Boom Town Rocks: multinationals

Showing posts with label multinationals. Show all posts

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Kodos '08: Democratic Self-Flagellation and the Strange Mentality of Conscientious Abstention

Three times in the last couple o' days I have read people say "this is why I don't vote" in reference to some douchebag or other who is running for political office.

They're all players in some grand, supernatural Jewish conspiracy anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I understand where peeps are coming from with this, and - unlike the Australian Electoral Commission - I am actually cool with people not voting if they don't want to. Whatever you wanna do, man. I do hear ya: the lesser of two evils is still evil... that is true.

Given the choice though - and you are actually given a choice - what are you gonna do?

Option 1: Evil. The massive right-wing bigot with an irrepressible lust for power, no scruples and access to incomprehensibly large political coffers, unlimited PR and ubiquitous support from influential media barons, old money, royalty, clergymen, finance industry sociopaths and almost every trusted corporate brand known to mankind since Keating first floated the dollar.

Option 2: Lesser Evil. Back when they were young and idealistic, the former student unionist joined a party that used to be left-wing. They now keep their ideals a closely-guarded secret, publicly hovering somewhere around the middle of the political spectrum, at least when the press is looking. They are under the advice and very-watchful eyes of hack staffers who are always on the phone to the Gallop Poll crew, endlessly trying to suss out which particular bigoted contradiction the public expects them to uphold in any given week.

Option 3: Third Party. Choose between paranoid lunatics, religious zealots, and activists whose records you used to buy in the 80s but you're not so sure about them anymore because Option 1 and Option 2 have told you they're bad for the economy so many times that you're starting to actually believe it - but it's not like anybody votes for them anyway. Besides, the notion that politicians might stand on principle seems utterly preposterous. They are definitely either lying to you or to themselves, and sharing their blog posts on social media will result in your immediate ostracism from your work colleagues, brother-in-law, your former school chums and anybody else who still watches A Current Affair.

Option 4: Do Nothing. Sleep in on election day, have a really long shower, fire up the Xbox and make nachos. Drink heaps of liquor. Adopt a sense of smug superiority. If anyone brings up the vote count throughout the remainder of the election period, or if they mention the result in any way, make them feel as uncomfortable and self-conscious about the whole thing as you possibly can. When Option 1 gets voted in and outlaws the consumption of nachos and enforces mandatory church attendance on both days of every weekend - under penalty of corporeal punishment - remind everyone that you didn't vote anyway and that the situation is therefore not your fault.

To my mind, Option 4 is the shittest option, and if you read on now I'll tell ya why.

...and here's why I can't go for that.

Surely it's better to prevent the Biggest Jerk from having their Finger On The Button, even if it means voting for a career politician who in your opinion is not one hundred percent perfect.

In other words, surely you'd want to go for Options 2 or 3 as they are the most likely to keep Option 1 the fuck out of power - thereby increasing your chances of not being arrested for pursuing Option 4.

In the long run, this is very fucking important. When someone is allowed to take office, society allows them access to fucking guns, and funds, and manpower - entire armies of soldiers and cops - all out to prove themselves, all contractually obliged to follow the orders of politicians. Think about that. It's terrifying.

As a white male member of the pacified majority, it might be technically possible to drop out of the whole pantomime at the moment... but how often do you wake up one morning to find that yet another fucking thing that you used to be able to do is now illegal? In Australia it happens all the time.

Think about what you're tacitly endorsing here.

Ten or twenty or a hundred or four hundred or fifteen thousand good people who are just over it abstaining from voting cause they're all crooks m8 - or because the Lesser of Two Evils doesn't offer an absolutely flawless solution, or whatever - could easily be the difference between...

Damn straight! Al Gore vs. George W. Bush

Sure, one of those guys was an arsehat politician with very questionable family members who were the active enemy of free speech and artistic expression throughout most of the 1980s. He was a journalist - they can't be trusted - and he once scored a scholarship from the Rockerfellers. I'm referring of course to Al Gore. Sound the alarm.

He seems nice enough but frankly I don't know enough about Gore to call whether he would have been a very good president or not. And, especially given Tipper's record, he could have been a jerk even despite his apparent best intentions re: global warming and social justice and the fact that he, unlike his opponent, actually rocked up to work during the whole Vietnam thing.

Still, I doubt he would have made his way into the All-Time Top Ten Presidents list. It is possible to argue that he would not have been perfect...

"...and those who harbor them."

But the other guy? You have got to be fucking kidding!

George W. Bush was the most dangerously apathetic, incompetent boob in the 223 year history of the US executive office. He was a third generation drunken jerk - the Idiot Son of an Arsehole Son of a Nazi Sympathiser - a foolish elitist, a one-time deserter, a warmonger, suddenly in control of the most powerful empire the world has ever known.

Gore, for all I know, might also have been vulnerable to top level corruption. I don't know. Everyone has their price and he was, after all, a politician. However, Bush actively facilitated what happened next. His election by such a preposterous minority was one of the worst things that has ever happened.

America's going to be suffering the consequences of Not Voting For Al Gore for decades to come.

Bush did irreparable damage to East/West relations.

Worldwide we've all had our freedoms curtailed by simpering Allied governments.

It was the corporatocracy's finest hour.

Now, this analogy may not be watertight. I don't know whether Gore would have gone the same way in the aftermath of That Event (You Know The One)... but I doubt it - not the same as Bush did. The Powers That Be went to considerable effort to rig that 2000 election and it worked out very well indeed for them.

But I'm pretty confident that if every disillusioned left-leaning liberal who said fuck it, I'm not voting for either goon had actually turned out instead and voted for the Lesser Dickhead, then the Republicans simply wouldn't have had the numbers to pull off their swindle.

(Unless said liberals accidentally voted for Ralph Nader, but that's a whole other thing.)

So there you go!

Have a think about that whole thing, I guess.

You don't have to vote, but if you're saying this is why I don't vote because of douchebags playing the same old power games, well that's understandable - but be aware that sometimes democracy is simply about kicking the biggest jerk out on their hole before they get a chance to ruin things for everybody.

So, I suppose I am more NOFX than Propagandhi on this one... and that's the reason why I'll grit my teeth and go with Option 2 if there's no suitable Option 3, every time.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Descending into a dark, dank, dystopian Wind In The Willows?

NB: For the first time ever, you can read along while streaming me ranting this shit, to a bloody good soundtrack. Production's a bit rough but it's early days folks, and this shit is free. Enjoy!!

I wouldn't be the first person to notice a distinct similarity between the physical appearance of our state premier and that of the one high-grade Colombian export that has managed to make it as far as Western Australia in recent years.

Jury is out as to which one is doing more environmental damage.

(sources above)

Ah, yes. Ruddy of cheek - wearing his constant, relentless, flustered expression - Colin Barnett totally looks like A Big Puffed-Up Cane Toad. This is - as I say - a well recognised, gloriously apt similarity.

There have been a number of signs up at the gas hub protests in the Kimberley. I have seen pictures of the signs. One in particular stood out to me: it read STOP THE TOAD and had a giganto pic of the Prem's head. Ribbit.

And then there's this elderly hippy, whom I happened to stumble across just now via Google. This hippy has not only reached the same conclusion as myself and many others re: the Premier's Resemblance, he has used the same two photos that I did above. Wow. Cosmic rays, man, or super-obvious search engine algorithms. I do not know...

But none of this is fucking news. This is a very important blog and I do not wish to waste your time with trivialities. We need to take it to the next level. This analysis really needs to be the kind of thing that you would repeat on the weekend at a party. It needs to be an engaging idea.

And so, here is my thesis. My parable. My parallel, if you will....

Descending into the dark...

(annotated photo of original artwork - credit to come)

WESTERN AUSTRALIA HAS ENTERED A DYSTOPIAN WIND IN THE WILLOWS

As far as I am concerned, Colin has always been Toad of Toad Hall.

It is a natural characterisation even without extrapolation.

If he were working in a warehouse alongside ADHD dreamers of good working class stock, or if he were in the navy, or any other witty macho place of employment where good-natured men cruelly pull the piss out of each other with all the vigour of the disenfranchised, then Toad of Toad Hall is exactly the bollocks nickname that Colin Barnett would cop.

Especially considering that he is a total ponce.

It's also pretty obvious that if he were ever, by some genius trick of the universe, forced to actually have a job, he'd be the guy who talks shit with you over the course of the morning. He would encourage you to tell him bad-arsed stories of skulking off behind the pallets in the back warehouse.

You'd tell him about dragging surreptitiously on high-powered hydroponic jazz cigarettes that rendered you hungry, sleepy and self-conscious by mid-morning; and you'd spill about that one time you were asked to drive the forklift and it was pretty terrifying but you couldn't stop laughing - even though, of course, nothing actually went wrong.

Toad of Toad Hall would giggle along whimsically, but later you would discover that he was in the bosses' offices every lunch time, "networking" with them... and by "networking," I mean, he's relaying to them the very story you just told him!

And he's naming names, for godssake, to the boss who is keen on Jesus. He's doing it terribly, too; without any of the humour, or the irony, or the exaggeration, or any of the good-natured harmlessness of your original light-hearted anecdote.

Suddenly, because of him, you're fucked. That shark!!

It's a tough break, but then you, dear reader, are a Stoat from the Wild Wood, and word on the River is that Stoats from the Wild Wood cannot be trusted.

In fact, you have just demonstrated quite clearly that this is indeed the case. Untrustworthy.

You should be ashamed... and more to the point, you are about to be arrested.

"Sorry about that! LOL"

(image source)

This is not to say that Toad of Toad Hall does not theoretically like you.

Indeed, he would very much enjoy it if you voted him into office again. It's just that... well, being a gentleman with a thirst for luxurious motor transport is very expensive indeed, and being a middle man for miners, property developers and transnational corporate interests is massively, massively profitable.

Everybody has their price. Poop! Poop!

So, once upon a time, if you'll remember with me now, the Rat and the Mole and the Badger helped the Toad to flush the Common Stoats from Toad Hall and sent them back into the Wild Wood.

But now, by forces far beyond his control, the Badger is long discredited. He lives in exile, as do his 'wet,' classically liberal, pipe-smoking argyll-socked gentlemen friends. Rats and Moles though they were, the old River Dwellers proved a total pushover.

With The Stoats in disarray, banished to the Woods, Toad rose like Steven Bradbury to become the Emperor For Hire. He is now a very busy man. He is employed most directly by the Pigs, who moved to the River in the 1980s and slandered and exiled the old River Dwellers - which is to say, the Badger and the Rat and the Mole.

The Pigs moved in from Far Away. They saw the opportunity for unadulterated profit. They saw the opportunity to seize this profit. They built factories along the River - huge gas processing plants, coal mines. They imported impoverished Sheep from broken homes and civil war and squalor Far Away.

They filled the new factories with these Sheep. The Sheep were very happy.

The Pigs then seized and sold all the Stoats' farms to rich people that they knew had been rich for a very long time in other lands Far Away. They planted strange, highly profitable weeds that were no good to eat and filled the soil with poison. They made it so the Stoats could not keep any of the seeds to grow their own fresh food as they had done for generations.

Instead they had to buy poison food from the Pigs. It made them sick. They started spontaneously aborting their own children. It was disgusting. But they could not afford the expensive imported Pig or Sheep or Toad food.

After this, the Pigs had the Toad put all of the things that the River community owned up for sale. The Pigs all bought the things that everybody owned. More Pig friends from Far Away bought in, too, and they wanted healthy returns on their investments - not in four or six years, but quarterly. Immediately.

So Toad sold more and more. The water, the heating, the communications and the transport and even the healing centre and the prison cell - all were purchased by the Pigs, who became very plump in time.

The Stoats soon found that they could not afford to go to the healing centre and were often sick and had to hit up the Sheep for tuppences all the time, and they started smoking namari all the time as well, because it made things easier somehow. (Just to put this in perspective, the Pigs owned all the Far Away namari production factories too.)

Enter Lisa Scaffidi with a bit o' the old Blame The Victim mentality!

(photo source)

Anyway, The Sheep disliked the Stoats always asking them for tuppences and namari, and so the Pigs again spoke to the Toad (who now commanded $25,000 per consultation) and the Toad introduced the Dogs to deal with the disobedient Stoats.

The Toad and the Pigs created an industry they called Law & Order. They made a lot of money out of Law & Order. They fined the Stoats for everything they could, and they used the newly-imported Dogs to round them up. The gaol cell was made into a gigantic gulag. Together they filled the prisons!

And then the Toad had to do the Budget, which he was not very good at, so he sold the prisons to some Pigs from Far Away in order to pay for his lavish lifestyle.

The Pigs and the Sheep were very happy. The Toad was very relieved. The Stoats were very unhappy, and ill, and couldn't afford namari even, but nobody cared what the Stoats thought, because they were just Stoats and the word on the River was that Stoats could not be trusted.

By and by, The Toad rewarded the Pigs handsomely. The Pigs were given free reign to seize the assets of the arrested Stoats: their farms, their businesses, their high-performance sports cars - everything. And the hydrogen cell buses that the Rat and Mole had introduced were written out of history.

And the solar panel rebate established by the Badger was dismantled and discredited and destroyed. And the Pigs sold coal instead and they would throw luncheons for the Toad and they would all throw large wads of cash around Toad Hall in a playful, exuberant manner.

In the 21st Century, the Wild Wood has made way for the Pre-Fabricated Gyprock Abodes, populated almost entirely by the Sheep. The Sheep are happy: they work on the dystopian 21st Century River for a tuppence a day.

They are Sheep, after all, and they are told every single day by the Pigs that Sheep are the best kinds of animals in the world, and they have just enough tuppences to survive, and there is no room for anybody else. If the Sheep find that they do not have enough tuppences to survive, they have found it rewarding to channel their frustration violently.

Not towards themselves, of course. The violence must be directed at the Goats, the scape-Goats who live around and among the Sheep and look a little bit like the Sheep but are not accepted by Sheep and are much less numerous in number.

The Pigs heartily encourage this violence towards the Goats by the Sheep. They will often suggest that the Goats are similar-but-different to the Sheep, and this is the major threat to Sheep Society, and that Sheep should be indignantly aware of their own superiority and the threat to their tuppences that they face every day because of the Goats.

"Bloody poofters!"

(image source)

In 2012, the Toad is secure in his mansion. He doesn't have to do much, other than to ensure that the system described above operates as fluidly as possible. It is not as easy as it sounds.

Occasionally a Sheep will remember the River, from back in the old days of the Badger or the Rat, before they left, and for a time after... before the River boiled with leaking gas and dripped with sump oil, before the water became toxic and inedible Monsanto weeds towered above.

They sometimes remember the way the River used to provide all the animals with food. For free. You could just eat and drink whatever you wanted, when the Sheep first moved away from their broken homes Far Away and into the River and the Wild Wood (back when there was still a Wild Wood.)

These thoughts are frowned upon by the majority of Sheep, who generally feel quite comfortable with their tuppences, and besides, there are rumours that Stoats and Goats are posing an imminent threat to members of the Sheep's immediate families... especially Young Sheep, and especially Old Sheep, and especially Ewes, and especially School-Aged Rams who attend churches.

They must all be kept inside the Pre-Fabricated Gyprock Abodes!

That worry is normally enough to quash the memory of the healthy River and the Wild Wood back when it was a Wood and not a Gated Estate full of Gyprock Abodes.

However, if the unwise Sheep should continue to push the subject, and it begins to threaten the profitability of the legitimate commerce of the Pigs, Toad of Toad Hall has a solution - one he has already used very effectively upon the heathen bodies of the Stoats: the Dogs.

In the 21st Century River & Wild Wood Precinct, the Dogs are the only people allowed to carry guns. They do so for your protection.

They also carry special high-tech devices, sealed about their collars, that will electrocute rogue Sheep, and the Goats, and especially the Stoats. The Dogs very much enjoy electrocuting the Stoats. More so than even the Goats with all their deviances.

Word on the River is that Stoats cannot be trusted, so sometimes the Dogs electrocute the Stoats just for something to do, and to warn them and teach them a lesson for being Stoats. (And also to make the Dogs feel better about themselves.)

It is very risky to be a Stoat. Many have died. Nobody is really sure where the Stoats are supposed to live, but the Pigs won't employ them, so they could not afford a Pre-Fabricated Gyprock Abode on the land where they used to live, where the Wild Wood used to be, even if the Sheep and the Goats would have them there.

In fact, the Stoats are the only people left who can really, clearly remember what the River and the Woods were like prior to the departure of the Badger and the wet liberal gentlemen, those River Dwellers, the Rat and Mole.

Back then the Stoats had hated them so, but they have a bigger problem now - much bigger. And the very strange thing about all of this is that the Toad, when he is running for election, actually refers to himself as a River Dweller. But he has never lived by the River at all.

(They have to describe him as a "big R" River Dweller to differentiate.)

"That's your sex face?!"

(photo source)

But pity not the Toad.

Sure, if in his current position he were accepted as a Pig he would be the lowest-ranked Pig in the sty.

But he is the Toad, and he still has Toad Hall, and he does as he is told, and he ensures the Dogs are primed and the Pigs are fed and that the Sheep are pacified and that all blame for any errors is passed to either the Goats or the Stoats, depending on which excuse sounds more plausible at the time.

And he has maintained Law & Order, and created wealth for the Pigs.

These last two things are the most important two things of all.

THE END

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

We believed the lies of arseholes and now we have blood on our hands and no info?

Oh, here we fucking go.

Look at Old Mate here galloping on about copyright protections and piracy prevention!

Yeah yeah yeah - we've heard it all before.

At least this dickhead isn't parading around talking about paedos this time.
Source: here.

Don't get me wrong - I very much value the entertainment market - but one can tell that this is not what this SOPA bullshit is about, at all, due to the fact that a CEO said he wanted it to happen "in order to provide jobs"

The minute a CEO says it's about jobs, it is almost always in the interests of ordinary people - workers and professionals - to do the exact opposite of what they say.

Employees are totally expendable.

Look at forestry. We were told for years it was about job protection. Eventually the whole thing was mechanised and now they employ like ten people and the community - ecologically, financially, ethically - has lost everything.

The same thing will happen in the resource sector. Just watch.

These corporations know very well that the Internet is a force for change and they'll say anything they can in an attempt to have it regulated Big China styles so they can keep on fucking everybody over in order to increase shareholder value for the next financial quarter.

Just cause this guy is in music doesn't mean the same corp doesn't also own chemical weapons factories - it's all integrated.

If the mainstream music industry is losing money, it is almost certainly due to the fact that mainstream music is totally, and completely, fucking shit.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

"Be excellent to each other": 'Progress' as Actual Progress, rather than just being the word developers use whenever they want to wreck your shit

Progress is only actually progress if the resulting situation is better than the original was.

For example, the Citibank building in Perth is not progress when compared to the vastly superior Moir Chambers that once stood in its place. LOOK AT THAT SHIT. Fuck Citibank.

Citibank:
today your architecture
tomorrow the world

UPDATE: 29 October 2011 - Correction: Citibank actually took over the building after the new one was built. The new building was originally known as the 'New T & G Building.' Irrespective of this, the building is an architectural clusterfuck - an inferior shoebox - and regardless, Citibank can go get fucked for all of the many dubious things that they have done over the years. Both the building and the new owners suck arse.

Similarly, your monocultural pine plantation was a backwards move because the original wilderness was simply better, providing a thriving ecosystem that benefitted not just humanity but also the millions of life forms themselves.

What's that, multinational timber mill guy, you think you're better than them?

Listen, douchebag, your products suck and your mill is manned by robots and computers... so quit trying to manipulate your workers, whom you rip off with your stingy wages, into violently defending your share price.

Fuck your share price. If your company doesn't exist for the public good then it sucks and should be closed down.

The entire share market is based on fiat capital which doesn't really exist. Fiat capital is based on debt, and nothing else.

Therefore not only is it not REAL, the current economic structure is INFERIOR to the gold standard we had before, and was set up only to benefit aristocrats.

The capitalist fiat notion of 'economy' sucks and is not progressive.

It was originally all just based on British aristocrats enclosing The Commons and taking what was everyone's and making it their own.

Classism is pretty much the bullshit that fuels non-progressive politics. It's the aristocrats trying to maintain power. If they can't do it through force they do it through lies, such as organised religion.

What a crock of shit.

Now, before you start, I'm not valorising the working class. They are generally less educated and violent, and easily manipulated, and don't have the start-up capital to affect real change that the versatile middle classes do.

Plus most of them are now the pawns of aristocrats through their mindless brand loyalty; and the inherant anger that has them listening to mean-spirited wankers like Alan Jones and voting for neo-conservative creeps like Tony Abbott.

Fuck all neo-cons. Allowing homos to marry, for example, and other forms of legal social equity are advantageous to society because they spread love, not fear.

No true progress comes from fear.

War sucks for this reason and is just an excuse for non-progressive, non-accountable corporations to increase their share price in an economy that doesn't exist. It's the most transparent thing ever. Fuck you, Dick Cheney.

The government's role should be to keep such corporations (and real estate developers) in line, and also to act as a community chest enabling every citizen of the planet to be fed, clothed, educated, at least have a roof over their head and have access to water and cheap utilities and to be able to go to the hospital when they're sick either for free, or for cheap, or at the very least without upfront payment.

For this reason, paying tax is actually cool so long as the money is going to the correct places and not pumped into bullshit like the police force.

For god's sake, how many more times do we need to see the police used for the sole purpose of protecting the aforementioned Aristocrats of Big Capital before people learn to critically analyse the situation.

The people with the guns are not your friends.

They are trained to hate you, and assume you are a criminal, to further the power of politicians and big business who, let's face it, are in bed together nine times out of ten, trying to make the world more shit--as I asserted above.

To prevent this, and to ensure the aforementioned positive uses of government, we should all be mindful to engage in a popular, pluralist democracy based on education, rationalism, empathy, responsibility and peace.

You are not an individual floating in space alone. Your lifespan is brief but your influence can be significant. Use it wisely. And, for god's sake, don't be some Prince's pawn.

In closing, feel free to disregard the above. If all else fails, have a sick time with cunts. Even if they're aristocrats. Friendship is mutually beneficial and a totally progressive situation.