(Right Click here to download Audio - MP3)
Do you like playing pretend? I do.
Let’s pretend that since the Second World War the capitalist enterprise has been accelerating as various governments, of all shades, work to provide the social and legal conditions to allow the growth of personal wealth and attempt to mitigate the most egregious effects of the capitalist system. Let’s pretend that both the conservative and the liberal sides of politics understand the advantages of economic ‘growth’ both to the overall ‘common wealth’ and to the contentment of the populace. After all a contented and sated people are less likely to revolt and demand radical change are they?
Let’s pretend that as the capitalists look around they gradually find that due to their takeovers and mergers all they really have achieved is to create oligopolies that control certain production, distribution and profit streams. In short, they find they have run out of profit making potential. Let’s pretend that by the mid 1980s the capitalists realise that there are only so many cars that a family can afford to own and only so many take away meals they can afford to eat.
Let’s pretend that by the mid 1990s the union movement has been decimated, the ‘economy’ is looking a little worse for wear and the promises of Labor governments in the past decade or so have failed to actually improve the living standards of the community. Let’s pretend that by this time our commonwealth bank has been sold to private profiteers, that our national airline is flogged to overseas speculators, that roads and electricity suppliers are now owned by the private sector and the costs of travel, banking, accessing water, electricity and going to see Aunty Betty have all risen by several orders of magnitude.
Let’s pretend that the real power brokers of the major political parties realise that if they want to win power and thus provide their private business sponsors with the conditions necessary to allow them to increase their profits to obscene figures, they must get the ruling party to enact laws that prevent workers from accessing their right to strike and laws that shift the welfare burden from the high and middle wage and salary earners to the low and no income earners.
Let’s pretend that by the end of the 1990s, middle Australia is firmly attached to the teat of mother welfare. Let’s pretend that the international economy is being supported by huge transfers of tax payer’s money onto the speculative markets though the introduction of compulsory superannuation. Let’s pretend that the once ‘mutual’ insurance companies that traditionally, at the least, protected the money you paid in, were ‘demutuallised’ and the funds they had accumulated, our funds, were released to the speculators to be tossed around the international stock markets like so much confetti at a wedding. Let’s pretend that the effects of all this cash, our cash by the way, inflated – artificially – the ‘wealth’ attributed to the nation and therefore allowed the politicians to point to how ‘robust’, ‘strong’ or ‘resilient’ the economy was.
Let’s pretend that over the last 20 years the corporate media was happy to play along with this fantasy-land scenario and hand in hand with the companies and governments, provided only positive coverage dressed up as ‘news’. Let’s pretend that the governments deregulate the media so that, basically, anything can be said, written and broadcast, no matter how distorted or fanciful it is. Let’s pretend that the corporate media works hand in glove to hide the reality that the vast majority on this sorry planet live each day. Let’s pretend the corporate media ignores the voices of those who sound the warning bells.
Let’s pretend that by the middle of the first decade of the 21st century the vast majority of middle class voters are so comfortable and relaxed that they don’t want to change the situation that seemingly offers them so much. Let’s pretend that the companies, the political directors and the media are convinced that the only way to go is to continue to sell off the utilities we rely on, to continue to legislate against workers rights, the disabled, the substance dependent, the public school system, hospitals and our medical infrastructure, that they work together to convince us we don’t need change.
Let’s pretend that there is still some way to go in achieving these ends and that, with promises of more wealth, security and happiness, they already know what the real outcomes will be - higher unemployment, a drop in health and education standards, higher charges, an accelerating rise in poverty and distress along with the steady but unrelenting flow of wealth upwards.
Let’s pretend that the situation in communities like Wadeye is really nothing more than a bunch of errant youth determined to rage and pillage and victimise those less sturdy than themselves. Let’s pretend that the government really means it this time when their spokespeople say they want to “fix” it. Let’s pretend that that community is not suffering from the outcomes of colonialism and the imposition of white fella ways. Let’s pretend that the Age’s Lindsay Murdoch was joking when he wrote that it is somehow abhorrent that indigenous youth speak only in their own language. Let’s pretend that all I’ve written is pretend.
I’d like to hope that it is all pretend and nothing more but I don’t think so. It is the reality we live in. It is the reality we have created around us. The social and economic outcomes of the past two decades means least to those who lives remain unchanged at best or will be plunged into further despair at worst. All our politicians seem capable of is demonstrating how greedy and self centred the main political parties are and how gullible the electorate really is.
What is not pretend is that I maintain my faith in the basic goodness of people. My hope is that the folly of the past four decades and more can be ameliorated by the insistence of the electorate to hold our politicians accountable. The future is not theirs but ours. The future is not even really ours but our children’s and grandchildren’s. The question for us today is, “what are we going to do make sure the future is one we want them to enter?”