Now, I’m not saying countries shouldn’t wish to develop their own economies and become better off. I just think we’ve lost sight of all those social aspects of life in the race to become hideously wealthy.

Think about it.

The main issues of the campaign are job- or money-related. We’ve got WorkChoices to contend with, flame wars about union bosses, Rudd and Howard trying to convince us they know how to run the economy best… The issues of health and education are less prominent. All the talk of hospitals seems to be tied in with their funding. Education is all about preparing you for working life. The Government’s handing out tax cuts to just about everyone.

It’s all about money and work.

Is this what we’ve become? Is this really all that matters to us anymore? What happened to community? What happened to people caring about the society we live in and the people themselves? When did we become so fucking selfish?

I want a campaign on social issues, on things that matter, not just how much money Howard can bribe us with. I want us to start caring about each other again, to stop being so terrified of each other, to want to learn for learning’s sake, not just because you have to to further your career. I want less emphasis on the economy and more on the people.

The social well-being of the people should be a government’s main priority. They are there to look after the country and the people. Managing the economy is part of that, sure, but it is not the only job.

At the moment, we have two leaders who are willing to support blatant discrimination against same-sex couples in legislation. If the Liberals want to run a scare campaign about Labor union bosses, then if Labor had any spine at all, they’d run a campaign on all the right-wing Christian organisations and big business influences behind some of our Federal Ministers! That I find far more scary than union bosses.

I hate Howard’s rhetoric on unions, how he seems to say he’s all for unions when WorkChoices is aimed at getting rid of them altogether. The people are much stronger as a group. This is why unions work and are important in workplaces. I doubt Howard would even care if all the unions disappeared overnight. I think he’d laugh with glee because he’s got what he wanted. We all become human machines, working far too many hours for not enough pay in a bid to keep Howard’s Economy booming.

Boom times do not last. It’s going to end some time, probably when we run out of things to dig up. What happens then? Have we even bothered investing some of the funds for a rainy day when things aren’t as strong? This is what the Government should be doing. They should be investing in our future to ensure that we can still survive when things get tougher. We should be investing in humanity, to better ourselves spiritually, socially, mentally, reconnecting with each other again. We should not be wasting $34 billion on election campaign tax cuts that ultimately do more harm than good.

What sort of society have we created? Is it really healthy? Or are we all too afraid to admit it has problems?

Just this week, President Bush welcomed the Dalai Lama in a way that Howard was too cowardly to do. If Bush has done one thing that’s worth remembering in his 8 years in office, I will remember that, because it was a disgrace that Howard was too afraid of upsetting China to meet with him. Once again, the economy was an issue. China buys our coal, therefore we shouldn’t piss them off, because then they’ll take their money away. It’s all about the fucking money!

Gah! We do not bow to China! We should not bow to any sovereign country, not even the USA or the UK. We are a strong nation. Why must we run around like a lapdog and try and placate all the Big World Leaders™ in a bid to convince them we’re allies and friends and they should let us play with them? It’s sickening. It’s degrading. It makes us look pathetic.

Our lack of care for our fellow humans is clear from our continued flouncing of UN Charters we’ve signed on to. You can’t just pick and choose which UN Charters to take on board and which to dismiss. You sign on to it, you abide by it. No exceptions. We should not be selling our uranium to India either. We should not be selling uranium to any country that hasn’t signed up for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Hell, we shouldn’t be selling uranium full stop.

We need to stop caring about The Market and focus back on the people. If you rule a bunch of sheep, you are nothing more than a dictator. The politics of fear lead down this path. We should all be afraid of where it might take us.

I applaud SBS’s “Democracy” season. Damn good idea. I will make sure to watch the one on Liberia this week. It’s a pity though that despite SBS’s efforts, the audience that needs to see these programs won’t be tuning in, either through disinterest, bad reception, no reception or maybe they just don’t like SBS.

After their show about democracy in Japan (which I didn’t watch, in spite of wanting to — The War and Peep Show were calling too loudly), they showed part three of the Decadence series, which is on democracy.I don’t think I’ve ever seen all six episodes in a row, but I have seen some of them. The democracy episode raises some damn good points about democracy and dissent in this country.

It got me thinking again, see? I know, a dangerous thing to do in this country. I’ve been concerned about our political apathy for some time now. When the people get lazy and stop thinking, they stop caring about our democracy and our country and that’s when things can start to go downhill.

Democracy is all about the people. If the people don’t care about it, it ceases to become a democracy. If the people let the State get away with manipulating them and placating the people with money, tax cuts and materialistic dreams and stop holding them accountable for their actions, then we’ve ceased living in a democracy.

The Howard Government does not like dissent. It persecutes their enemies and elevates their friends. We have a piss-weak media that is not prepared to challenge the Government and properly inform the people the way it should. The few lone voices out there are drowned out in a sea of conformity.

We have become a society hellbent on sameness. Everyone must fit in. We must all be unthinking clones, all with the same hungry desire for things that keeps us working horrendous hours, making us time-poor, all in a bid to keep the people sated and happy and dependent on that one desire.

In a way, we’re all addicted to the pokies, feeding in every dollar we earn in a bid to come out a winner in a marketplace that just wants our money and dependence. Advertising grooms brand loyalty, incites a desire to acquire things we don’t need, have made us so out of touch with what one really needs to live off.

I’m all for the country prospering, but does it have to be so viral? Does it have to make us all slaves to the economy?

I turned over to ABC2 to watch a show on teenage transsexuals at 10:30pm, and happened to catch most of Race Around The World. It was the second-last episode of the second series.

I missed the first two stories, but the second two I caught. It intrigued me that they both had similar themes. The third one from Myanmar about the two political satirist brothers and the fourth one from Argentina about the mothers of the 30,000 young dissenters killed during the military dictatorship were quite striking. That fourth one especially made me want to cry.

Even though the show is from 1998, those two stories had so much relevance to today’s current situations, at least they did to me, the third one especially given everything happening in Burma right now.

I’m scared for this country, and I hate that I’m afraid, because I shouldn’t be. If only the people would wake up and realise that this isn’t a democracy without the will of the people, then maybe we can change things before it’s too late. Otherwise, I fear we’ll get the government we deserve for being too apathetic to stop it, and that will be a sad time for this country indeed.

I had a pretty good life growing up. I never went without, my parents haven’t split up, hell, they even job-shared when we were kids so they could spend equal time with us. I went to a private high school, even got to university, and am about to finish a science degree.

To put it in perspective, these things are not universal. Every kid in the world does not get access to schooling. Some kids don’t have parents. A lot of kids are going hungry. I live in a politically stable country that has never had a civil war. I have freedoms a lot of people don’t. I have a damn good life compared to what some have.A feeling has crept up on me in the last year as I’ve been looking for work. I’d rather do a job that pays less but is more satisfying than a job that pays more but isn’t as satisfying. I got a good education and I want to put that to use somehow. I shouldn’t waste this gift by throwing myself into the coporate world to be beaten into submission and strive for nothing but money.

But then, my parents have never really had work like that anyway. It’s been churches and church groups and not-for-profit organisations and such. I’ve met a lot of refugees because of the work mum’s done. Really puts your life in perspective when you hear what they’ve gone through.

I suppose that’s partly why I find the corporate world so disgusting. I find their drive for profits obnoxious, the hours of work unbearable and the stress unwarranted. I don’t want to subject myself to that kind of world. Besides, I hate suits and that really formal workwear. So uncomfortable. I’d rather put my energies into something that’s actually going to do some good to society. I want to be recognised for my work, but I don’t want to be famous. Does that make sense?

Hmm. I suppose it’s good I’ve come to this conclusion before I’ve done a decade or more of unsatisfying work. I’m also noticing I have only a small desire for stuff. My materialism has declined somewhat lately. Sure, I could list off plenty of things I ‘want’, but I probably won’t end up buying any of them simply because I’ve survived quite well without them. The things I need to survive are a place to live, food to eat, clean drinking water and a good family. Everything else is non-essential. Hell, I didn’t even have to pay for university. I deferred my fees til later. Sure, I now have a 25k HECS debt hanging over my head, but compared to what some people have to pay to go to university, I’ll take it. There are plenty of women in the world who aren’t allowed to go to uni. I consider myself lucky that I live in the country I do.

Which brings me to religion, sexuality and gender. (I suck at segues) We have the freedom to practice any religion we like in this country and not be discriminated against. In theory, at least. In practice, it’s different, as evidenced by the disdain by which non-Christian faiths are given. Islam especially has recieved a lot of bad press in recent years, not all of it justified. As for me, I’m a Kemetic Orthodox shemsu who’s flirting with discordianism and warrior spirituality. Such a wonderful combination. And I’m also transgendered and bisexual. I really am at the edge of society.

I might be unashamedly left-wing, but that doesn’t automatically make me a Labor supporter. I don’t like the way Rudd is portraying himself as Howard Lite™ in all aspects apart from the environment and IR as far as I can tell. I haven’t decided if I’m going to vote Labor or not. I’ve long since stopped believing election year promises, which makes deciding who to vote for more difficult. As much as I want Howard out, is Rudd going to end up being the lesser of two evils?

I’ve already mentioned where I stand as regards to climate change, so I won’t go into it again. I’m stuck in the middle. While I applaud the call to live more sustainably, I’m not convinced we should do so solely because of climate change. We should look after the environment though. This is the only planet we’ve got so we should take care of it. I’m just not convinced that our recent weather patterns are solely due to human-induced climate change. I’m a weird sort of greenie, I know. I’m weird in a lot of ways.

But I should stop this rant now and get on with job-hunting. Mum wants me to get one done today. Hmm. Lab job, see? Yeah. And so endeth my rant.