THE LAP OF LUXURY
To feel unwelcome in this world: this is the lot of the homeless, the asylum seeker, the refugee. The poor, the underclass, would be superfluous – but for the fact that it is they who must absorb the costs, shoulder the intolerable burden imposed by the propertied class. The state has no need of the poor, other than as fodder for that infernal economic machinery which all but guarantees the free flow of profits to the wealthy.
In all sham-democratic states, including the “Commonwealth” of Australia, welfare is tokenistic in the extreme, or else non-existent. An increasing proportion of welfare payments (should you be so lucky; I am not) is channeled directly to landlords, their agents and their bankers. The rest goes toward consumption of goods and services – returning a profit to private corporations – or is repaid to the government in taxation that is redistributed, once again, in favour of the interests of the wealthy and powerful. Increasingly, the underclass lacks the wherewithal to make daily ends meet; their punishment – not for indolence, for that is the prerogative of landlords and their ilk – is to be denied the pleasure of relaxation: from an increasingly mean and petty struggle for existence.
Whether you are a new arrival in Australia, or – like me – your ancestors helped pioneer this continent (alas, for better or worse), all are in the same boat, Poverty; or else are safely ashore, ensconced within private mansions on dry land. Then of course, there are the dispossessed, original custodians of this land. Who could envy their lot in life? Australia is one of the most unjust nations on Earth. It is a nation founded on a lie – egalitarianism, the luck country, land of the “fair go” – which we must vomit from our collective mouths, into the very lap of luxury.
In all sham-democratic states, including the “Commonwealth” of Australia, welfare is tokenistic in the extreme, or else non-existent. An increasing proportion of welfare payments (should you be so lucky; I am not) is channeled directly to landlords, their agents and their bankers. The rest goes toward consumption of goods and services – returning a profit to private corporations – or is repaid to the government in taxation that is redistributed, once again, in favour of the interests of the wealthy and powerful. Increasingly, the underclass lacks the wherewithal to make daily ends meet; their punishment – not for indolence, for that is the prerogative of landlords and their ilk – is to be denied the pleasure of relaxation: from an increasingly mean and petty struggle for existence.
Whether you are a new arrival in Australia, or – like me – your ancestors helped pioneer this continent (alas, for better or worse), all are in the same boat, Poverty; or else are safely ashore, ensconced within private mansions on dry land. Then of course, there are the dispossessed, original custodians of this land. Who could envy their lot in life? Australia is one of the most unjust nations on Earth. It is a nation founded on a lie – egalitarianism, the luck country, land of the “fair go” – which we must vomit from our collective mouths, into the very lap of luxury.