You Weren't Allowed To Think

*

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

September 1, 1939 WH Auden

That was it, the crumbled ashes, cruelty discarded, an astonishingly selfish generation, self obsessed, indifferent, a callow and dishonest decade, the phrase keeps going through his head. I love you, the alcoholic shouted at the aboriginal woman, her face puffy and distressed, as drunk no doubt as he was. I LOVE YOU, he shouted at her again as they stumbled down the road. All around them the office workers, the cars, the traffic, the polluted air. I - LOVE - YOU he shouted again, giving each word great emphasis. They stumbled down the road together. They must have been on the sting; metholated spirits and orange juice. You can't get that drunk in the pubs these days, it's illegal.

He turned to watch. A face out of the crowd. Another condoning or condemning glare, filtered through so much chaos, their failure, their dark lives, their journey into hell. He had interviewed so many of them. I can't stop, the battered woman said, tears flowing down her face. Have you ever thought of going to detox? he asked; and she looked up at him knowingly; a glimmer of a different person from a long time ago, a gloomy self awareness. They don't work for me, she said. He felt comfortable in his own skin, and so unusual was this he felt disoriented as a result, unsure of who he was. Where did all the angst go? Did it disappear with his teeth? Was there no solution?

She peered at him through her puffy eyes, there in Belmore Park where he always assumed he would die, a chronic alcoholic, the ambulance crying through the streets as his spirit departed, up up into the skyscrapers, past the drones in their offices, past the bastards in management, past the air conditioning ducts on the ceilings. Maybe you should try again, he said, they work for all sorts of people. I know it's a bastard, he said, but what's the choice? She looked at him, she looked at the flagon, about a fifth still left, and said, clear and lucid as any professional: I've made my choice. And then she started crying again.

So he thought of that other woman, who he never saw again, as he turned to watch the pair in the street, the man bellowing as he moon walked: I-LOVE-YOU. And he thought of all the other couples he saw every day, drizzling down from the Housing Commission blocks, waiting outside the doctor's surgery, scheming and scamming and yelling at each other. These were the dross days of loose ends and unconnected thoughts. These were the days when he repeated often: I wish the day was over. When he felt tired for no accountable reason and the constant pain finally ate his soul.

When all was lost and the barren artifices of the lift, the crowds crushing in, each individual trying to ignore everyone else, the silent lawyers, the gifted typists, the scrabbly creatives and the advertising types, all crushed into a common destiny while the city swirled around them. All the news was full of an impending depression. Lost jobs, lost opportunities. Your job is not safe, the Prime Minister warned. Lapping up his own luxury, defending the indefensible, chief bureaucrat atop a pointless pile of paper shufflers.

Down here in the real world, each day was a chore. The periodic flashes of exhilaration he had always known, those gifts from the universe, the savage bliss, all of it floated away as he turned to stare. I-LOVE-YOU the man shouted yet again, bellowed like an old bull, moon walking because the earth was so unsteady, and he looked across the acres of different paths and the threads of other lives, the 24 hour pub largely empty now the government, in all its wisdom, had made being drunk in public an offence, thereby destroying any chance for the populace to get together, to compare notes, plot their overthrow, to realise the farce that had been imposed upon them. Finally he turned away, but could still hear the occasional I love you bellow as he waited for the lights to change, as he dutifully walked across the crossing with everybody else, as he waited for the bats to wheel in the dark night, for the evening to suck him into quietness; to forget, briefly, the challenges and changes that were going to confront them all, the grim times the pundits were warning were coming our way.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/27/2502659.htm

Govt cops flak for 'closing the gap' report card

The Federal Government is coming under fire over its first annual report to Parliament on efforts to improve the living conditions of Indigenous Australians.

The Government's report card shows significant gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in health, education and housing.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says progress is being made , but the Opposition's Indigenous Affairs spokesman, Tony Abbott, is not so sure.

"There are no statistics in there to show there has been any significant improvement," he said.

"Indigenous disadvantage is just as great as it was 12 months ago."

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert agrees.

"The Government has not delivered on the promise of the apology," she said.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma says he is pleased the report sets out a long term framework for improving living conditions, but says an ongoing sticking point is the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act.

"It's just not acceptable that we have differential treatment," he said.

"We still have one of our basic human rights protection mechanisms suspended."

The suspension allows the Government to quarantine the welfare payments in Indigenous communities.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25112828-5013871,00.html

KEVIN Rudd has taken the fight against indigenous disadvantage to the cities, promising free health checks to urban Aborigines to detect disease early, and appointing a director-general to cut through red tape and get action on the ground in remote areas to close the 17-year gap in life expectancy.

In his first progress report on closing the gap since last year's historic apology to the Stolen Generations, the Prime Minister said there had been progress in bringing the living standards of indigenous people closer to those of the rest of the population.

"Some say that little has happened in the year since the apology, but that is not the case," Mr Rudd insisted. "Progress has been made."

The Prime Minister's "report card" on closing the gap with indigenous Australia received an immediate fail from the Opposition and former indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough, who sparked the intervention into the Northern Territory.

Mr Brough said Mr Rudd had failed to use Howard government legislation to force states to provide details of school enrolments and to cross-check with Centrelink records to find children who were not going to school.

"I think they've got a miserable fail mark," Mr Brough said.

"It's a sad reflection of a lost opportunity over the last 12 months."

ALP powerbroker and indigenous leader Warren Mundine urged patience. "We weren't expecting anything great in 12 months," he said.

"But I think the framework is there. I think the focus is now a lot clearer, but we have to drive more employment and economic outcomes."

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25107298-661,00.html

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has splurged close to $3.4 million on overseas travel since coming to power.

The figure makes him one of Australia's most extravagant jet-setters.

The globe-trotting PM has racked up one overseas trip every month on average - and spent close to one in six days on foreign soil.

Taxpayers have paid a hefty price for Mr Rudd's 15 global trips, but the PM is stoutly defending the amount of time he spends meeting world leaders.

But with the Government now forecasting a hefty budget deficit, the Opposition has slammed the travel costs an "absolute disgrace" and branded the PM "Emperor Kevin".

One 18-day odyssey to the US, Belgium, Romania, Britain and China cost a whopping $640,749.

Five-star accommodation and meals cost just over $100,000 while commercial airfares for Mr Rudd's advance team hit $52,000.

Mr Rudd took 11 of his personal staff and wife Therese Rein, along with a flotilla of public servants, security personnel and his personal GP.

Another big spending visit - to Japan and Indonesia last June - cost taxpayers $547,000. The PM's entourage spent $32,000 on hospitality alone.

In total, Mr Rudd has spent $137,368 on hospitality while overseas, while accommodation and meal expenses have soared to nearly $300,000.