The Big Crock Candy Morrison: Richard O'Brien in response to Scott Morrison's 'gush up gospel'

cartoon by Fiona Katauskas.

Nice work by Richard O'Brien who has written the poem below (see here), in response to ridiculous claims by Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison that increasing the goods and services tax (GST) to 15% while slashing the company tax rate to just 22%, would stimulate economic growth and benefit the poor, the vulnerable and marginalised.

Ah the trickle down theory of economic policy. Make the poor poorer and the rich richer so that some of that money the rich make trickle back to the poor. Yeah that has worked so well for the poor and those who live precarious lives!!

Arundhati Roy calls it the 'gush up gospel' of economic policy:

"Well, trickle down hasn't worked, but gush up has"


Big Crock Candy Morrison
by Richard O'Brien

In the Big Crock Candy Morrison
There's a land that's so far right
That the handouts go to companies
While tax evasion's rife

Where the schools are underfunded
And healthcare gets the chop
 While penalty rates
Have hit the breaks
As the government
Butters up their mates
In the Big Crock Candy Morrison

In the Big Crock Candy Morrison
You'll pay more GST
While major multinationals
Will largely go tax free

Where wage growth's at its lowest
In over 50 years
While worker's rights
Are in their sights
And it all comes down
To a bunch of clowns

In the Big Crock Candy Morrison
In the Big Crock Candy Morrison
The jails are made of tin
And rich folk don't walk outta there
Cos they never go in

There ain't no plans to crack down
On wealthy Super scams
 I'm bound to stay
You'll get screwed all day
By an overpaid jerk
Who does fuck all work
In the Big Crock Candy Morrison -

Arundhati Roy on a democractically elected totalitarian Indian Government

Interview here with Arundhati Roy on the result of the recent Indian elections, which resulted in the election of Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi. 

Arundhati Roy argues that India has an elected totalitarian Government:

“Now, we have a democratically elected totalitarian government. Technically and legally, there is no party with enough seats to constitute an opposition. But many of us have maintained for several years that there never was a real opposition. The two main parties agreed on most policies, and each had the skeleton of a mass pogrom against a minority community in its cupboard. So now, it’s all out in the open. The system lies exposed.”

As Barbara Crosette writes in The Nation, Modi's political origins are in the radical fringes of a Hindu nationalist party unashamedly influenced by 1930s European fascism, complete with theories of a master race. Crosette  argues that Modi's election presents India with its greatest political challenge since the nation was formed in 1947.

Arundhati Roy sees that the Modi Government is beholden to the mining and resource companies who bankrolled his campaign. She believes he will hand over land to the mining and infrastructure corporations and attempt to crush those resisting the forcible takeover of their land:

“The contracts are all signed and the companies have been waiting for years. He has been chosen as the man who does not blink in the face of bloodshed, not just Muslim bloodshed but any bloodshed.”

In her view India's chosen economic development model has a genocidal core

“How have the other ‘developed’ countries progressed? Through wars and by colonising and usurping the resources of other countries and societies. India has no option but to colonise itself............ Bloodshed is inherent to this model of development. There are already thousands of people in jails. But that is not enough any longer. The resistance has to be crushed and eradicated. Big money now needs the man who can walk the last mile. That is why big industry poured millions into Modi’s election campaign.”

An interview with Arundhati Roy about the dark forces underlying the Indian election is here.

Arundhati Roy : Imagining a World Beyond Capitalism and Communism

"The dilemma for the writer, I think, is how to spend your life honing your individual voice and then, at times like this, to declare it from the heart of a crowd. That tension, that balance, is something I think about quite often"
Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy is one of India's most articulate and high profile radical intellectuals and political dissidents.

She is a profound thinker, a writer of immense power and a political activist with great courage.

She challenges not just the Indian state’s political, economic and military policy, but also religious and right wing groups, mining and financial corporations and the other  barons of corporate capitalism and big business.

In her recent writings  Arundhati Roy reminds us of India's long, complicated and strong legacy of political and intellectual left-wing activity and the need for spaces, places and communities free from capitalist exploitation and destruction.

"The day capitalism is forced to tolerate non-capitalist societies in its midst and to acknowledge limits in its quest for domination, the day it is forced to recognize that its supply of raw material will not be endless, is the day when change will come.

If there is any hope for the world at all, it does not live in climate-change conference rooms or in cities with tall buildings. It lives low down on the ground, with its arms around the people who go to battle every day to protect their forests, their mountains and their rivers because they know that the forests, the mountains and the rivers protect them

The first step toward re-imagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination – an imagination that is outside of capitalism as well as communism. An imagination which has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfillment.

To gain this philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for the survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past but who may really be the guides to our future. To do this, we have to ask our rulers: Can you leave the waters in the rivers, the trees in the forest? Can you leave the bauxite in the mountain? If they say they cannot, then perhaps they should stop preaching morality to the victims of their wars"

The Liberal press and Arundhati Roy

  Photograph: Tom Pietrasik courtesy of the Guardian

"The nation state is such a cunning instrument in the hands of capitalism now. You have a democracy that strengthens the idea of the nation as a marketplace."
Arundhati Roy

The Guardian has this typically "liberal press" piece on the Indian writer, activist and radical Arundhati Roy which supposedly celebrates her political radicalism, but actually patronizes and trivializes her.

Why do journalists who write for "liberal newspapers" find it so difficult to engage with those who propose radical ideas and who shine the light on the brutality of imperial war and/or the excesses of corporate and political elites.

Instead of engaging seriously with the issues, liberal journalists too often display their mistrust and suspicion of radical thinkers and their ideas by falling back on all the rhetorical devices of supposedly objective journalism.

Here's Chris Hedges from his book The Death of the Liberal Class.

"The liberal class's disposal of its most independent and courageous members has long been part of its pathology"

Arundhati Roy: a voice against the tyranny of corporate capitalism and empire

In her latest piece in the New Statesman, the Indian writer, novelist and political activist Arundhati Roy writes about contemporary India, but what she says about capitalism applies equally to this country:

"The day capitalism is forced to tolerate non-capitalist societies in its midst and to acknowledge limits in its quest for domination, the day it is forced to recognise that its supply of raw material will not be endless, is the day when change will come. If there is any hope for the world at all, it does not live in climate-change conference rooms or in cities with tall buildings. It lives low down on the ground, with its arms around the people who go to battle every day to protect their forests, their mountains and their rivers, because they know that the forests, the mountains and the rivers protect them.

The first step towards reimagining a world that has now gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination - an imagination that is outside of capitalism as well as communism, an imagination that has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfilment. To gain this philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for the survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past, but who may really be the guides to our future. To do this, we have to ask our rulers: Can you leave the water in the rivers? The trees in the forest? Can you leave the bauxite in the mountain? If they say they cannot, then perhaps they should stop preaching morality to the victims of their wars". 

Arundhati Roy is the author of "The God of Small Things", which won the 1997 Booker Prize. Her most recent book is "Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy" (Hamish Hamilton, £14.99)