PM looks at US-style wage system

John Howard PM looks at US-style wage system and says:

..."There are various options about how it might be determined and we are looking at those, but the point is that we will keep a minimum wage - but it has to be a minimum, in my view, that takes account of the employment opportunities that are available and we must never have a minimum wage that prices people out of work.

"And sometimes, in some situations, that does occur."

Herein we have the conflict between the Capitalist's need to make a profit and the worker's need to survive. And, of course, the government is looking after the Capitalist - the workers should work themselves to death and die quietly, knowing that the economy is safe.

FUCK THE ECONOMY! HUMANS MATTER MORE THAN PROFIT!

The minimum wage in the minimum needed to support a family not what the Capitalists can get away with!

If John Winston Howard admires the USA so much, he should renounce his Australian citizenship and move to the USA like Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation.

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Master Narratives

Bob Somerby discusses WHY LIBERALS LOSE! We said that liberals need Master Narratives. Last night, two pundits showed why:. HE complains that the Liberals are sticking to a master narrative of sorts. He says

It’s great to have a few Master Narratives, and the Pseudo-Conservative Outrage Machine has spent four decades creating them. The press corps is driven by liberal bias! And: Liberal elites hate your red-state values! And: For liberals, it’s all about political correctness! These simple messages provide key frameworks for pseudo-conservative complaints of all kinds. They place trivial gripes in a large, crucial context. For that reason, you hear them recited all the time.

I disagree. There are several master narratives on the left, among many,

• The Communist Manifesto
• Anarchism
• ParEcon

What these master narratives have in common is that ordinary people run their own lives in cooperation with their fellows.

What muddies the picture is the other liberals who want Capitalism with a nicer face (for them, of course). It is these people who are the tecnicians of empire (the Little Eichmanns). These perpetual compromisors are really supporting Capitalism.

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Leo Tolstoy and George W Bush

In the first epilogue of War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy wrote

Chance, millions of chances, give him power, and all men, as if by agreement, cooperate to confirm that power. ...

Book Title: War and Peace. Contributors: Henry Gifford - editor, Aylmer Maude - transltr, Louise Maude - transltr, Leo Tolstoy - author. Publisher: Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: Oxford. Publication Year: 1998. Page Number: 1215.

I think that we on the Left have succumbed to the Great Man in History theory by not considering on the forces that lie behind George W Bush (and John W Howard). There is a significant number of people who have projected onto these leaders their own ideas. This mass movement came into being independent of GWB and JWH. These leaders are pandering to this mass movement of malcontents and hot-heads.

The quote from Tolstoy refers to the innumerable chances that got Napoleon to where achieved supreme power in France. He took many risks and these paid off against the odds. Even his failure (loss of an entire army and fleet in Egypt) did not stop his rise to power. Monumental incompetence was just a stepping stone to success.

There was a mass movement in France who wanted Napoleon as their leader to do their bidding.

... The strength of the justification of the man who stands at the head of the movement grows with the increased size of the group. During the ten-year preparatory period this man had formed relations with all the crowned heads of Europe. The discredited rulers of the world can oppose no reasonable ideal to the insensate Napoleonic ideal of glory and grandeur. One after another they hasten to display their insignificance before him. ... the Pope ... utilizes religion for the aggrandizement of the great man. It is not Napoleon who prepares himself for the accomplishment of his role, so much as all those round him who prepare him to take on himself the whole responsibility for what is happening and has to happen. There is no step, no crime or petty fraud he commits, which in the mouths of those around him is not at once represented as a great deed. ...

p. 1215, ibid. Emphasis Mine

This quote points out what is happening now especially with all the scandals that are surrounding GWB. The present pope has not followed his predecessor but there are other religious leaders who are prepared to do this promotion of GWB as a great leader. In promoting and glorifying GWB, they are promoting and glorifying themselves.

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Religion and Democracy

In the Summer 2004/2005 edition of Dissent Magazine, Dr Denis Kenny wrote "Religion and Democracy". An online version of this article is at Margo Kingston's Webdiary.

Dr Kenny'e thesis is that the reduction in participation in civil society is accompanied by an increase in religious activity as compensation. In other words, the more people lose control over their materials lives, the more they seek compensation through their spiritual lives. He refers to Marx's comment that religion is ...the sigh of the oppressed. Religion is not the cause but a symptom of the current political malaise.

In my own experience of street campaigning, I have come across Christians who believe that:

• Jesus is coming soon to set all things right so there is nothing to do;
• If all people in power became true Christians, then everything would be better;
• Capitalism is good but Communism/Socialism/Anarchism is very, very bad.

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Personal Weblogs

Robert Heinlein once wrote something like "there are two types of people: aristocrats and democrats. Aristocrats believed that only the best should be able to say what is on their mind. Democrats believe that anyone should be able to do." (Forgive my poor memory but I cannot locate the book in which this was written. I remember it was the story of Lazarus Long and this bowlderised quote is from when the breeding twins were setting up a restaurant.)

This quote seems to exemplifies what is argued in the article referred to in Statement of Audience.

Blogs allow ordinary people to be heard. Their writings reflect their concerns, views, prejudices, hopes, and beliefs. This is a fascinating time in history to be alive. Millions of people all around the world are involved in this activity. No longer we are the passive recipients of information and opinion. We are groping to express what inside of us. This is truly a democratic revolution. What we say matters.

The aristocrats may point out that what we write is banal, trivial, inarticulate, inchoate, or just plain stupid. That may be true, but it is our writing, our thoughts, our opinions. These things may be derived, way off the planet, not properly thought out, but these things are, at least, honest.

A well-educated knave can write a well thought out thesis that moves the human spirit for a price. Witness the knaves who built up the fake war over Iraq. We can only write the simple honest things that we beleive. We know we will be laughed at, scoffed, ignored. This has been our lot throughout history (so far!). We are the surprises that historians puzzle over.

I go with the democrats in all our rude and uncouth ways and manners, not with the aristocrats and their refinements.

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