Freedom.

When he spoke the words opposite the author must have had high hopes. Today, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the use of “Terrorism” to put fear into people, the open threats to Russia by the Americans building missile bases and ever more powerful government it is reasonable to cry “Liberty Where are you?” Government has thrust its nose into every part of our lives. Britain, one of the most advanced countries for civil liberty has, under a Thatcher look alike called Blair, invoked some of the most draconian legislation ever produced - against its own citizens. Whatever happened to the Monarch? What has happened to the English speaking world?
The Americans have thrown out the ever lauded Bill Of Rights. Policemen shoot whoever gets in their way, poverty is rife and a person illegally in the office of president laughs all the way to the banks of his cronies. There is Guantanamo in violation of all that is human and the CIA, trained originally by Gestapo officers, has secret (from the people not the peoples governments) prisons around the world.
Capitalism is proving it is a greater and more terrible master than ever communism was. At least with communism you knew your enemy was the state. With capitalism its not only the state but every rabbiting little News Corp paper that pushes its own barrow to the enhancement of its profits and to hell with the welfare and freedom of the people.
In our own country the prospective national leader has a unionist thrown out of the “labor” party because he used unapproved tactics to get wage rises. What the hell does he think happens at board meetings? Perhaps he thinks they discuss, like gentlemen, the “poor” tactics and productivity of their workers and how to give them more wages!
The environmental lobby is blaming everyone for what they perceive to be the state of the planet. They object to the normal activities of the people in simply going about their daily lives. “How dare you use electricity or water or anything else for that matter, look at the waste.” These intellectual morons have created such a climate of fear among people that even the capitalists have jumped on the bandwagon. More profits! Look how good we are! We don’t like Global Warming. We shall have to charge more! The environmental lobby is all cant. They have investigated no further than their noses. The root cause of the problems lie in the land question. And whilst they do nothing to alter this basic violation of humanity they will only be playing into the hands of the profiteers they hate so much. Global Warming is a natural phenomena, there may be things we can do to counteract it. Those things have nothing to do with screwing the people into the ground. The saddest part is that whilst these “environmentalists” are socialist in thought, their actions will harm the poorer people in the community not the wealthier. This is typical of the socialist breed. They should remember that it is poverty that is the enemy. Creating poverty is so much a socialist event, they must have copied it from capitalism. The plan should be to make everyone wealthy. So where are we being led to? The propaganda says that Putins Russia is bad. Have you looked at Australia lately?
The theme of this paper is “Freedom, the only end.” Georges’ theme all those years ago was “Liberty shall we not trust her?” What is being presented to us is anything but freedom or liberty. Power play and corruption are everywhere - you and I are the pawns. Let’s put a stop to it.

We Work For Wages

Work, a four letter word in the English language, is with us for most, if not all, of our lives. If you want to eat you need to work to get “money” so that you can purchase the food. If you want clothes you need to work so that you can get “money” so you can purchase the clothes. If you want a roof over your head, in the form of a house, you can rent one with the “money” you earn when you work. If you want to buy that, or any other, house, you hock your living for a third of your lifetime to afford the mortgage. When you have paid the mortgage, through working, you will own the house, not before. The “money” you earn is of course your wages. Whilst a few people may get income from sources other than wages, this for the majority is the only source of income.
Even the most primitive of men had to work for a living. Whether you hunted for meat, fished or grew crops, all entailed work which resulted in a wage. Of course the primitive man received his wages in the form of what he pursued. The hunter meat, which could be traded for fish and veggies, the fisherman made his own boat, ate fish and traded with the hunter for the skins to make clothes, so with the farmer’s crops. In its simpler forms it is easy to see that what man works for, his wealth is his wages. And all that he earns is his wages. His capital equipment is minimal, consisting of bow and arrows or a lance, a line for the fisherman which he made himself and his one man boat which he also made himself. The farmer needs seed and most likely collected it himself and sewed and cared for the crops which were his wages.
Today we even things out by using “money” to measure the value of everything including our work. It is quite easy to exchange the “money” we earn for those commodities we wish to purchase.
Wages are what we work for. Whether your job is collecting garbage, serving in a restaurant, driving a train, bricklaying, running a large company or being a public servant, the objective is wages. The higher the wages the better off we are in what we can afford for food, clothing, and shelter, and the other things, purchasable, with those wages. Any effort to reduce wages, the general ploy of Employers Associations and Chambers of Commerce, (Trades Unions by another name) can only have limited effect. That is, unless there is a pool of labour, called the unemployed, from which to draw. (This makes current government figures somewhat suspect.) For when there is a demand for labour that exceeds the supply wages will always rise until the demand is met.
In a society, like ours, which is rich in Capital (stored up labour) the production processes are simplified. Machines do much of the hard work. We no longer dig ditches by hand, ride the plough behind a horse, or row the boat out to sea to catch fish. It is all mechanised. But we still need wages. Trades Unions are formed to get the highest wages for their members and as such employ people with the knowledge to tackle the bigger employers who in turn use lawyers and politicians to achieve their ends. It is worth remembering that the employer himself also works for wages. And whilst his income may come from other sources, (these may be from rent for land or interest on capital) he too is a labourer for wages. So anything which reduces, or tends to reduce, wages is something that acts against the whole of society. Such things as the Good and Services Tax (GST), Income tax, Excise Duties, Tariffs, are all means of controlling where wages are spent, and have to be adjusted to account for these impositions. It is perhaps a little recognised feature of our taxation system that the poorer you are (less wages) the greater the impact of taxation upon you. The greater your income, from wages and other sources, the greater the opportunity for writing off “expenses” in getting that income and therefore reducing the tax burden. This is not to be condemned. It shows the injustice of the system. It favours some and damns others. A GST bears heavily on those with the least wages and favours those on the greater income. There is something wrong with the whole system of taxation because it relies upon people working and getting wages and then penalises them for that work.
Working for wages is an honourable way of earning a living. We may remember that there are three great orders of society; Workingmen, Beggarmen, and Thieves.