3/4 waltz time. I find it interesting to see how my technique has changed significantly over the years to the extent that I was previously insufficiently loose in my movements. I would love to be able to step through the screen to correct my inefficient striking style.

   How I hit the bag should not be viewed as an instructional clip for boxers or other martial artists; it's all about how one can enjoy oneself by committing acts of violence on inanimate objects. And in doing so while striking a punching bag my objective is to strike with maximum power purely for the sake of feeling the enjoyment of the process, particularly when I can feel harmony between mind and body.

  If my objective was only to train for most combat sports I would keep my hands at a higher level and my shoulders would vary between being hunched and not hunched, although some people prefer to drop their guard if their objective is to attack their opponent's hands prior to either grappling and/or striking. 

     But, I just wish to feel good, and I find that by lowering my hands and hunching my shoulders I can generate greater power, particularly with uppercuts, and when I feel a strike achieving maximum power the enjoyment I receive is proportional to the power that is generated.

   My basic message is that our species has a genetically-based propensity for violence as it was often required to assist survival and gene reproduction in the environment in which we evolved, and some people have a greater tendency for violence than others. Also, some people get greater pleasure from perpetrating acts of violence than others. 

   With that being the case perpetrating acts of violence can bring on a state of absolute euphoria in some people if it is performed with the right knowledge and technique, particularly if there are no victims. And obviously only my punching bag suffers when I attack it, and I am led to believe punching bags are not sentient beings.

   Also, unlike piss and other drugs that produce feel-good brain chemistry artificially, the sort of feel-good brain chemistry that can be produced by attacking a punching bag in the way I recommend has no apparent negative side-effects, and like all forms of exercise is good for one's physical and mental health. 

    I am playing a waltz in the background, as it assists in bringing on the euphoria. I find its melody and rhythm beautiful, and by combining the pleasure of the music with the pleasure of perpetrating an act of controlled violence in which there are no victims one achieves double pleasure, which can amount to euphoria. If you wish to try hitting a bag and don't enjoy waltz time try your own music and see what works best for you.

    Much of what I have just raved on about can be fitted into some of what I have discussed in “  Rationalist's Guide to Life," which can be downloaded free of charge or a need to obtain personal information from this site.

    

FOR MANY MORE MAINLY CANBERRA-BASED YARNS HIT THE "HOME" BUTTON UP THE TOP.

A NIGHT WITH A DANGEROUS CANBERRA CULT

    A NIGHT WITH A DANGEROUS CANBERRA CULT

By Dave Wheeler   

    Before I commence this yarn I will tell you that at times I will go off on a tangent in green italics like I am doing now then return to the main rave.

   It was not until 2003 I realised that the Berra had within it a dangerous cult which has since been spreading its dogma like a cancer. It has even infiltrated the ranks of our main political parties. 

    To begin my story, it was in that year I was working with a pleasant young woman in her mid twenties. Her name escapes me so I will call her Cheryl. Despite her youth Cheryl was working as a child protection worker. Not many people stay frontline child protection workers for too long, and Cheryl, who was looking for greener pastures, had applied for a job with the federal government that involved some sort of social work. She was shortlisted and the morning she went off for her interview I wished her luck.

   She returned a couple of hours later and told me of her experience. She told me that when surrounded by the interview panel they began asking her questions related to computers. She did not find this unexpected because most positions within the public services by that time involved having to have some basic competency with computers, and Cheryl had the computer skills she needed for her job, but no more. But the questions became more and more difficult for her to answer as they continued to be only about computers. She told me that after a while they might as well have been asking her questions in another language because she did not understand the terminology or have any idea what they were on about.

   Eventually it became established that someone had stuffed-up and that she was being interviewed for an I.T. position, which of course is all about computers. Some profoundly introverted computer nerd with zero social skills was probably interviewed for a social work position at the same time Cheryl undertook her interview.

   I saw that sort of incompetence often within the public service. I’ve also seen it often in the large corporations I have worked for, and whoever has had to deal with tradesmen will have experienced much incompetence in small business. I am also not saying that making stupid mistakes applies to others and not me, as I’ve made plenty during my life. Making errors is a part of the human condition and for that reason it could be said that no economic or political system can “work” for the same reason it is impossible for a motorcar designer to design a reliable and efficient motorcar if he is required to build it with faulty components.

   Our species will always be held back by incompetence, stupidity, nepotism, corruption, manipulation, etc, but more so nowadays because we are overpopulated and life gets more and more complex as we become more global, more dependent on technology, more addicted to gadgetry, more subject to manipulation by the mass media which has its own interests at heart, and generally more interdependent. Given that our genetics are geared towards maximising our chances of surviving and reproducing our genes as members of small bands of hunter gatherers I’m surprised our world is not more chaotic and violent than it is.

    Although no economic or political system “works,” we can debate which economic and political system is the best of a bad lot. I have my own preferred political and economic system which attempts to take into account human incompetence. I will not discuss it as it is not the subject of this yarn and I would need to write a book to describe it and qualify why I believe it would be not as bad as the other political and economic systems that have so far been tried, even though there is no way I could say it would “work.” 

   Of course it would need to be wanted by the majority of Australians in order for it to have any chance of being established, and as we are a sort of democracy, and as the herd is easily manipulated by the media who are interested in perpetuating the status quo, there is virtually zero chance of Australians voting for any economic or political system that differs very much to what we are currently subjected to until they are starving and have the arse out of their trousers and frocks.
  I would not contemplate attempting to change the system by any way other than the ballot box, because totalitarianism becomes unbearable even when it is established for the best of reasons.
  

    It is not just me saying out of the blue that most Australians are not politically aware and are easily manipulated; it is recorded in history. Australians have a record of voting for parties who they should have known intended to act against the best interest of the majority of Australians. They did not even want to change the system during and after the 1930’s depression! It comes down to equal votes for unequal minds.

    An example of most Australians voting for a government that shat on them occurred relatively recently when Howard implemented the part of his industrial relations legislation which he called “Workchoices.” He even said what his intentions were before the election, yet he still won! It was not until penalty rates began to go and the race to the bottom began that a large number of affected Australians woke up and realised they had made a terrible mistake. It resulted in the Coalition being kicked out and Howard losing his seat.

   What occurred was the equivalent of someone asking Australians to place their hands on a hot stove and them doing what they were told without realising how hot it would be until they experienced the pain. How thick can you get?

    Chinese businessmen regard most Australians as naïve simpletons and they are right in making that assumption. We even allow foreigners to buy houses in Australia, and in doing so make it even harder than it currently is for young Australians to buy their first home. Yet we are very limited in how we can invest in places like China. And the Chinese are not prepared to float their currency!
    We have also allowed our gas fields to be purchased by foreigners and as a result we pay export prices for the gas we use in our homes.
     We now find Tony Abbott and his mob are trying to bring back Workchoices by stealth and they will probably get away with it. While the majority of Australians are passively entertained by watching sport, drinking piss, gambling, watching American sitcoms and listening to low IQ commercial radio, they are being shat on and manipulated. On building sites you will hear music from commercial radio blaring followed by advertisements and comments by right wing shock-jocks. The Roman ruling class knew the value of “bread and circuses” and it has not been lost by the capitalist class today. Unfortunately Labor are also a bunch of sub-humans who are of the far economic right, as is Clive Palmer who bought his seats by way of advertising through the media. He took advantage of the simpleminded herd so he could repeal the mining and carbon taxes, which have been hitting him in the hip pocket.
    The latte-sipping Australian Greens who are to the fashionable social left but are of the economic right mumble platitudes and take on relatively easy issues like gay marriage. They would not however, dare upset the bottom line of large corporations who have them in their pockets, which can be seen by the fact that they do not even have a policy on population, which is the very guts of the environmental movement! It would upset their corporate mates who want a surplus of compliant workers and more customers.
    The Australian Greens are a long way to the economic right of Bob Menzies. Most Green members will turn their lights off for an hour once a year, ride their bikes while decked out in lycra that was manufactured in the Third World, and continue to drive cars and use air conditioners.
    Imagine if Australia had kept its population at 7.6 million,(which is what it was after WW2), kept the dollar pegged, retained high tariffs, (which we could get away with doing given that most of our minerals are owned by foreigners and therefore our having high tariffs would not have prevented them continuing to buy them from their own companies) and not exported its natural gas but instead used it as an alternative to petrol. Our individual share of the cake would be enormous.
   Our bean-counters have never been concerned about the social costs of exporting unskilled work, but I wonder if they have ever calculated the policy's real monetary costs. Increased numbers of unemployed unskilled workers leads to the need for an increase in unproductive services. I refer to a need for more gaols, more drug rehab facilities, more coppers, greater security costs, more hospitals, etc.
    Instead the “populate or perish” creed ensured post WW2 young adults produced too many of us baby boomers who are now facing retirement. Today, instead of lessening the problem by stopping population growth and creating Kibbutzim or similar solutions to deal with the unemployed and elderly, the 5 main parties, being Palmer, Greens, Labor, National and Liberal, are encouraging population growth and thus passing on enormous problems to future generations. Their obsession with economic growth means they have yet to realise that nothing in the universe can continually expand. They obviously don’t love their kids and/or grandkids and have nothing but contempt for our youth in general.

     The subject of this yarn began with how Cheryl’s interview went wrong and how that sort of thing will always occur because of human incompetence and stupidity, but the yarn will progress to describing an evening I had with a group of people after I met Cheryl’s husband.

    I met Cheryl’s husband one evening a short time after Cheryl’s interview when I was obliged to stay after work for a retirement party. I will call her husband Godfrey. Godfrey was aged around thirty. He told me he was an economist and that he worked for the Australian Treasury. He also told me he had travelled to Cuba and that Cuba was a very inefficient and poverty-stricken place, which, he said, was to be expected because all forms of socialism have been  complete failures.

   Without defending the Cuban economic and political system, or referring to the success of the Danes, I pointed out several things to him. I told him that if he was going to condemn Cuba and maintain that other systems are superior he should remember that other than it only being able to grow a few crops, make cigars, raise some animals and conduct some fishing, it has very little in the way of natural resources and is also overpopulated. For those reasons alone he should expect it to be poverty-stricken. 

   I also told him he should be comparing the Cuban’s standard of living with other islands within the region that also lacked resources and were also overpopulated but are capitalist. He should also compare the standard of living of the majority of Cubans today to what it was for the majority prior to their revolution in 1959 when most Cubans were living like dogs under capitalism while a minority who had the capital lived the good life.

    I also told him that Cuba was now a totalitarian regime and that totalitarian regimes were always far more corrupt than democracies whether they are capitalist or socialist, which is of course because more transparency occurs in democracies, which means it is more difficult for politicians and public servants to get away with being corrupt and incompetent. He seemed to be comparing Cuba to resource-rich semi-democratic Australia, which is like comparing oranges with apples.

   Although he referred to Cuba as being communist I stressed to him I was not trying to defend communism, although my own preferred political and economic system could be described as a form of democratic, isolationist socialism. (The term socialism in itself is vague and means different things to different people). I did however inform him that real communism had not been tried (and still has not been tried) to the extent that the guts of communism involves workers having control of the means of production, which in essence amounts to them also having a say in the running of the place which involves being a part of a functioning form of democracy. Above all, if workers are to have control of the means of production it also means the country must be  economically isolationist. As an economist why did he not know this? 
    I doubt real communism would be any better than our current economic system, but because it has not been tried that is only a calculated guess on my part. Chile may have eventually had a truly Marxist economy if the Yanks had not financed the coup that overthrew the democratically elected Allende government and replaced it with the brutal Pinochet regime.
   I felt like some fun so I began putting shit on the right wing free market ideology we have had to endure in Australia since Whitlam reduced tariffs by 25%, and which has got progressively worse with each successive Labor and Coalition government going further to the economic right. He regarded Labor as "left" but I told him that Labor and the Coalition had gone so far to the right on their economic policies it’s a wonder they could walk upright. It would make an old economic lefty (protectionist) like Menzies roll in his grave, and if he were to return today advocating his economic policies he would be labelled a communist by today’s Coalition and Labor parties.

    I told him we were far better off during the fifties and sixties when we had virtually 100% employment because we were less global due to us protecting our industries and economy by way of high tariffs and the ability to peg our currency. At that stage we also had less emphasis on the growth of the economy, our population had not reached the dangerously high level it is today, we had no GST and our revenue was collected mainly by way of tariffs and the wealthy paying a higher proportion of direct income tax. The wealthy paid a maximum tax rate of 65% at that time as opposed to the maximum of 45% they now pay. We also collected revenue by way of profitable government-owned enterprises which have since been sold off for short term political gain.
    Selling off profitable government enterprises like the Commonwealth Bank, Telstra, etc, is like a person with an investment property worth $500,000.00, which gives him a regular income, spending $400,000.000 in a year on champagne, caviar, etc, then boasting about being able to handle his finances well because he is still $100,000.000 in the black even though he has lost most of his capital and no longer receives the income he had.

    Godfrey did not offer much of a counter argument to what I had to say. He did however, tell me he was a part of a movement that called themselves “Libertarians” and that if I wished to go out for a meal at Kingston with him and his fellow Libertarians the coming Friday I could debate my point-of-view. He also assured me that he and his fellow “Libertarians” had the capacity to go for the ball and not the player.

    Although my outlook was very different from Godfrey’s he impressed me at that time, as most of those who subscribe to his form of Libertarianism, which involves free market ideology with minimal taxation and regulation, have not had the guts to take me on in debate in regard to my assertion that the majority of Australians had a far better quality of life in the fifties and sixties because of our economic policies than the majority of Australians today who have been subjected to deregulation. It all comes down to the fact that since then we have drastically decreased tariffs, floated the dollar, sold profitable government-owned assets and have ensured the wealthy pay a lower percentage of their income in taxation than the poor.

   I also thought there was a possibility he had a genuine open-mind, a very rare attribute, and I know that had I have ever brought one of his kind to a union meeting I would have been as popular with my socialist mates as a turd in a swimming pool.  

   What I have just said about my being willing to take on a qualified economist may sound like the height of arrogance given that I have never had any formal study in economics. I do not see it that way however, because although I do not claim to be an economist I know the difference between those who study with an  open mind and those who are blinded by blind faith in an ideology and do not know how poor Australians survive. 

   Taking on in debate free market ideologues is as easy as it is to take on in debate fundamentalist Christians, or the Moslem fundamentalists who believe they will have a cartload load of virgins waiting for them if they martyr themselves, even if the fundamentalist Christians and Moslems are graduates of the theological schools which taught them such cultish dogma.
   To explain the metaphor, a Christian can graduate from a theological college and after doing so may know the Christian Bible inside out. However, he also accepts the premise that the Bible is non-fiction, which means his knowledge of the Bible will be only useful for those who also accept that premise. But for someone like me who believes that the Bible is pure fiction his "qualifications" mean absolutely nothing.
    When it comes to economists, what they are taught today is based on the premise that an economy that is far more deregulated, far less protectionist and far more privatised than it was in Australia in the fifties and sixties will deliver a standard of living (or increase in wellbeing) which is higher than it would be if it were run by way of the fifties and sixties model. 
   I do not agree with their premise, and our recent history has shown us that it is ridiculous. But, unfortunately that dogma has been swallowed by all our major political parties despite the fact that the GFC occurred, despite the fact that we have entrenched unemployment, despite the fact that we have increasing problems such as congestion caused by overpopulation (population growth goes with economic growth) and despite the fact that houses are virtually unaffordable for most young people. 
    What I am saying is that I can prove by way of facts and figures that the majority of Australians were far better off prior to deregulation and the massive reductions in tariffs despite the fact that gadgets today are cheaper than they have ever been.
   Deep down it would seem that most economists today know they have been taught bullshit or are not quite sure, and for those reasons have no wish to put their cherished beliefs on the line in debate.
    Conversely, there is no way I would ever consider taking on physicists or mathematicians, or engineers whose discipline combines both those disciplines. Maths and physics are real and as such their training is entirely based on reality. If their lecturers were talking garbage they would be put into place by their students very rapidly, whereas those in pseudo sciences like economics can continue to peddle their faith-based ideology because they can always invent excuses as to why their cherished free market ideology has failed.

    Anyway, Godfrey showed all the signs of not wanting to back away, even though he did not wish to debate me at the work function, which was fair enough, and I agreed to meet him and his “Libertarian” mates at a Kingston restaurant so we could have a nice civilised debate.

    When I arrived at the restaurant I sat next to Godfrey and I was introduced to 4 of his cobbers who were surrounding me. I was to learn that 11 out of the 12 people at the feed were economists, and of course all strong “Libertarians.” I also found out most of them worked for the Australian Treasury or the Dep’t of Finance and as such obviously had the ear of our simpleminded, self-centred, scumbag politicians.

   The most obvious question I asked myself was, “If these people are so in love with the market and the capitalist system why have they chosen to work in secure public service jobs?”

   I was familiar with Libertarianism and was aware that its ranks are divided in many ways, although a particular form of American Libertarianism has become far more popular than others and remains that way. 

   I often receive visits from the late Russ Hinze, shown above. Russ became a born again socialist/isolationist/environmentalist just before he died, which is why he was made an angel. He told me that if Australians do not elect a government which is socialist/isolationist and takes real steps to look after our environment, which also means reducing our population, we will all be in Shit Street.

  That most popular form is very right wing as far as its economic policies are concerned in that it wants an unfettered market with minimal taxation and with taxation being used mainly for what is needed for defence. They also believe in the right to bear arms, which could also be considered a very right wing belief. 

    It is however, in another respect considered left wing in that it wants maximum freedom for the individual as long as the individual does not do things that impinge on the wellbeing of others. For example, it believes that the government should stay out of people’s bedrooms, and if people wish to be homosexual, polygamous, etc, that is their right. They also believe adults should be free to use drugs of any sort if they wish, and they are pro voluntary euthanasia. 

   I agree with them in regard to the freedoms mentioned in the last paragraph but I do not agree with them in regard to how they also want to give people the freedom to exploit workers and they want to deprive workers the freedom to withdraw their labour collectively.

    There is a less popular form of Libertarianism which has a supposedly left wing economic agenda to the extent that it is more egalitarian in that it believes that natural resources should belong to everyone and that those who claim rights over them should pay everyone for the value of them, which is something Gina Rinehart would strongly object to. A mate of mine told me he would like to see Gina Rinehart fall out of an aeroplane without a parachute and explode as she landed on cement.
   I do not believe in equal pay for unequal work and for that reason I see nothing wrong with a brain surgeon earning four times a labourer’s wage, as the former has invested a lot of time in study and he, unlike those who inherit wealth or acquire it by exploiting others, works for a living. Gina Rinehart inherited her initial wealth and has become obscenely wealthier out of the sweat of others who have mined for her minerals that should have belonged to all Australians.
   It would seem Libertarians of all persuasions have the firm belief that we are autonomous beings, which is ridiculous considering we are powerless to do anything to prevent the forces of the universe acting upon the atoms within our bodies. Said another way, what happens is a result of what has previously occurred irrespective of whether or not matter at a subatomic level is determinable or indeterminable. Looked at yet another way, we can only be products of our genetics and environment of which we have no say. For a famous essay on the subject of free will I suggest the reader read “Free Will Skepticsm, Where are the Skeptics?” by Tom Clark. http://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/free-will/free-will-skepticism The essay says nothing new but it is a beautifully written and very hard-hitting.
   Some “Libertarians” pick and choose in regard to “liberty.” For example, many members of the American “Tea Party” call themselves Libertarians but would not tolerate communists or atheists expressing their points of view and would resist the right of unionists as individuals to choose to unite with other unionists and withdraw their labour in order to get better pay and conditions.
   Some Libertarians claim to be anarchists, but they really stretch the definition of the word and are in the minority.

    My guess at the time was that the Libertarians I was feeding with were of the anti-socialist economic right and generally pro American culture and politics, but all for sexual freedom, voluntary euthanasia, the right of people to use any drug, etc. I am getting back to the most popular form of Libertarianism.

   It did not take me long to have my suspicions confirmed when I heard a couple of them talking about 11/9, (or 9/11 as the Yanks call it because of their dating system being the reverse to ours). One of them said that the reason Bin Laden and his mob flattened the twin towers and hate America was because of “jealousy.” Although I am no fan of Bin Laden or any other religious fanatic I said to them, “Why would a multi-millionaire be jealous of Americans?” I received no answer. 

   I also told them that many American adults are paid a pitifully small minimum wage (It is currently as low as $7.25 per hour in some USA states compared to our minimum adult wage of $18.70). I told them I could not see how anyone could be jealous of a country that shat on its poor. Again I had no response.
    I asked a few of the economists if they had studied the works of the green economist Ernst Schumacher. One had heard of him and had a very basic understanding of his philosophy but two of them had never heard of him let alone studied him. And these people were “qualified” economists! 

   

   When we discussed Marx I was amazed at how little they understood of his writings and how none of them knew what real communism is. It is a very sad reflection on the quality of our universities. It is one thing having a certain point-of-view but another being entirely ignorant of what the alternative points-of-view are.

  I told them that when Whitlam took the first step to the economic right and reduced our tariffs by 25% our quality of life began declining, as it inevitably meant we would begin competing with Third World exploited labour and that it would lead us to digging up and growing stuff and sending it overseas unprocessed, which is okay for a minority of Australians but not in the interest of the great majority of us, particularly in periods where there is a decline in exports.  

  Whitlam referred to himself as an “economic rationalist” yet the herd got sucked into believing he was pro-worker. He also had blind faith in the market and he thought that by reducing tariffs industry would remain here and become more efficient. This did not occur as it could not hope to compete with Third World labour and as a result our manufacturing industry has virtually folded. Imagine what would happen in a real depression when our minerals were no longer needed. We have lost our ability to be self-sufficient.
   The market has been so worshipped it has crept into government departmental policy and language, with government employees being told to refer to the members of the public they deal with as “clients” even though they purchase nothing. Instead of the schools having subject masters they are referred to as “executive officers.” It’s quite sickening.
   Because we no longer have a large manufacturing base the union movement has been emasculated to an enormous degree and workers can no longer call strikes without notice, nor can they have secondary boycotts. This has allowed far more casualised work and an erosion of conditions. The Labor party once it gained office kept many of the anti-worker nasties that were introduced by Howard. What a bunch of right wing arses!

   “How many colour TV’s did you own before Whitlam?” one of the younger lads asked me. I told him that other than the fact they were not available in Australia at the time, in order to measure one's standard of living one had to do far more than measure the affordability of electronic gadgetry.

   Although I did not have the official facts before me at the time I was debating these people, I can now look back at the question,“Were most Australians starting out in life better off during the fifties and sixties than they are today?” and the answer is a definite yes.

    Rather than lay them out before the reader now, I will say to the reader that the facts can be easily accessed through the net by looking up the CPI index, wage rates at the time, employment figures, housing affordability, etc. It will take little effort to check these facts.

   Although I am not retracting my statement regarding most Australians being better off in the fifties and sixties, I acknowledge that women were not given equal pay for equal work until around 1966 for most jobs, and not until after 1969 for virtually all jobs, although far fewer women participated in the workforce at the time. Sometimes this was through choice and obviously sometimes it was not. However, when equal pay for equal work was achieved during the sixties the figures will tell you that most women were better off then than they are today.

    Obviously gadgetry is far cheaper today, as are virtually all manufactured items, because they are manufactured overseas, usually under appalling conditions. Today it is very difficult to purchase manufactured items and clothes that have not been made in Third World sweatshops. Even the iconic navy blue Jackie Howe worker's singlet is now made in the Third World. 

   Many people, including me, believe that a very low minimum wage, poor working conditions, weak unions, poor social security and a lack of government housing can explain why there is so much more crime and violence in the USA today than there is in Australia. Yet most mainstream politicians would love to see us become just like the USA, the land of the "free."
    I contacted the Institute of Criminology to find out whether crime increased on a per capita basis as tariffs dropped, because I thought that if those persons who are unwilling or unable to gain a skill cannot find work they would be more inclined to get into crime.
   It is such an obvious question we should expect the IOC to be able to answer it instantly, but despite the fact that the woman I dealt with was extremely helpful they had very little information on the subject and I could not get a clear answer. I don’t know if this is a result of incompetence or deliberate government intervention as a result of it being an uncomfortable fact they wish to keep suppressed. There have however, been several academic papers which the authors maintain prove conclusively that there is a definite link between unemployment and a rise in crime, which one would expect. And we know that between the end of WW2 and 1970 any unskilled person who wanted a permanent full time job could get one, and those jobs included rec leave, sick pay, penalties, etc.
   In regard to comparing the buying power of our wages over time we find that for political reasons the Reserve Bank is not allowed to include house prices or mortgage repayments when calculating the CPI, which renders it of little value. See the Reserve Bank inflation calculator http://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/index.jsp

   Godfrey had brought me to their gathering to either convert me or to use me as a verbal punching bag, as he would probably have hoped I would have been verbally attacked by his Libertarian mates and put in my place. I instead went on the attack, and with little resistance. Again, I emphasise I am not boasting, because it is very easy to get the better of simpleminded ideologues who have blind faith in a failed ideology based on false premises.

    Anyway, I tired of what was going on and instead focussed on enjoying my tucker, which was quite good. I then excused myself from the gathering, and as I was departing unasked for thoughts came to me and activated a more primitive part of my brain. Before I gained control I muttered to myself something like, "Hitler gassed the wrong people," and I envisaged the Libertarians being herded into an oven. 

    Yet although we have limited control of our thoughts we can usually control our actions and I would not wish mass murder of any group of people. I would prefer to have the Libertarians humanely treated after they had been sterilised and imprisoned on a working farm. 
   Why I have this attitude towards the Libertarians is because I consider them a grossly immoral group of people. To explain, we can agree to disagree with others and keep a friendship with them as long as one considers the person one disagrees with is a moral person, or as long as the disagreement has nothing to do with morality.
     For example, people who are on the board of a charity which has the objective of raising money for the homeless may have vastly different ideas on how to raise the money, but they all have a common objective, which is the welfare of the homeless. This means that because of their shared morality they can remain the best of friends after they have had a heated argument regarding how they should raise the money.
    In regard to my relationship with the Libertarians however, we did not have a shared objective. It was not a case of both sides wanting to raise the wellbeing of all Australians and disagreeing on how we should go about it. The Libertarians I ate with, being economists, were fully aware of the misery that many Australians would suffer if we did away with regulated wages, social security, government housing, etc. But they thought they themselves would be better off under such a system and they simply did not care about those who would suffer as a result. 
    They were also aware of the fact that workers in the Third World suffer gross exploitation, which we would not contribute to if we did not buy their products. And we did not buy their products when we had protectionism and were able to produce most of what we needed. Again, they simply did not care about the welfare of these workers. 
  
   We could debate whether or not buying Third World products in Australia today is an immoral act given that in regard to many goods we have no choice; but when it comes to the act of voting-in an Australian government which actively encourages buying products from the Third World we are getting involved in Third World politics. We are getting involved in their politics to the extent we are assisting the exploiters exploit the exploited, and I cannot see such an act as anything but grossly immoral. 
   Some however, such as the Australian Greens who are not as extreme as the Libertarians and the Coalition and Labor parties, tell us we should only buy products from the Third World when we know the workers are not exploited. The problem however, is that it is impossible for us to police what is going on in another country. It cannot even be done in Australia! The Australian government has not even been able to ensure that live cattle are treated and killed humanely when sent overseas, despite its best efforts.
   The only way we can be sure that workers in foreign countries are not exploited, (and kids are not used in the manufacturing process) is for Australia to not buy their products.
   Manufacturing our goods here also decreases the emission of greenhouse gasses as the products travel shorter distances and our legislation ensures that environmental standards are met during the manufacturing process.
   Buying Third World products when the buyer knows they may have been made by kids could be considered as immoral as buying kiddie porn, to the extent that making little kids work like slaves would probably be just as damaging to them as exploiting them sexually for financial reasons. And if people did not buy kiddie porn or goods that are manufactured by kids the exploitation would not occur.
   So here I was, walking away from the restaurant and another unasked for thought came to me. I found I was saying to myself, "I've been talking to human garbage and I never want to talk to those people again." 
   In order to come to the latter conclusion I had become momentarily lost in my thoughts, which is not a good thing if one tries to not make a habit of being lost in one's thoughts. I say this because life is more pleasurable and less painful if one is able to accept, and whenever possible, savour one's here and now. Yet nobody can stop unasked for thought entirely; all we can do when we become conscious of the fact that we have lost ourselves in thought is to not feed such thought with deliberately created conscious thought, and attempt to return to accepting and if possible savouring our here and now.
    So what can we do about the Libertarians given that much of their dogma has spread like a cancer in varying degrees of strength amongst most mainstream political parties, and given that we do not have the advertising capital to enable us to convince the herd that they are being shat on and that they should vote in a government which truly has their best interests at heart?
    Assassinating extremists like Tony Abbot may make some of us feel better, but I would not recommend it, as it would be counterproductive. It would make him a martyr and his fascist party would simply grow another head. I would not recommend trying to change the system by way of any form of violence. 
   As I have already indicated, other than it being impossible, I would not consider being a part of a movement which removed a government by ways other than the ballot box. The counterargument to my pro-democracy stance is that if China did not have a totalitarian system it would not have had a one child per family policy, and had it not had a one child per family policy there would have been chaos, as it would have been forced to expand its territory, which may have affected us.
   If I were a Chinese citizen in the mid 1940's I could see why it would have been worth fighting for a totalitarian socialist government, but we have not yet reached the stage where overpopulation makes democracy worth discarding, as totalitarian regimes are generally miserable to live under. There is no way I could have a blog like this under a totalitarian regime. The system lets me get away with writing what I write because my audience is tiny in relative terms and as such no threat to the affluent effluent.
   Having said what I have said, although totalitarianism has shown itself to be a failure, democracy in Australia is currently on trial. It is on trial because unless Australians wake up and prevent us continuing on our current course, particularly in regard to increasing our population to satisfy big business, we will be suddenly brought down to a level where life will be hell for a large proportion of the population. Reversing overpopulation would be far more difficult than getting rid of the Howard government after it introduced Workchoices.

    We can also engage in political raves like this one, as it can pass the time and can be good fun, even if the amount of people it influences is tiny. It also exercises the brain and for older people like me it may even assist in staving off dementia. 

    We can also choose to not vote for any of the mainstream political parties until they stop wanting to increase our population and begin returning to protectionism. Our not voting for them may make no difference to the outcome, but the alternative is voting for the lesser of the evils, which lowers one's self-esteem and as such lowers one's quality of life. 
 Australia could double its refugee intake, continue to allow overseas spousal marriages and adoptions and still have no net increase in our population. All we would have to do is cease bringing in the thousands of migrants who settle here for financial reasons.
   Corporations accuse people like me who do not wish our population to grow of having racist attitudes. They do this because they are desperate to come up with strong arguments for why we should not stabilise our population. Using the racist card is the best they can come up with.
   Although I am no fan of our species, I have yet to be convinced that one race is genetically superior to others, although one could take the subjective stance that one culture is inferior or superior to another.
   As far as I'm concerned, although bringing as many people as we have into a dry and largely uninhabitable country was insane, now that they are here they have the same right to be here as any 6th generation Anglo Celtic Australian. Many Anglo Celtic Australians however, don't see it that way and believe that it is their right to have an exclusive Anglo Celtic country. It is a ridiculous argument, because it would only be relevant if they were descended from the first people to inhabit the place, which they obviously are not. They refuse to acknowledge the fact that all non-Aboriginal Australians are living on stolen land.
    Other than that, there's not much else we can do, and if we are powerless to change things we should be conscious that our objective in life should be to maximise pleasure and minimise pain in a way that genuinely fulfils that objective, and as such, is not self-destructive. 
   This is easy to do if we treat life as one big joke whenever possible and accept and savour our here and now.  

   

   The above photos of child workers in 19'th century industrial Britain demonstrates what happens with unbridled greed. If it were not for the democratic process and unions we would rapidly have a return to child exploitation in Australia.
   Unfortunately the "Libertarians" and many within the previously mentioned Australian political parties, would love to see an unregulated economy and the full emasculation of unions, which would lead to the sort of exploitation shown in the above photos and drawing.
   Although we do not have legal child labour in Australia, the poor quality human beings within the Coalition, Labor, the Australian Greens and the Palmer United parties, are all for keeping our tariffs low, floating the dollar and importing manufactured items from the Third World. In so doing they cannot guarantee that children are not used as cheap labour, as shown above, which to me is totally immoral.
   They are also very happy for us to poach highly qualified Third World labour, including medical doctors who should be saving lives in their countries of origin where their governments have struggled to have them educated and trained.
   Again, if you think of the lives that are lost whenever we poach a medical practitioner from a Third World country, such an act could be seen as more immoral than committing an act of paedophilia. It would be nice if our politicians at least acknowledged that so they could be seen by the populous as being the lowlife they are.
   The poem below was written by Henry Lawson after the 1891 shearer's strike. After it was read out in the QLD Legislative Assembly they wanted him arrested for sedition. It should be compulsory reading for all kids as we are turning into a nation of gutless scabs. Below that it is put to music by Raymond Crooke and PM Adamson.

"FREEDOM ON THE WALLABY"
 by Henry Lawson.

"Australia's a big country

An' Freedom's humping bluey,

An' Freedom's on the wallaby

Oh! don't you hear 'er cooey?

She's just begun to boomerang,

She'll knock the tyrants silly,

She's goin' to light another fire

And boil another billy.

"Our fathers toiled for bitter bread

While loafers thrived beside 'em,

But food to eat and clothes to wear,

Their native land denied 'em.

An' so they left their native land

In spite of their devotion,

An' so they came, or if they stole,

Were sent across the ocean.

"Then Freedom couldn't stand the glare

O' Royalty's regalia,

She left the loafers where they were,

An' came out to Australia.

But now across the mighty main

The chains have come ter bind her –

She little thought to see again

The wrongs she left behind her.

"Our parents toil'd to make a home

Hard grubbin 'twas an' clearin'

They wasn't crowded much with lords

When they was pioneering.

But now that we have made the land

A garden full of promise,

Old Greed must crook 'is dirty hand

And come ter take it from us.

So we must fly a rebel flag,

As others did before us,

And we must sing a rebel song

And join in rebel chorus.

We'll make the tyrants feel the sting

O' those that they would throttle;

They needn't say the fault is ours

If blood should stain the wattle!"

The following youtube clip depicts the sort of society we would have if the Libertarians and other neo-liberals had their way.

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