Published by Wobbly Press in August 1999.
Indigenous, peace, anti-racist, environment and community organisations have permission to reproduce these poems provided appropriate acknowledgement is given.
Acknowledgments
I am obligated to the many comrades who took time over the last 40 years to explain their struggle and help me with mine.
This book would not have reached this form without Penny Harrington’s editorial work, a hand from Alfonso, John Hancock’s artwork on the front and back covers, and Defiance Publishing.
Copies of this book are available from: Wobbly Press
People’s Poems & Songs of Struggle
This collection of poems and song lyrics has been published in the hope those who read them might enjoy them and be inspired to work to make the world a better place. With a few exceptions all the poems included here have been written in the last couple of years. They deal with social issues currently being debated in Australia. Many have arrived in their present form as the result of efforts of Penny Harrington and Pete Hancock to craft them. Many of them have previously been published in Green Left, Anarchist Age Monthly Review, Common Ground, Campus Review, and websites http://www.chepd.mq.edu.au/boomerang/unionsong/ and http://www.geocities.com/~ubinz/JT/ in Australia and New Zealand. They have been read on picket lines, public meetings, demonstrations, lectures, fund raisers and sit ins.
These poems and songs deal with the way white Australia treats Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the struggle for a free East Timor, workers’ fights for a decent deal. They reflect also upon government attacks on welfare recipients, the environment and political freedom.
I hope you enjoy reading them, that they encourage you to increase your involvement in the fight for a fairer world and that soon we might meet at a demo somewhere.
Contents
(1) Indigenous issues
(2) Timor
(3) Environment
(4) Class struggle
(5) Social issues
(6) Peace
(7) Racism
Howard’s preamble
To our floundering fathers we owe a gratitude
for all the years of penal servitude,
and for belief in our current moral rectitude.
With great humility we take pride
in the invasion, rape and genocide.
Despite indigenous consternation
we have seized their bloody nation;
and without undue distress
tamed the entire wilderness.
The occasional devastation
balanced by class exploitation,
incentivation with a passion
we set ourselves against world fashion.
Though some might claim that it is rat shit
we are bound by a forlorn hateship.
A child’s question about abolishing native title
What did you do Daddy
to assist John Howard’s ethnic cleansing?
Did you just go around:
donging dagos
bashing boongs
whacking wogs
and
slashing slopes?
Mr. Brown was a Storm Trooper
at the Met Bureau.
Maureen
You ask me not to clench my fists
to hold my anger down.
You ask me not to purse my lips
nor swear nor wear a frown.
You tell me – let my anger go
that I should reconcile
that it is me that I must know
to feel at one, and smile.
It’s not what they have done to me,
it’s what they’ve done to you;
children taken and not set free
that keeps my anger new.
Native title stolen now
not 200 years ago.
I’m angry and I’m asking how
and I will not let go.
Invasion, theft and genocide
carried out in my name.
It’s something they’d rather hide
I’ll voice my anger and my shame.
The theft of land is violence;
while Blacks in prison die
I refuse to stand in silence
they’ll hear my anger and my cry.
Who are the criminals?
In Darwin they jailed a man for 12 months
he was homeless and had stolen a towel.
They jail others for sleeping in parks.
They jail protesters whose only crime is
trying to stop uranium mining on Aboriginal land.
The senior traditional owner, they say,
committed trespass by walking on her own land.
But who are they?
They are the invaders.
They are the rapists.
They took the children.
They stole an entire country.
They make the law.
They build the jails.
They are the thieves who jail the homeless.
I spit on your justice
(Dedicated to the brave young Aboriginal men who spat on Pauline Hanson
and who were subsequently incarcerated.)
Black and poor
wait!!!!
outside the door
don’t !!!!
spit on politicians
who ignore
you !!!!
Don’t!!!!
spit on the whore
she’s such a bore.
Her rhetoric is reaching fever pitch
she’s such a cold and slimy bitch.
Save your anger,
hide your pain from fascist cops
and magistrate.
I understand and share your hate
of their justice: it’s just a farce.
If I were as brave as you
then I would tell them to
stick it up their arse.
Double disillusion
You said if you were elected
there would be no fuss
we’d be relaxed and comfortable:
you’d govern “for all of us”.
Now you say you have a covenant
with pastoralists and miners –
so we need a double dissolution.
It is hard not to believe
you made a compact with the devil.
Were your words ill-considered –
fantasy, lie or an illusion?
Is it that there are two of you –
one who’d look after the little Aussie battler,
the other dances to John Laws’ tune
and tries to please Howard Sattler.
Which is Jekyll?
Which is Hyde?
No place for guilt
then there can be
no place for pride.
Because you fear demands for reparation
there’s no apology for the stolen generation.
No matter how you tell it, it’s a fact
your Wik Bill, undermining native title,
overrides the Race Discrimination Act.
Labor, Greens and Democrats
all sing a different song
they claim the High Court’s judgement
simply rights a wrong.
Why is Mrs Howard’s child
the only one in step?
Is it that you’re dancing
to a different tune
or that the multinationals’ band
just doesn’t understand
that you’re tone deaf.
That you’ve got no sense of timing,
though you’ve mastered miming
their messages of greed.
Is this why you can turn your back
on those in greatest need?
What do you tell the people
this time round, John?
“A dollar a day is a fair day’s pay,
that Medicare is no longer fair,
lotto winners will be able to afford nursing homes,
a GST is needed,
as are soldiers on the wharf.”
Or will the other side of your personality admit
you are just an intellectual dwarf;
that there is more to life and living
than seeing governments downsize:
that you chose to run on race
hoping we’ll forget the lies
you told last time,
to those that you despise.
Indigenous bilingual education
I’d like to be like Jesus and turn the other cheek
not raise my voice in anger, but be humble – meek.
Even when the soldiers were hammering in the nails
from high on the cross, in agony, amidst the jeers and wails
he said “Father forgive them they know not what they do.”
But the situation here is different, I know that – do you?
In the Northern Territory the Government of the day
is ending bilingual education to the Aborigines’ dismay.
The Country Liberal Party, claiming right upon their side,
is knowingly engaging in cultural genocide.
The first people’s first language is a source of pride.
The reassertion of cultural identity now must be denied
if this Government is to defeat the Aboriginal nation
it must complete this act of cultural extermination.
The ten point scam
The racist scum are on the bum they need our help again
to protect the interests of our rich and famous men.
Working folk are on their arse
treated as if second class
it’s not for the likes of you or me
that he’s predicting certainty.
It’s the movers and the shakers
not the Salvos nor the Quakers
looking after rich and famous men
who would steal our common wealth
with their lawyers and their stealth.
It worked before, let’s try it on again,
looking after rich and famous men.
The racist scum are on the bum they have a ten point scam.
That coward Howard asks, what is the moral question?
Who do you think I am?
As Minister for State,
spreading lies and fear and hate,
he slams the station gate –
for certainty.
I wouldn’t mention Minchin
if you are penny pinchin:
he can’t hear the hungry cry
nor see old people die,
though you might like to try
he’s got bigger fish to fry.
He’s looking after rich and famous men.
The racist scum are on the bum they need our help again
to protect the interests of our rich and famous men.
It’s the Sultans of Brunei
not the likes of you or I
for whom they stride.
It’s that wacker Kerry Packer
MacLachlans and McBride,
each of them has wealth on their side.
They need certainty
for all eternity –
secure land title is all that they desire
and no drought, or flood, or fire;
and perhaps, should it transpire
that the markets have a down turn
governments should do a u-turn
and provide a subsidy:
just a bit more certainty.
It is what you would expect when
You’re looking after rich and famous men.
The racist scum are on the bum they have a ten point scam.
That coward Howard asks, what is the moral question?
Who do you think I am?
The racist scum are on the bum they need our help again
to protect the interests of our rich and famous men.
(with Pete Hancock)
Resisting change
In the 1970s old communists and young socialists were determined to keep
the Red Flag flying here.
In 1999 Tim Fischer and John Howard are determined to keep
terra nullius lying here.
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy
The Senator says it looks ramshackle. Well Senator, it is a tent
It’s asking white Australia to pay the bloody rent.
They told the bully boys in blue to pull it down in ’72.
But Aboriginal activists just resurrected it anew.
They claim it is an eyesore. It stops them seeing sore eyes.
The Trachoma that still blinds needs only clean water supplies.
They think Blacks should find another way to express their gratitude
for 18 times more incarceration, for white Australia’s rectitude,
dying 20 years younger than whites and dispossession of such magnitude.
They say the tent’s been there too long, too long by 27 years.
Decades shedding bitter tears
as babies die too young,
too few concessions wrung.
The aching long years spent
knowing “it’s time” for white Australia to pay the bloody rent.
But……….
Now there’s a brilliant new idea: after all it’s just a tent.
Forget about the symbolism: replace it with an ornament.
What about an Aborigine on one leg holding a spear?
We could have 27 of them – one for every year…
For every year the embassy has stood.
For each year racists never understood,
that it celebrates survival.
211 years since our arrival.
It’s in the parliamentary triangle.
We need some fancy dingle dangle.
Something that would look ‘quite nice’,
and at not too great a price.
Something fitting – to adorn
the oh-so-green parliamentary lawn.
With a message almost mute
Now wouldn’t that be cute?
(with Penny Harrington)
The white tide and the Yorta Yorta
Could it be the tide of history that’s washing over us?
If it is the tide of history we won’t create a fuss.
Was it the tsunami of invasion or the peaceful flow of settlement?
We are tired of your evasion for Christ sake pay the rent.
Was it the breakers of intolerance that undermined our pride?
Have you acted with due reverence or is it cultural genocide?
Was it the waves of soldiers with their gleaming bayonet,
or was it brutal Christian elders? For Christ sake pay the rent.
Was it the trickle of the farmers which left us of land bereft,
or are judges and other charmers sanitising theft?
Was it the torrents of indifference that scoured the Murray’s shore?
Can you really claim it’s justice ensuring we stay poor?
Is it an overflow of piety, or an unjust legal lie?
Terra nullius your new deity is there nothing you won’t try?
In your flush of legal bull shit you regurgitate the putrid lie:
we abandoned country – that’s it, time to fade away and die.
You can’t stem the tide of history: our struggle is not spent.
The world will hear our story – so for Christ’s sake pay the rent.
Terra Nullius
Terra Nullius
made fools of all of us,
legal fiction and our greed
became our overwhelming creed.
We stole their land
and watched them bleed.
Their rights to land
we’d not concede
insisting on proper title
and English deed.
Dispossession
With gun and whip and legal quip
you stole the land.
Rape and theft, convict servitude
all helped impose constitutional certitude.
And with that went your religious creed
and of course secure land deed,
to place beyond their lore
what rights they had you chose to ignore,
forsaking all that had gone before.
Poisoned waterholes, strychninned flour
Australia, was that your finest hour?
Original owners dispossessed
causing only lingering wilfulness.
Stolen trinkets bring jail terms.
Stolen children white laws fail.
Crimes of the powerful, no surprise:
it’s crimes of the powerless we despise.
Hunger caused by powerlessness
erupts in violent hollowness;
grog, unemployment and hopelessness
help enforce such emptiness.
Black, poor and in police custody,
found hanging in a watch house cell
natural causes – what the hell.
Deaths in custody
Swinging in a watch house cell
escaping from a living hell ?
Stolen from his mother
taken from his father.
You call it suicide.
We call it murder.
Grandfather shot
grandmother poisoned.
Land stolen by squatters.
Sister raped by coppers.
You call it suicide.
We call it murder.
Didn’t do well at school
often made to look the fool.
Couldn’t find a job
no one heard him sob.
You call it suicide.
We call it murder.
We saw the coppers bash him,
we saw the coppers thrash him:
threatening to hang him
may as well have sang him.
You call it suicide.
We call it murder.
A black armbanded history
Roll up! Roll up and see the show,
armbanded historians in a row,
spreading revisionism as they go,
weaving distortion to and fro.
Saying Robert Menzies was the greatest –
greatest liar:
that he never set the world on fire.
Got us involved in the Vietnam War
and falsified what we were fighting for.
Unemployment then was one per cent;
but you never paid Aborigines rent –
for the land you stole.
You never paid a god damn cent
claiming intervention, heaven sent.
missionaries christainised, without repent.
I wish to Christ you’d paid the rent.
Rewrite history if you must
but you know we will not trust
the things you say that used to be
if they don’t concur with our memory.
Take us back to the 1960s
to the lies we told back then
when girls were wives and lovers
and boys were fighting men.
You sat in an accountant’s office
and pushed your fountain pen.
Take us back to the 1960s
when boys were fighting men.
Greed was just a word we used –
that we applied to others.
Girls were everything that’s nice
they were just wives and lovers.
When White Australia set the pace
poor and Black knew their place,
they knew that they were a disgrace
that they had failed the human race.
Aborigines understood their shame
they knew why we apportioned blame.
That we placed their kids in institution
to prevent their destitution:
that we took their land for development,
progress was god’s commandment.
We knew that come what may
we would have to wait another day
before we dreamt of equal pay.
Take us back to that time when
girls were wives and lovers
and boys were fighting men.
A politician’s conversation with an asylum seeker
You want what!
To stay in Australia?
You reckon you’re a refugee
because Indonesia invaded your country
and you fled across the Timor Sea?
Brothers murdered,
sisters raped,
mother jailed
and father disappeared.
Did that justify your fleeing across the Timor Sea?
On what basis do you claim to be a refugee?
Don’t talk in generality,
of escaping oppression and tyranny
or simply wanting to be free.
You say if you return you will be shot,
come now; don’t exaggerate, we think not.
We’ve signed oil deals with generals,
treaties too important for us to lose,
we know your comrades disappeared
and many friends were shot at Santa Cruz:
but we can’t help you –
so go to Portugal if you choose.
Hotel Suharto
Who put the durian in the air conditioning system?
What is that fetid odour in Hotel Suharto?
Are you sure it’s a durian?
It smells like decomposing flesh.
Could it be the stench of death?
What does it represent?
The corpses of Santa Cruz?
The decaying bodies of Aceh?
The destroyed lives of West Papua?
Call the Manager of Hotel Suharto.
Cover up the air conditioner.
Paint the air conditioner green.
I call the room maid and ask her to add deodorant,
she just offers reassuring words.
The reek of death cannot be removed;
there are too many bodies:
the million the Army killed in 1965,
the 300,000 Timorese who died,
the 20,000 deaths in Aceh,
The 200,000 slaughtered in West Papua.
There is only one solution:
tear down Hotel Suharto.
Up and Downer on Timor
Geez Alexander! You are a bloody wonder:
splitting an infinitive,
qualifying the definitive,
rendering common sense asunder.
Engaging in hyperbole
repeating that tautology.
You must have heard the sigh
when we heard you say, today
East Timorese can try
for self-determination,
if they find that preferable to
Indonesian extermination.
Because you sit upon the fence,
you do not mean in any sense
that they should attempt to wrench,
for their invaded country,
independence.
East Timor won’t be free.
It is not Liberal policy.
In the interest of defence
you speak, it seems to me,
fluent diplomatic nonsense.
Things haven’t been the same,
it has been a different game,
since Suharto’s downfall:
but, they’re only natives after all
so line them up against the wall.
Santa Cruz – history.
Los Palos – a distant memory.
Alas – not tyranny.
Extreme, yes;
you must confess
regret, even – some distress.
Burning of houses and the deaths;
they were clearly an excess.
But, it is what you would expect,
after 20 years of peaceful integration,
as the Timorese strive to find their place
within the Indonesian nation.
Generals and Timor oil
Don’t tell me it’s not happening,
don’t say you cannot see.
Don’t claim that you know nothing
of a people wanting to be free.
Don’t say you cannot hear the cries
from across the Timor Sea.
I know you would if you could,
if you knew:
but you don’t, so you won’t.
Your ears are blocked by drilling rigs,
your eyes are soiled with oil.
Your mind is filled with terror,
your heart is lined with greed,
so you won’t help our Timor comrades
in their hour of greatest need.
Militias on the balcony of the University of Timor
Knock, knock.
Wake up Australia
there is murder on your doorstep
and the bailiff’s standing there.
He’s not here to repossess:the car,
the boat,
the CD,
or the TV.
He says you’ve forfeited your claim to conscience.
I can’t be more concise.
The judgement says, you’ve not repaid a debt to a neighbour,
you stand alone, only you can be your saviour.
I don’t want to apportion blame,
but the plaintiffs claim,
what’s more,
in the Second World War
40,000 East Timorese died defending your right to be free,
and in return you promised not to forget their sacrifice.
There is no artifice,
no legalistic device,
no glib explanation
will account for your standing by watching their extermination.
As such
we don’t ask much
just that you use your might
to ensure their right
to an act of self determination.
Kopassus kompassion
Wouldn’t it be nice
to chuck another Kopassus
on the eternal flame of remembrance?
They are the real encumbrance
to a lasting peace.
Timor
Chorus:
Obrigado, thankyou, grazie, East Timor will be free
the people of this troubled world will end their tyranny.
Don’t look away
don’t hide your eyes
or turn your faces to the wall
300,000 Timorese have died.
They all answered freedom’s call.
We steal their oil we compromise
and listen to Indonesian lies
while Timor dies.
The generals of Jakarta authorise the murder
Australian politicians sanitise the slaughter.
We do it in the name of export trade
investment and of foreign aid
supplying guns and hand grenade
lethal weapons, Australian made.
Then strut the stage the whole world wide
pretending right is on our side
and human rights our greatest pride,
rape and murder we try to hide.
Indonesian troops in Dili, barracks in Baucau
slaughtering willy-nilly Los Palos to Liquica.
While on the hill, a rebel still, a gun held in his hand
asks each of us the question: When will we understand
you cannot hold a people down, freedom is not a passing whim,
that it is not ours to command: it’s theirs – their battle hymn.
Truth always lies
There were no comfort women.
Woodchipping saves rain forests.
Aboriginal children never stolen.
The H bomb stopped the war.
Saudi women refuse to drive,
and Christ wasn’t crucified.
Whale shit pollutes the oceans.
Science can protect Mururoa.
The US will be our saviour.
West Papuans need Freeport.
Drift netting is sustainable,
and mulga clearing is inevitable.
Young people don’t want work.
Single mothers are all young.
We’re desperate for pay TV.
Old age is a figment of the mind.
The holocaust was invented
and nuclear war can be prevented.
Police prevent drug addiction.
Investment ensures prosperity.
Superannuation guarantees security.
Palestinians demand Israeli protection
Timorese have self determination.
Rwandans prevented extermination.
Land rights impede development.
No child will live in poverty.
Bosnia never existed.
Pol Pot was an urban planner.
No need to worry about pollution
and economic rationalism is the solution.
Bosses aren’t resented.
Your employer is your friend.
Love will last forever.
Fascism can’t be resisted.
There is no war in the Sudan
and everything goes to plan.
Cliches
I spoke with a woman from Kiev
and asked her about Chernobyl,
she said she could feel it in her bones.
I asked a man from Mururoa
whether one nuclear bomb
could ruin your whole day.
An American sailor suggested
radiation had faded his genes.
I advised him to mutate now
so as to avoid the rush later.
An ERA man told me about Jabiluka.
He said it would all be mined.
The leading traditional owner of Jabiluka,
Yvonne Margarula,
won an international human rights prize.
But Northern Territory police arrested her
for walking on her tribal land.
Perhaps she walked too softly
and left only her footprints.
If she had used a bulldozer
she’d have been all right.
I still don’t know the answer
or the reason why
no-one wins nuclear wars.
An Australian Liberal leader told me
nuclear wars are democratic,
because all are cremated equal.
A mining magnate said that
those who oppose uranium mining
should freeze to death in the dark.
I asked him if that was worse
than dying of radiation poisoning
in a Nagasaki park.
Telstra is saving the environment
They paid me to chop the trees down
so fifty years ago I cleared the plain.
Now they are going to pay me to dig holes
to put them back again.
Don’t hesitate or contemplate
Irrigate and desecrate,
we can always sell Telstra
and call the battler – mate.
You’d have to be a dill to destroy a spoonbill
Your economic wealth
and industrial stealth
provide no joy
to those you employ
because they know
that you’ll destroy
with indifference and toxic spill
a feeding ground of spoonbill
which,
with white feathers gleaming
and black bill shining
could provide a greater thrill
without the pain of ill-gotten gain.
Cancer leaches the soul
of shareholders
whose money comes,
or so it’s understood,
from draining acid rain
into water ways and flood plain,
killing plankton, prawns, fish,
waterbirds and livelihood.
Where is the good?
Only a fool could believe
a country becomes richer
by destroying an eco system.
You can lie –
but you’ll not deceive:
nature, your god or the future.
We’re having a whale of a time in Japan
Was it part of your culture
to turn citizens of captive nations
into comfort women?
Is it part of your culture
to woodchip our forests?
Is it part of your culture
to steal Aboriginal resources?
Is it part of your culture
to kill the largest marine creatures
still living in Antarctic oceans?
Is it part of your culture
to destroy ecosystems
throughout South East Asia?
Well, if it is, then
stick your bloody culture.
Is our tomorrow our yesterday?
I was sure I saw tomorrow
through the bitterness and sorrow,
replicating past disasters
of our wasted yesterdays.
When I finally saw tomorrow through the haze.
The future’s dark, the future’s bleak,
I can hear the future speak:
rewarding rich and powerful
but nothing for the meek.
The young have lost their future
in a country without direction.
“The times they are a changing” for the worse:
and we carry social justice in a hearse.
We are travelling backwards,
rediscovering all our bitterness;
when we restricted blacks to settlement –
to fringe camp or the mission;
where we denied them their entitlement.
We took their children crying
but left old people dying,
men and women sighing,
as we hid beneath the lying
of ‘progress’ and ‘development’.
An intense ideological firmament –
the dark days of the 50s,
as the country hunted Commos,
we pushed on with development.
That wilful, sad envelopment.
We opened up the wilderness
with chainsaws and D9;
employing brutal ruthlessness,
and white law that said “it’s mine”.
We hid Rum Jungle tailings
ignoring Finnes River’s wailings.
We drove harpoons into mammals
whose majestic songs we’d never heard.
Swapping Humpbacks for coal stacks,
factory drains and acid rains.
Overcoming scarcity overcame the necessity
– of truth.
When will we talk down to our betters
and end noblesse oblige?
Kiwi komrades
Don’t get over excited,
everything is in hands,
rich people’s hands,
nice velvety hands.
Hands unsoiled by labour,
who know how to savour
the good things in life,
You must understand,
those who command
are your saviour.
The artisan is partisan
Reith’s seldom right
he’s not too bright.
In fact he’s fucking stupid,
fallen in love with Corrigan
John Howard’s playing cupid.
Blood on the street.
Blood on the stair.
Blood in your eyes
and blood in your hair –
industrial resolution.
World best practice in asset stripping.
Bottom of the harbour skinny dipping.
I know indeed
just what we need –
a workers’ revolution.
Awards
Dear comrades,
the bosses are upset
the workers have not yet
found the will to down the swill
that they’d feed us.
You’d think the workers would be grateful
but they claim they’ve had a gutful
of the bosses crap.
Now what d’ya think of that.
Peter Reith would lay a wreath
on awards and our conditions
but if we fight to get what’s right
we’ll give those Liberals a bloody fright;
if we in solidarity unite
they’ll not control the workers’ might.
The world’s best judge
(when the Wharfies won in the High Court)
There’s a mighty judge from Queensland, he stands so straight and tall.
He’s judging for the Liberals. He’ll judge us one and all.
He’s judging for the farmers. He’ll judge for Peter Reith.
His judgements mightn’t make much sense, but for fascists they are sweet.
He is the finest judge we’ve had since judging was begun.
It’s a pity that the judgement went: Six – one, six – one.
He sold out the workers. He’s a bastard through and through.
By selling out the workers, he’s betraying me and you.
He’s been scabbing on the workers since his vengeful life begun.
It’s a pity that the judgement went: Six – one, six – one.
When he’s with his fellow judges he’s not having that much fun,
and I heard the High Court judgement went: Six – one , six – one.
He is on his lonesome, he’s got no friends down there;
but he’ll get an understanding of hatred and despair.
He’s lost all of his humanity, and forgotten his morality.
He’s been fine tuning his venality, demonstrating his hostility
by selling out the workers. He’s been siding with the shirkers.
He’s been having so much fun but, the judgement went six – one.
Once the Liberals give the orders he has a right to choose
just as long as he makes sure it’s the workers, who lose.
He’s been having so much fun. He thinks he’s got us on the run.
It’s a pity that the judgement went: Six – one, six – one.
It’s a pity that the judgement went: Six – one.
(with Penny Harrington)
Picket Line
Oh we’re relaxed and comfortable. Yes we’re doing fine.
We are relaxed and comfortable out on the picket line.
I know you said you’d govern, you’d govern for all of us,
we’d be relaxed and comfortable and there’d be no fuss.
Well we are relaxed and comfortable and so say all of us:
yes, we’re relaxed and comfortable we’re feeling mighty fine
we are relaxed and comfortable out on the picket line.
The rain might fall the wind might blow,
hard times come and hard times go,
there might be hail there might be snow,
but we’re relaxed and comfortable out on the picket line.
Cause in our hearts we’re smiling and we know we’ll see sunshine.
Yes we will see sunshine
at the ending this struggle when we lay our banners down,
we’ll be relaxed and comfortable, there’ll be no need to frown.
Because we stand together and together we will win.
We won’t scab or lie or cheat
so in the end you face defeat.
Together we will win.
We don’t need guard dogs, nor come in the dead of night
we struggle for each other and we try to do what’s right.
Oh we don’t need to lie and cheat, we don’t need to steal.
We try to tell it like it is, we try to make it real,
and in our trust of others we have forged a force of steel.
You might look in wonderment, you might smile and sneer
but the picket line is stronger now, the end is coming near.
We don’t lie to judges, we won’t lie to you
we don’t lie to each other, we will build a world anew.
We are relaxed and comfortable: I say we’re doing fine.
We are relaxed and comfortable out here on the picket line.
Standing shoulder to shoulder, supporting one another:\
brothers, sisters, children, wives, fathers, daughter, mother.
Yes, we are relaxed and comfortable out here we’re doing fine
yes, we are relaxed and comfortable out on the picket line.
Oh you can stick best practice, and you stick your hate.
We’re never voting for yer once we’re back inside the gate.
Press release
Today Ms Ima Mug the spokesperson for the anti-vice chancellor’s committee for furthering manageralism and economic bloody mindedness welcomed what she called “The magnificent offer by Mr. Dullard McGauchie of the National Farmers Federation to put Dubai trained soldiers into universities.”
Speaking at the University of the Surreal World, Ms Mug stressed the gratitude that anti-vice chancellors felt when they heard that the National Farmers Federation had finally turned their sights towards education after sorting out irresponsible elements on the wharfs. Ima Mug implied that back room negotiations had been under way for several months following the farmers sorting out radical shop assistants who had refused to work for the dole.
Mr Dullard McGauchie announced that “The National Farmers Federation had long cherished the hope that they would be called upon to sort out the long haired commie weirdos who infested universities. The bloody wharfies just held out for decent pay and conditions and refused to engage in unsafe work practices but teachers at universities are a far greater menace – they have to be eradicated.”
Mr McGauchie indicated that the National Farmers Federation had received unanimous support for their plans to take over the higher education sector. “We are going to have to start from the beginning, a lot of damage has been done already. Most of these ivory towered academics wouldn’t know how to castrate a bull, they spend too much time reading, they are just bloody inefficient. If they just had one or two books it wouldn’t be so bad. We are going to start by burning books and academics if they get in the way.” he said.
A tax circus
Roll up. Roll up
and see the show
all the taxes in a row.
Everything you’ll need to know
as they reap so shall they sow.
A tax on clothes – and books unread,
I wish they’d tax the rich instead.
Around Vaucluse, Toorak and Pymble
it’s some kind of status symbol.
Life is happy, life is gay,
tax avoidance here to stay.
Tax minimisation is a must
that’s why they use the family trust.
A GST to make us humble.
Where’s the pea?
Ah, there’s the thimble.
If Costello is such a clever dick
why does he need this three card trick?
Instead of ripping off our money,
Geez, I wish the clowns were funny.
Everyone’s a winner.
Oh yair?
Come in Spinner.
Roll up. Roll up
and see the show
GST has got to go.
Hey hey, ho ho,
GST has got to go.
What sort of practice?
World best practice so they say.
Wharfies working without pay.
While wharfies picket one more day
Patricks seeks another stay.
World best practice so they say
taking all the jobs away.
World best practice it is new
coming to a job near you.
World best practice made for you
coming soon to your job too.
Ain’t it super
In the past, so they say,
when bosses held sway:
a fair day’s work
for a fair day’s pay.
Now, if you’ve a job
you shut your gob.
Times are getting rough
you must make enough –
to pay yourself.
‘Cause if you don’t,
you’re surplus to demand;
and, what the heck,
you won’t command
your own pay cheque.
In times gone by
we used to rely:
on the company,
the community,
and, union solidarity –
a shared humanity.
Now it’s efficiency,
competitive economy,
and fundamentalist stupidity.
If we couldn’t get a start
we relied upon the State
for unemployment benefit,
for work,
and help in finding it.
But then came
transnational hegemony,
with its bitter legacy
of small government,
designed, you’ll find
by those with tiny mind.
The State just couldn’t wait
to wipe the slate,
to cut red tape,
and then to ape
the private sector,
with bonuses paid
to those who laid-
off fellow workers;
and called them shirkers;
and told how
the unemployed
faced dependency,
if they were shown
any leniency.
To remove compliancy
what we needed was:
social responsibility –
a code for tyranny;
where some would
do the work of three,
whilst others were
reduced to penury.
Low wage,
increased rent,
money spent,
forced to rely
on credit’s usury.
Departments combined,
unemployed maligned,
now just a super agency.
Does it offer security ?
No!!!!
Just: work for the dole.
Well bless my soul!!!
Who would have thought of it?
Whoever did had brains of shit.
GST
Tax reform so they say
will increase our pay
but we’ll pay through the nose;
so oppose – GST.
It’ll be easy come
and then easy goes
as we pay through the nose;
so oppose – GST.
When all has been said
we’re not fond of bread,
so the poor you will find
to get peace of mind,
eat caviar instead.
Tax reform so they say
will increase our pay
but we’ll pay through the nose;
so oppose – GST.
With the tax man your friend
where will it end,
when you’ve nothing to spend?
You might like to try
for pie in the sky
but you won’t want to die:
when that tax sets the pace
and funerals lack grace
so stay in the race.
It’ll be easy come
and then easy goes
as we pay through the nose;
so oppose – GST.
A fellow I met
took his dog to the vet,
though full of regret,
he can’t pay the bill yet.
I don’t want to bore ya
but when I saw my lawyer
he said, “This’ll annoy ya,
you’re over the hill
adding tax to your bill
gives me no thrill.”
Tax reform so they say
will increase our pay
but we’ll pay through the nose;
so oppose – GST.
It’ll be easy come
and then easy goes
as we pay through the nose;
so oppose – GST.
Rapping with Johnny Howard
Hand on my shoulder and called me son
I’d been working in his factory since eighty-one.
Stay out of the union, escape the award
and an employment contract is assured.
I work all day and half the night
trying to ensure I do things right.
Work harder, work smarter, work faster
if you want to avoid economic disaster.
The whole game now is efficiency
he wants me to do the work of three.
By the drive for profit he is haunted
I asked him what he really wanted
he said that what he wanted most
was for me to become father, son and ghost.
Drink the wine and eat the host
and you might become father, son and ghost.
A million people without work today,
we’ve lost our path, we’ve lost the way.
They want me to do the work of three
how can they call that efficiency?
So I’ll drink the wine and eat the host
father son and holy ghost.
Stock market tigers
There’s a rouble in the rubble
But the trouble with the bubble
is it’s burst.
I said to Renie Rivkin
it’s time to put the boot in,
the Hang Seng’s grown flaky
and the Nikkei’s looking shaky:
time to sell right now
before the Dow turns sour.
I had a bad case of the titters
when Wall Street got the jitters
with the Korean currency
looking pale and wan.
There’s a rouble in the rubble
But the trouble with the bubble
is it’s burst.
With the Phillipino peso in a mess
causing widespread horror and distress
exposing tiger markets in a state of near undress
there will be a lot of slipping
but there’ll be no skinny dipping
in the Thai Baht.
There’s a rouble in the rubble
But the trouble with the bubble
is it’s burst.
I rang old George Soros,
he said “Get one thing clear
you’re going to get a sore arse
holding on to the rupiah.
The crisis is real and it’s near,
Battalions at Dili and Bacau
are of little help to them now
spreading hate and fear
undermining the rupiah
and sometime this year
Suharto will disappear.”
There’s a rouble in the rubble
But the trouble with the bubble
is it’s burst.
Some things you can’t ignore
at every large chain store
on the fourteenth floor
opportunities abound.
Open windows can be found
so let the high flyers fly.
You can smile as they go by.
You’ll hear just a muffled cry,
until they hit the ground.
Though it isn’t free
there is a nominal fee
at the local cemetery
plots six foot by three –
all found.
There’s a rouble in the rubble
But the trouble with the bubble
is it’s burst,
and if someone doesn’t buy me one
I’m gonna die of thirst.
(with Pete Hancock)
The right to march
I went to a dinner
with old people
once rebels of the streets
who spoke of long forgotten battles
and of their individual feats.
There was rivalry and friends
some who paid too high a price,
some came to make amends.
Those who had always been with us
but who could not pay the price.
All heroes now the battles won
and who said they did not suffer
after all they’d given
all that they could offer.
As we looked into our hearts
recalling memories
of police batons crunching skulls
we rewrote our histories.
TV cameras whirled
there was footage unsurpassed
whilst some of us regretted
we could not video the past.
Unemployment isn’t working
They produced a paper green
to vent the bureaucratic spleen
meant to demean, it’s quite obscene.
We’ll grow strong.
Then produced a paper white
which gave the unemployed a fright,
markets all uptight, turned Labor right.
So come along.
The unemployed are verboten.
You will find the system’s rotten
with ill-gotten gains besotten,
sing our song.
If you think the system’s working
and the unemployed are shirking
you’ve been jerking on your gherkin
far too long.
My country right or wrong
Flying back from Auckland
I was filled with memories
of standing shoulder to shoulder
with comrades struggling for equity
for workers and workless.
Thoughts of being ejected
from the Sheraton Hotel
for telling delegates
at a government conference
that their government
was destroying their welfare system.
Wondering how the comrades were faring
as they tried again
to enter the Sheraton
as I sat looking down on a calm sea.
Reminiscing about yesterday
ensconced in a pub
after the first demo
and seeing it replayed
on the public bar TV.
Drinking stout with new friends:
an anarchist social worker,
a defrocked priest,
and unemployed activists.
Enjoying playing word games
until the alcohol
numbed our words and sensibilities.
Tomorrow it would be back to class
and telling students about our unemployment
and our government’s work for the dole.
I remembered the promise I made
to tell of their struggle in Auckland
and to fight work for the dole everywhere.
Then I looked down as we came in to land.
Flat Rock just off North Stradbroke
was below me and the sea was calm
a couple of lucky boats circled it.
The passage between Moreton and Stradbroke
was flat the breakers barely rippled.
The deep blue channel was outlined by the sandbanks
and I wondered why
it is never so calm when I am there.
The sun had just set
and in the absence of its reflection
I could make out the folds
of the sand banks on Rous Channel.
I peered at the shapes of the banks
I was amazed at the beauty.
Like the folds of a woman’s body
the white sand blended
with the green black sea grass
and ran off into purple areas
whose wonders I could only guess.
Chain gang
Work for the dole
well “Bless my soul”
what an interesting idea.
You would have thought
that someone ought
to have thought
of that before this year.
Didn’t they try to do it in 1929?
Wasn’t it then the susso scheme?
When men had to leave their families
to go the great outback?
It was the stamp of feet
on the dusty street,
which ensured that they would eat.
The Susso was what it was called
and civilised folks were quite appalled
that men were forced from town to town,
with a swag on their back
and an old corn sack,
as they headed for the great outback.
They have a scheme just like it
for those who are born black;
they work from home,
aren’t forced to roam,
’cause they live in the great outback.
Of course we only pay a pittance,
a charitable remittance,
but what do you expect in the country
when you live so far from town.
The one good thing I have to say
is the Government has promised it will pay
three dollars an hour for a twenty hour week.
Now that’s the going rate.
Dole bludgers don’t be late!!!
It will only apply to the young,
and of course the rural poor,
and the rundown areas of cities
where unemployment is a running sore.
(with Penny Harrington)
Singing for your supper
(John Howard’s idea of cutting the dole for young people who have difficulty reading and writing)
I’ll tell you something, here’s the thing,
the little buggers will not sing.
We’re resurrecting rock and roll
as an alternative to the dole:
but some of them are of tune bereft
some even claim to be tone deaf.
To accept full dole in such condition,
when they’re unfit for full rendition,
fails to meet their obligation
they’re making claims above their station.
The only thing that I can do
is cut their bloody dole in two.
Mutual obligation
I am mutually obligated in fact I am mutually beside myself; in fact I am of two minds about being mutually obligated so I suppose that makes me doubly mutually obligated. In fact I am so f…..g obligated I don’t have time to be mutual with anyone other than myself; so the obligation is hardly mutual, except of course with myself. Yet in being obligated to myself this helps me promote my mutual appreciation of myself but because I am the beneficiary of that self-congratulatory society it causes me to be mutually obligated to myself. I hope you get my drift.
Judge Derek Bollen said: “There was not sufficient battering.”
I thought he was talking
about a piece of fish and chips,
but he was handing down a sentence
totally lacking sense.
He acknowledged she’d been bashed
over many years
but horror, she fought back
and shed insufficient tears.
Finally she killed him
as he struck her once too often.
This old South Australian judge
will not be forgotten.
He’s out of touch and out of time
too often in the news
I wish he had the sense to disappear
with his patriarchal views.
RU486?
Wipe that tear from your shuttered eye
and explain to me why women die
in hundreds of thousands every year
from unhygienic abortionists who rip and tear.
The French have discovered an abortion pill
that could end women’s indignity, if we will
allow common sense to rule the day
and prejudiced ignorance to fade away.
You didn’t say no when she offered sex
so why R U opposed to 486?
Now I say to the Right to Life
make backyard abortionists put down their knife
and end the futility,
use French ingenuity
please show some humanity.
Whose sin?
“Baby in a wheely bin” the headlines scream.
Can this be every mother’s dream?
Calls for the mother to be charged
the state’s responsibility discharged?
Prosecutor or persecutor?
Who cares, just get her.
She’s in the dock and cameras whirl,
no way to treat a baby girl,
families at home get a titillating thrill
doctors say the mother’s ill
was the baby dead or did she mean to kill?
With her limited intelligence she’s wondering still.
In her confusion after birth and bed all red
did she think the child was dead?
Could this be so?
We’ll never know.
But the courts pretend
in the message that they send
to T V land and suburban bliss,
so rush upstairs give your child a kiss
enforce the fact you’re not so remiss
that you’d commit this kind of sin
besides there’s no room in your wheely bin.
Salamander Vanstone
Oh when those students riot
and call you obscene names
with a bit of luck
and cut and tuck
we’ll beat them at their games.
Salamander Vanstone
I know just how you feel
it goes to show
they wouldn’t know
a salamander from an eel.
They shouldn’t need a pension,
education or Medicare;
if they’d only save
or go to the grave
then we’d have cash to spare.
When it comes your turn
to slash and burn
then cut the dole
and put up HECS
they don’t need the bloody cheques.
I heard them say the other day
you’re one apart, without a heart.
Salamander it’s not true
you’re a battler, true blue.
Are you the Aussie battler
John Howard tries to please?
It’s a pity though he had to bring
the country to its knees.
The poverty expert
He’s world renown
from out of town
he’s an expert –
through and through,
you’ve got to come and listen
he’ll tell you what to do.
Or is it just that he is on hand,
just happens that he’s in our land
and he doesn’t really understand?
Is it that we’d rather be listening
to a message smooth and glistening
from which truth has to be prized
homogenised and sanitised;
than hear the woman next door
she knows what it’s like to be poor?
But she’s a local, country yokel
lacking an academic analysis
so come and hear the expert
you can always boo and hiss.
Thanks for nothing
(The 1996 Budget)
The frost lies heavily on the lawns of the Lodge
the morning after the Budget is brought down.
The ABC drones on attempting to achieve balance
by broadcasting the cliched statements of experts.
Economic rationalists and market screen jockeys
are counterpoised with welfare spokespersons.
A Democrat here and a Green there – side with Labor,
then juxtaposed with Prue Goward and Government Ministers.
The anger of students, the despair of Aborigines
and the fear felt by the unemployed was covered last week.
Criticism is muted and considered
the sense of outrage and betrayal passed over.
The Aussie battler left home hours ago looking for work,
those lucky enough to have a job are stuck in a traffic jam.
Johnny Howard says he kept his promises
and nobody calls him a liar.
He says that Kim Beasley is impersonating Chicken Little
and might as well claim the sky is falling.
Howard had better hope the sky is falling
it is the only way he is ever going to touch it.
The war on people who use drugs
If a peasant grows it,
it is bad.
If a multinational makes it,
it is good.
If rich person smokes it,
it is sad.
If a poor person snorts it,
it is bad.
Climbing the lowest mountain
I can look John Elliot in the eye,
shake the hand of Christopher Scase,
discuss the environment with George Quade
or marinas with Keith Williams,
and try to find time to visit Bondie in Prison.
I spoke with Charles about the sanctity of marriage
and with the Queen about his courage.
I avoid the unemployed
and refuse to face the poor,
don’t go near nursing homes
stay away from Medicare offices,
and students I just abhor
because they claim my policies
have been dredged from times of yore.
Independence
They gave me food, they taught me.
They cared for me, they clothed me.
but now I’m going to leave it all behind
and all I’ll recall is the hospital wall,
the wall that was looking back at me.
I’m leaving the home, going out on my own
to the place where I want to be.
Yes, I’m leaving the home, and I’ll be on my own
in the place where I’m going to stay.
I’ll get some things right and I’ll get some things wrong
but I’ll do it all in my kind of way.
Yes I’ll get some things right and I’ll get some things wrong.
But I’ll learn and each day I’ll grow strong.
Sometimes
Sometimes I see the moon
sometimes blinded by the sun,
sometimes I am the priest
and at times I’m the nun.
Sometimes I speak for freedom
sometimes the power of one,
sometimes I am the father
and sometimes I’m the son.
Sometimes I march for liberty
sometimes for human dignity,
sometimes in solidarity:
sometimes I struggle just for me.
Sometimes I march in jubilation,
then at times in exhaltation,
other times in desperation.
Sometimes wise and sometimes brave,
sometimes master, sometimes slave,
sometimes proud and sometimes sane,
sometimes in grief, sometimes in pain;
sometimes vehement but then again
sometimes just in silent refrain.
Sometimes bearing moral witness,
other times in deep distress.
Sometimes easy, sometimes hard:
sometimes glad, sometimes sad –
sometimes.
A soldier’s death
We changed you from a bastard to a hero.
We turned you from a mongrel to a man.
The colours of your country lie upon you
and I hope to god that your god understands.
When you swaggered round the house yelling curses,
when you staggered and your knuckles broke the wall,
when the children cowered in tears
because you’d had too many beers,
I cursed and sometimes wished that you were dead.
But the TV says that you were martyred,
that you fought the brave fight until the end.
Then who are we to question such pronouncements
when the breaking news, is indeed, a godsend.
Freedom for all
Freedom’s just an empty word
if it just means you and me,
we’ve got to fight for everyone
for all humanity.
To wage a daily struggle
for human dignity,
for love and care and all that’s fair
and to abolish poverty.
But if we look around us we see a world in trouble,
the solutions being offered could reduce us all to rubble.
Armies crushing aspirations with gun and bomb and knives
delivering devastation, tanks crushing human lives.
People forced from homelands, seeing men and women cry,
watching emaciated children grimace and then die.
Seeing rich men playing polo, observing women wearing furs
with embroidered bathrobes, their towels read his and hers.
The rich are getting richer, the poor remaining poor
the worker daily struggling asks what are we working for?
Chorus:
We need to build a world anew, a world that’s just and fair
excluding no-one, and making sure that everyone gets a share.
That people from all nations, from every race and creed
can have their say and play their part and no-one’s left in need.
We’ll struggle. We’ll need everyone helping to build this world anew.
There’ll be a time to sit in the sun, there’ll be “bread and roses too”.
You might come from Guatemala or a squat in old Cape Town,
or hail from outer Sydney we won’t let you down.
Join the international struggle for each and everyone.
Join the common acclamation, share the laughter and the fun.
Chorus:
The struggle’s international the fight’s within ourself
foregoing greed for those in need and sharing all our wealth.
We can’t afford your armies we can’t afford your greed:
just food, health and education for everyone in need.
There’s plenty in this world of ours if we could just learn to care
the contribution we are asking is for you to learn to share.
Law enforcement
A rope
a noose
a cattle prod
a baton
a gun
a burning church
a bomb
a guillotine
a gas chamber
or electric chair
– there is always a white man at the other end.
Airport
I go to the airport
and look at the faces
and wonder what places
they’ve been.
There are people arriving
and others departing
the scene.
On each face a story which will only be told to their friend.
Others are tired, they wish that their travel would end.
There are mothers and children and prams and kids bikes,
lovers and friends, there are gays and there’s dykes
fathers and golf clubs and a bloke in a wheel chair.
There are brunettes and blonds and a chap with no hair.
There is grandma and grandpa, they’ve never travelled so far.
There are Japanese tour groups and Christian Armenians,
German backpackers and Moslem Romanians.
There are business folk too who are quite well to do
even though they look a bit bored.
Excitement in the eyes of a young woman going abroad
her mother is smiling, her father is doubtful;
a young man wonders if she will stay faithful
he is looking downcast – feeling an outcast
his girlfriend is going abroad.
Tour guides with clipboards, young chaps with surf boards,
a man rests his swag on the ground,
the hostesses all scurrying round.
Then through the crowd a tall man appears
he’s wearing a cap that just hides his ears;
a pilot? or navigator, part of the flight crew,
reassuring smile, seems he knows what to do
to the urinal which is flooded in the men’s loo.
Over the speaker the message comes through
flight TN35 is delayed for hour;
it seems that in Sydney one engine lost power.
Now the plane has landed that I’m waiting for
and you can see people coming out of the door
they are walking on ramps that are raised in the sky
that’s what you have to do if you’re wanting to fly.
I’m looking at faces and wondering what places they’ve been
I’m looking for faces I’ll recognise once that I’ve seen.
One Nation Queensland MP says foreigners,
not the Port Arthur massacre, led to the gun buy back
It’s with a sense of consternation
that we set out to tell the nation
that in a corner of a foreign field
is where it all began –
where they scheme and plan.
They have set out to destroy
to take away our pride and joy
to take away the farmer’s guns
and take them too –
from farmer’s sons.
Foreigners causing agitation
spreading lies and fabrication.
It’s them what causes hate
who would our patriotism – desecrate.
Strayans turn away from temptation
you must thank God
for Pauline,
and One Nation.
Collateral damage in Kosova
You shell my land and blood runs red.
You rape and rob while I lie dead.
You bomb the home my mother fled,
past children’s bodies and refugees unfed.
You claim my land. History, you said
insists it’s yours. We cower in dread.
NATO bombs and strafes and calls me friend
invoking freedom’s name. When will this madness end?
The gun debate
I sit in the sun
and talk to my gun.
Tra lum, tra lum.
It’s so much fun
to sit in the sun
and talk to my gun.
Tra lum, tra lum.
It’s so much fun
to think of my mum
as I sit in the sun
and talk to my gun.
Tra lum, tra lum.
It’s so much fun
to think of my mum
as I sit in the sun
and talk to my gun.
I don’t have to talk to any one.
Tra lum, tra lum.
John Howard’s safety, security and stability
Safety is the catch on a 38 magnum.
Security is the hole it makes.
Stability is what you get
and death is all it takes.
In search of ideological impurity
Hounded by running dogs,
chased by capitalist roaders,
pursued by Coca-cola communists,
ever wary of paper tigers –
I flee into the dark recesses of my own mind.
Tormented by images of Howard’s
greatest share-owning democracy
and Tim Fischer’s
stereotypical family –
I sneak away.
Only to find Harradine’s
right to lifers want to kill me
yet would deny me voluntary euthanasia.
Unable to reconcile myself
to a reconciliation process
which bridges Hindmarsh,
mines Jabiluka,
attacks indigenous beliefs,
ensures Blacks die young, and
disproportionately jails Aborigines –
I take refuge in rejection and revolt.
I will stand alongside
the alienated youth of inner cities,
the poor of the sprawling suburbs,
the aged neglected in dilapidated nursing homes,
the prisoner in solitary confinement,
the mentally ill who’ve been decarcerated,
those with intellectual disability who been marginalised,
the recently arrived migrant without financial security,
the rejected refugee attempting to stay deportation,
the unemployed who pay the real price of economic efficiency,
in fact, all the victims of neglect and repression in my country.
Then maybe on the 100th anniversary of the signing
of the International Treaty of Human Rights
all will have the right to –
eat enough to maintain health,
have enough work to give meaning,
be educated,
live without fear of attack,
be free to assemble, and
be free to think –
even to think those thoughts
the State would prefer would never occur to us.
Political prisoner
You can take me prisoner, you can stand in court and lie,
but you will never silence me until the day I die.
You can brutalise me, or, come to think of it,
try to disappear me in a quick lime pit.
I don’t want to lie in an unmarked grave;
I’d prefer my ashes were, scattered on the wave;
then like pollen blowing on a westerly wind
help to remind the world of the freedom we defend.
Sailor you can join me and there, become my friend.
The depth of skin
Racism is only skin deep
yet it has appeal.
It makes you feel
superior!!!!!
Enabling you to look down upon people who are
inferior!!!!!!
It gives a sense of relief,
disguising what’s true,
beggaring belief
when you find
someone more insignificant than you.
Racism is discovery,
with its very own form of recovery;
to find,
after tireless years of searching
someone down there perching
lower on the totem pole.
So pull on the white sheet.
Make the hood look neat.
March out upon the street
and join with kindred souls.
At first you may not like them;
rough, uncouth,
but they are your own reflection
and they have a fair complexion.
In the light of a burning cross
you may find your sense of loss
will explain your new found friendships
helping you to endure the hardships
of the endless search of your interior.
You’ve found at last, your own inferior.
No cost speech
You say we must be free to speak our mind
that what you say harms no-one,
your tone of voice is gentle, soft and kind
yet there is an edge
you sound just like a Hansonesque tattler
seeking to impress the little Aussie battler.
I’m sorry John to tell you this,
I regret what I have to say
you are going to have to find another hero,
John you are going to have to wait another day.
I know you’ve played the racist card,
you played it strong and well in 88
you laid it out for all to see
but you were damned to hell:
a bitter memory.
Your racism is now much cleverer,
John I know you would impress
Pauline of Ipswich with her tight lips.
What you don’t understand John is that,
she is not your Joan of Arc,
nor your Helen of Troy;
hers is not the face that launched a thousand ships.
Pauline batters bream, and serves up greasy chips.
Lorenzo Ervin
Lorenzo don’t be surprised that,
we wanted to deport you for highjacking a plane to Cuba in the 1960s
when you were on the run from the FBI which wanted to kill you.
What did you expect from a white power clique
which invaded a country,
raped the women,
stole 100,000 indigenous children,
and incarcerated the men in jails or institutions.
What did you expect from a white power clique
which is planning to legislate away
any remaining property rights on pastoral leases
which indigenous people have retained
throughout the last 210 years of the race war.
What did you expect from a white power clique
once Pauline of Ipswich had spoken.
If you were surprised then it is no fault of ours
after all, you, as a member of the Black Panthers,
had an obligation to realise that you yourself are,
dare I say it,
Black!!!
Talking shit causes whiplash
News flash
journos dash:
One Nation’s greatest.
Pauline’s latest.
News splash.
Whip lash.
Witness found
safe and sound.
“It appears
she’s in arrears.
She tried,”
he cried,
“to pull her tongue
out of her arse.”
Charles Rappolt demonstrates he’s at the cutting edge of political technology –
showing One Nation the way
If one One Nation should slip from his steeple
there’d be ten One Nations up against the people,
then if another One Nation should accidentally fall,
there’d be nine One Nations up against the wall.
Exam Paper – Ethnic Cleansing 1
Question 1
Explain the usefulness or otherwise of Palmolive detergent in Ethnic Cleansing. Has Unilever been behind ethnic cleansing throughout history?
Question 2
If you came across a field in which a hundred people were buried up to their shoulders but with their torso, arms and legs exposed would this be an example of Pauline Hanson’s supporters attempting to bury their brain dead or just trying to cover up their intellectual deficits? Discuss.
Question 3
Explain why flat earth theories are making a comeback in Queensland? What should happen to people who believe the earth is round? What happens to people who fall off the end of the earth?
Question 4
How does battering Bream expand your political education? Is there a career after fish mongering? Was it Malcolm Fraser who said “Life wasn’t meant to be greasy.”?
Question 5
If the ideologically correct were placed end to end would this be obscene?
Question 6
Should the concept of Terra Nullius, meaning an empty land or a land where people have no system of law, be the basis on which we seek to delegitimise indigenous Australians’ claims to prior ownership of land or should we just ignore them?
Question 7
Relying principally on Pauline Hanson’s autobiographical account of same sex adventures entitled I’m Kampf explain what causes homophobia.
Question 8
Review Pauline Hanson’ s Guide to Budgeting: How to survive on a parliamentarian’s salary. Explain why poor people, if they are not managing, should be put down.
Question 9
Explain how migrants cause Xenophobia.
Question 10
The One Nation Party supports both corporal and capital punishment. Demonstrate, using your own children, the major difference between these two policies.
As Pauline is marking all exam questions go back to your previous ten questions and indicate in red ink where you gave incorrect answers.
Copyright © 2024 John Tomlinson