The Light On The Hill
2/2/11 16:59![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
anfalicious.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsFrom Ben Chifley (Australian PM 1945-1949).
"I have had the privilege of leading the Labor Party for nearly four years. They have not been easy times and it has not been an easy job. It is a man-killing job and would be impossible if it were not for the help of my colleagues and members of the movement.
No Labor Minister or leader ever has an easy job. The urgency that rests behind the Labor movement, pushing it on to do things, to create new conditions, to reorganise the economy of the country, always means that the people who work within the Labor movement, people who lead, can never have an easy job. The job of the evangelist is never easy.
Because of the turn of fortune's wheel your Premier (Mr McGirr) and I have gained some prominence in the Labor movement. But the strength of the movement cannot come from us. We may make plans and pass legislation to help and direct the economy of the country. But the job of getting the things the people of the country want comes from the roots of the Labor movement - the people who support it.
When I sat at a Labor meeting in the country with only ten or fifteen men there, I found a man sitting beside me who had been working in the Labor movement for 54 years. I have no doubt that many of you have been doing the same, not hoping for any advantage from the movement, not hoping for any personal gain, but because you believe in a movement that has been built up to bring better conditions to the people. Therefore, the success of the Labor Party at the next elections depends entirely, as it always has done, on the people who work.
I try to think of the Labor movement, not as putting an extra sixpence into somebody's pocket, or making somebody Prime Minister or Premier, but as a movement bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people. We have a great objective - the light on the hill - which we aim to reach by working the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labor movement would not be worth fighting for.
If the movement can make someone more comfortable, give to some father or mother a greater feeling of security for their children, a feeling that if a depression comes there will be work, that the government is striving its hardest to do its best, then the Labor movement will be completely justified.
It does not matter about persons like me who have our limitations. I only hope that the generosity, kindliness and friendliness shown to me by thousands of my colleagues in the Labor movement will continue to be given to the movement and add zest to its work."
This quote came from the end of the Golden Age of the Australian Labor Movement; which included our greatest ever PM (IMO) John Curtin. Not long after this Australia would endure 23 years of at times hopelessly incompetent conservative government that risked turning us into a banana republic. Our economy was precariously balanced on the sheep's back and our fortunes rose and fell with wool prices (much like we are now beholden to the price of the almighty dirt). It was a time of looking inward; a time of social stagnation and a halting of the advance of the progressive social democracy. In other words, for many it was a golden age. Indeed, we were wealthy, prosperous and had a high standard of living. However, we also had our own version of Apartheid, the most racist immigration policy in the world (except maybe Japan's), little support for the needy and an education system that kept the rich entrenched in positions of power (up until the late 50s to get into Medicine or Law at the best universities in the land the only entrance requirement was the ability to pay - seriously, so few people could afford these degrees that any dunce who had a letter from their high school principal could gain entry).
But if the right were so terrible, why didn't the left take power? The left at this time was involved in two internal struggles; the Catholics vs. the Communists and the ideologues vs. the pragmatists. In their desire to stay ideologically pure, the Labor party effectively ruled themselves out of office for decades. Eventually, the Catholics went to the right, and the ideologues and Communists were purged. What remains now is a left wing party that values pragmatism above all else.
Philosophically, I'm a pragmatist. I think it is a good way to run your life. However, the political pragmatist seems to not be concerned with what's best for the common weal, but what will get them re-elected. Thus, our left party upon gaining power has distanced itself from social justice as if all refugees were AIDS infected terrorist drug addicts. Progressive ideas that made this the country of the "fair go", the most egalitarian nation in the world when it was formed in 1901, have been dropped like a hot potato, in favour of the populist "fuck you Jack, I've got mine" economic ideas of the neo-liberals out of the USA.
It's just anecdata, but I know many people who feel that Australia is a meaner and more selfish place than it was just 15 years ago. I'm not going to "move to Canada", because I feel it is my duty as someone who belongs to this land to be an agent of change. To hold a mirror up to those who think that the poor and needy are just a drain on the economy to be dealt with as cheaply and brutally as possible.
The question at the end of this history lesson is this:
What place does ideology have in politics. Should politicians and political parties strive to be "The Light On The Hill" for the betterment of mankind, or should they just be concerned with keeping happy the small minority of swing voters who decide a government in a two party system through wedge politics and populism?
"I have had the privilege of leading the Labor Party for nearly four years. They have not been easy times and it has not been an easy job. It is a man-killing job and would be impossible if it were not for the help of my colleagues and members of the movement.
No Labor Minister or leader ever has an easy job. The urgency that rests behind the Labor movement, pushing it on to do things, to create new conditions, to reorganise the economy of the country, always means that the people who work within the Labor movement, people who lead, can never have an easy job. The job of the evangelist is never easy.
Because of the turn of fortune's wheel your Premier (Mr McGirr) and I have gained some prominence in the Labor movement. But the strength of the movement cannot come from us. We may make plans and pass legislation to help and direct the economy of the country. But the job of getting the things the people of the country want comes from the roots of the Labor movement - the people who support it.
When I sat at a Labor meeting in the country with only ten or fifteen men there, I found a man sitting beside me who had been working in the Labor movement for 54 years. I have no doubt that many of you have been doing the same, not hoping for any advantage from the movement, not hoping for any personal gain, but because you believe in a movement that has been built up to bring better conditions to the people. Therefore, the success of the Labor Party at the next elections depends entirely, as it always has done, on the people who work.
I try to think of the Labor movement, not as putting an extra sixpence into somebody's pocket, or making somebody Prime Minister or Premier, but as a movement bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people. We have a great objective - the light on the hill - which we aim to reach by working the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labor movement would not be worth fighting for.
If the movement can make someone more comfortable, give to some father or mother a greater feeling of security for their children, a feeling that if a depression comes there will be work, that the government is striving its hardest to do its best, then the Labor movement will be completely justified.
It does not matter about persons like me who have our limitations. I only hope that the generosity, kindliness and friendliness shown to me by thousands of my colleagues in the Labor movement will continue to be given to the movement and add zest to its work."
This quote came from the end of the Golden Age of the Australian Labor Movement; which included our greatest ever PM (IMO) John Curtin. Not long after this Australia would endure 23 years of at times hopelessly incompetent conservative government that risked turning us into a banana republic. Our economy was precariously balanced on the sheep's back and our fortunes rose and fell with wool prices (much like we are now beholden to the price of the almighty dirt). It was a time of looking inward; a time of social stagnation and a halting of the advance of the progressive social democracy. In other words, for many it was a golden age. Indeed, we were wealthy, prosperous and had a high standard of living. However, we also had our own version of Apartheid, the most racist immigration policy in the world (except maybe Japan's), little support for the needy and an education system that kept the rich entrenched in positions of power (up until the late 50s to get into Medicine or Law at the best universities in the land the only entrance requirement was the ability to pay - seriously, so few people could afford these degrees that any dunce who had a letter from their high school principal could gain entry).
But if the right were so terrible, why didn't the left take power? The left at this time was involved in two internal struggles; the Catholics vs. the Communists and the ideologues vs. the pragmatists. In their desire to stay ideologically pure, the Labor party effectively ruled themselves out of office for decades. Eventually, the Catholics went to the right, and the ideologues and Communists were purged. What remains now is a left wing party that values pragmatism above all else.
Philosophically, I'm a pragmatist. I think it is a good way to run your life. However, the political pragmatist seems to not be concerned with what's best for the common weal, but what will get them re-elected. Thus, our left party upon gaining power has distanced itself from social justice as if all refugees were AIDS infected terrorist drug addicts. Progressive ideas that made this the country of the "fair go", the most egalitarian nation in the world when it was formed in 1901, have been dropped like a hot potato, in favour of the populist "fuck you Jack, I've got mine" economic ideas of the neo-liberals out of the USA.
It's just anecdata, but I know many people who feel that Australia is a meaner and more selfish place than it was just 15 years ago. I'm not going to "move to Canada", because I feel it is my duty as someone who belongs to this land to be an agent of change. To hold a mirror up to those who think that the poor and needy are just a drain on the economy to be dealt with as cheaply and brutally as possible.
The question at the end of this history lesson is this:
What place does ideology have in politics. Should politicians and political parties strive to be "The Light On The Hill" for the betterment of mankind, or should they just be concerned with keeping happy the small minority of swing voters who decide a government in a two party system through wedge politics and populism?
(no subject)
Date: 2/2/11 09:03 (UTC)While that squabble certainly goes on, the mainstream alternative to the politics characterised as The Light On The Hill it is actually better characterised as My Light On My Hill, Go Get Your Own.
I don't necessarily agree that Australia is a meaner place than 15 years ago. At least not intrinsically. I think we have more problems now, for various reasons, few of which are the result of an intrinsic attitude change. Mostly its economic and social factors that have become more complex and caused a "drawing in" and reduction of the day-to-day social inclusiveness which Australia has always had as an undercurrent of life. The mateship etc which Howard so blithely waxed nostalgic for.
Much of this effect is an apparently inevitable effect of urbanisation.
For all its sweeping plains, Australia is a for the most part a vast desert and as a result Australia is one of the most urbanised nations on Earth. This consolidation of population in dense centres has naturally resulted in a degradation of the original social ethic and origins as a nation of the mutually rejected, ejected and convicted of Britannia.
Now instead of common desire to build something worthwhile together with almost nothing to lose and everything to gain, we are now a people who have something worthwhile, worth fighting for and for which we increasingly prepared to fight each other and all newcomers for.
Many Australian consider this disappointing. I consider it a historically normal development, if unpleasant to my sense of social aesthetics, but merely a merely a pale repetition the same old story played out in the natural history of societies that establish themselves in newly colonised lands.
(no subject)
Date: 2/2/11 09:48 (UTC)Yeah, I was even going to mention that I was doing it when I was doing it. I was feeling particularly, I dunno, unhelpful maybe.
Really good point on urbanisation though. I have issues with urbanisation, or at least, suburbanisation as we practice it in Australia, and it is exactly this point; suburbs encourage us to engage far less with our community than urban or rural environments which leads to a loss of empathy for others and a loss of the "fair go". I hadn't really made the connection even though I've had both of these beliefs for some time. Good pick up :)
(no subject)
Date: 2/2/11 10:32 (UTC)I've read quite a bit of fairly technical and political stuff on population pressures and how it can change societies, but for some reason 2 science-fiction books always stick out in my mind whenever the topic comes up: the Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert and The Mote in Gods Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. If you're into that sort of thing, I highly recommend for the perspective they give.
(no subject)
Date: 4/2/11 13:05 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2/2/11 12:45 (UTC)I wouldn't say Australia's meaner than it was 15 years ago, or rather that if it is it's part of a general trend across the Anglosphere.
(no subject)
Date: 4/2/11 13:06 (UTC)