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Issue No. 264 | 20 May 2005 |
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Conviction Politics
Interview: Fortress NSW Unions: Fashions Afield Industrial: Pay Dirt Politics: Infrastructure Blues History: Big Day Out International: Making History Economics: The Fear Factor Review: The Robots Revolt Poetry: The Corporation's Power
The Soapbox The Locker Room Parliament
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Tool Shed Who’s The Boss?
***** Ah, poor old Dollar Sweetie can't seem to take a trick these days. First of all, the only person to take up his policy of staying on in the workforce after retirement age is the one bloke he was hoping would retire. Next, he is telling us that the best way to help the disadvantaged amongst us is to give them less money. Then he comes out of the closet and claims he is the definitive working class man. Despite the fact that most people would answer 'none of the above' to the Smirkin' Mirkin's claim to be either a worker, classy or manly the good people down at the ABC decided to humour him with a bit of intro music earlier this week. To the strains of Jimmy Barnes' 'Working Class Man' the potato with a comb over took his place behind the microphone. "I love The Boss," declared Pete in his newfound role as the Working Class Hero on $200,200 a year plus benefits. Unfortunately it wasn't The Boss. The Boss, as any working class man knows, is Bruce Springsteen - an American songwriter noted for his bittersweet observations of the sort of life you don't often find in the leafy inner-eastern suburbs that old mate Costello hails from. Jimmy Barnes, a singer who hails from Adelaide's Northern Suburbs - from Elizabeth, was performing the song. Elizabeth is a place that also bears little resemblance to the leafy suburbs of inner eastern Melbourne. It's the home of a big Holden plant, the Central Districts footy club, and a lot of people that didn't spend their younger years prosecuting confectionary factory workers for sticking by their mates. They actually spent a lot of their years working. And when they aren't working they're defamed by the likes of our Tool Of the Week for being lazy bludgers. Costello wouldn't be able to find his arse from his elbow without these people building, fixing, cleaning and doing the millions of jobs that actually serve some use in this country. Bible bashing bludgers from comfortable private-school backgrounds who are born with a complete silver service shoved down their gob are probably best advised not to swan around the country handing people six dollar tax cuts or a kick in the guts and then declare that they're just an ordinary Joe and working class like you and I. At best, it makes you look like a Tool. The sad reality is that Costello wouldn't know the working class if he tripped over one. Which he wanted to do at Blacktown earlier in the week, but unfortunately his minders created an invitation only affair to protect him from getting lynched. It's not very edifying to see a man who has devoted his life to denying the existence of the working class try and pretend he are one. Perhaps all this waiting and waiting to be Prime Minister is beginning to unhinge him - further. No doubt we can expect him to embrace further the theoretical nature of the Working Class. We await his contribution with his theory of Diabolical Hysterical Materialism. "From each according to their ability. To me and my rich mates according to what we bloody well want."
Nominate a Tool!
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