Australia’s five big problems

This is my opinion only and if I offend anyone, well I am sorry.

I think this country is rapidly going downhill. In the 30 years I have been living here, it seems to be changing from an informal larrikin democracy with a sense of humour and fair play to a mind-numbing autocracy bereft of tolerance or compassion. Leaving party politics aside for later, these are five of the issues that encapsulate this deterioration for me. This is by no means a complete list, but it will do for a start.

Problem #1 – sport , the media and advertising

In my opinion a generation of Australians who appear to be uncaring, unmotivated, and lazy has evolved from our famous “national obsession” with sport. For a nation that prides itself on it’s sporting bent it is a tragic joke that the majority of our male ’sports fans’ seem to be overweight, alcoholic, unfit, and unmotivated. In fact I would go further and suggest the obsession with spectator sport is an exploitation by the media. Sports coverage provides easy unthinking entertainment for an uncritical audience, and on top of that channels Seven, Nine and Ten must rate as the most uselessly uninformative news sources anywhere. They set (or rather lower) the standard for reporting in this country. Their financially driven obsession with sport, media personalities and their excessive reporting of topics like murder, pedophilia and rape debases and degrades our community. The lies and hypocrisy of advertising create an environment of assumed duplicity and double standards. Frankly if advertising is a necessity for TV we would almost be better off without the medium. And the same applies to radio. The penetration of these subversive and confusing agencies into our culture is causing untold damage to many peoples’ ability to think straight.

Problem #2 – The authorities

20 years ago you would have imagined that a country that had labor governments in every state would be a place where people’s rights would be fairly championed. But instead, we see these rights deteriorating rapidly, in the few years since 9-11, under the banner of security against terrorism. The Premier of New South Wales, and his deputy, the Minister for Transport actively pursue this course, despite the fact that in this city you would be 10,000 times more likely to be killed on the road or by lifestyle induced illness than by a terrorist act. But party machines and spin protect the authorities from people whose rights are being eroded. Because of the challenged current standard of mass media journalism people do not see this deterioration happening. The political debate that was so powerful when the baby boomers were young, has evaporated almost completely. Almost the only dissenting voices in Australia now are those of the far left-wing and it is hard to imagine how they can produce change now. Their time has passed – they are unable to deal with this new mix of capitalism, global warming and privacy issues. The environmental movement has grown through the realisation that the human race is in danger of collapse as exploitation of resources and deteriorating climate conditions become obvious, but ultimately money still rules the world, and there is no replacement for it on the horizon, and the green movement has no way of dealing with this problem.

Problem #3 – education and social values

I blame the indoctrinaire curriculum and the insistence on individual self esteem (as opposed to more noble virtues like participation, consensus and community activity) for the fact that many young people today seem to be wrapped up in themselves – many I have met appear to be racist, poorly educated, selfish, egotistical, incapable of analytical thought and usually more concerned with manners than morality. It is not surprising that their view of the future is very dark, I am glad I will not be around when they mature and take control of our society.

Problem #4 – duties become rights

Paradoxically as freedom of thought is rapidly following freedom of speech into the gray zone of forbidden delights, the general obsession with political correctness (manners again), the rights of disadvantaged people has become a trumpeted priority. In this case by disadvantaged I mean people with obvious mental and physical disadvantages. However people who are financially disadvantaged, or in danger of being socially excommunicated are not seen as so important. Huge numbers of people in this country suffer from poor upbringing, abusive parenting and an abysmal education, often a tradition of many generations. When they grow older there is no role for them in this so called ‘caring’ community. They become outsiders, and live to perpetuate their misery on, and on.

Problem #5 – religion

Finally it strikes me as bizarre that more than 150 years since the official capitulation of God to DNA, a majority of people in the Western world still claim to be Christians. The growth of feel-good evangelical religions leads lost people by the nose into the flock – This is a huge hypocrisy (and often a financial scam). Even worse is the fact that the crueler and more primitive religions of the world are gathering strength and numbers and that often these anachronisms are encouraged under the banner of religious tolerance.

To me this suggests that people are becoming more estranged from the real needs of human life – security, love, family, friends and freedom. There is no value in being ‘reborn’ at an evangelical church, just as there is no value in a suicide bombing in the name of God. These are only flamboyances that waste the participants’ and the community’s time and cause chaos and misery to all.

It is time we all grew up and faced facts. No magic afterlife – there is no heaven with rows of compliant virgins, or angels like Disney cartoons – we have but one life and we should live it with honor and dignity, and face the end bravely when it comes. The future is not in you, its in your children. Lets stop hiding deceitfully behind the skirts of religion. To hear our state politicians rabbiting mumbo-jumbo about a dead son of god and a stone-age fairy story set somewhere thoroughly ghastly like Syria hundreds of generations ago when people were mostly mean and brutish makes me sick. It has no relevance. The obsequities of religion are more like a deadening shroud around the past than a force for good now.

Like Eldridge Cleaver said – If your not part of the solution your part of the problem.