Skip to main content

Mr T 2

Kathmandu. It was a wonderful time and a wonderful country in which to be young. There was time to
grow up, time to learn, time to become a real human being.
And that’s what I miss most about the world that passed away in the 1980s and 90s – the automatic
assumption that, as New Zealanders, we had all the time in the world.
It was an assumption that could only be made in a workers’ – not a bosses’ - world. The ability to limit
the amount of time individuals are able to devote to themselves and their families is the true measure of
Capitalism’s social, political and economic power. The more time you are forced to spend working for
the money you need to survive, the more dependent you are on your employer, and the less freedom
you have to tell him to get stuffed.
Have you ever noticed how angry politicians and business people get about unemployed people on the
dole "going surfing"? Even if the capitalists cannot find a job for you, they and their minions in the
State apparatus still expect you to devote all of your time to looking for work, or acquiring skills, or
visiting your case worker at WINZ. In societies like ours, Time and Liberty are very closely related.
So, how much time do you have in 2003 – and are any of the principal political parties proposing to
offer you more of it?
This is not so abstract a question as you might think. One of the earliest demands of organised labour –
dating back over a century – was for a limitation of working hours. And one of the first things the First
Labour Government did in 1936 was to reduce the length of the normal working week from 48 to 40
hours.
In a very real sense the entire socialist programme was about how to disengage the individual from the
tyranny of the employer’s clock. What, after all, is profit, if it is not the time you spend working for the
capitalist rather than for yourself? Public ownership, by doing away with the need for profit, was
supposed to reduce the amount of time required to keep society functioning – thereby making more
time available for individuals and families.
Let’s begin with Labour. How much time are they offering you?
Not a great deal, I’m afraid. Even though the Labour Party itself is in favour of legislating for an extra
week of annual leave, the Labour Government has announced that it will not be happening before the
next election.
There is, however, a real possibility that paid parental leave may be extended from 12 to 14 weeks – a
small but very welcome donation of time to mothers and their babies.
Michael Cullen’s "Super Fund" – into which so much of the State’s income is now being poured, may -
and I emphasise "may" - be enough to prevent future governments from extending the time we have to
spend working for a living – which is good. Not as good as Rob Muldoon’s reduction of the age of
retirement from 65 to 60 in 1976, but better than nothing.
For students, however, no time seems to be available. Labour still expects you to compress the years it
takes to acquire the necessary tertiary qualifications to the absolute minimum consistent with retaining
your sanity.
The idea of pursuing knowledge for knowledge’s sake, which still had some purchase on reality in my

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  The merchant of Venice and the cowards that fear  Enough enough already.     The Crimes; Lets cut straight to the chase.   The quote, which reads, “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize,” was quickly identified by some users online as a quote by Kevin Alfred Strom. “Congrats, you just quoted Kevin Alfred Strom, an American neo-Nazi, who first said those words in 1993,” responded  one user. Another commented, “This quote is actually from Kevin Alfred Strom, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier who plead guilty to possession of child pornography.”  and as this is from Reuters, a platform one can trust.    You dear reader are now  a Holocaust denying kiddy diddler.    But the quote still stands.    To learn who rules over you , simply look who you cannot criticize.  Well, turn around, take off any rose colored inhibitors and look back at major events in his...
Post a Comment
Read more

it's them again boo boo, their history

It's a pretty known fact that the Jews are chosen people and the Jewish homeland is Israel and the Jews believe in the Old Testament and that the Old Testament is about Jews.     However almost none of these facts are true nowhere in the Bible does it call the Jews gods chosen people and only about 5% of the people in the old testament could be called "Jews".    So now that you have branded me an anti-semite we can begin;    The term "anti semite"  literally means against Shem or his descendants however being anti-jewish isn't the same as being anti-semitic.       So let me explain the Semites are the descendants of a man named Shem who would father some of the world's most renowned Empires and dynasties such as the Syrian Empire and Babylonian empires. So why is it "anti-semetic" to say something against the Jews?  Well, just like stealing your religion, your homes, your money, and businesses some Jews also love stealing names...
Post a Comment
Read more
  The Word Jew Is NOT In The Bible But Blunt Publisher Manipulation Is C H U R C H R E F O R M S E R I E S By Biblicism Institute “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” – Mark Twain The word Jew is nowhere to be found in the good book The word “Jew” did not come into existence until the year 1775 A.D., whereas the occurrences in the bible took place from around 4000 B.C. to 70 A.D. WHO IS A JEW? Its modern connotation points to someone who follows and adheres to a faith similar to that of the Pharisees of Judah, but  is not  of the tribe and stock of Judah. In other words, Jews are people from nations other than the 12 Hebrew tribes who practice a religion known as  Judaism/Pharisaism , the doctrine of the Pharisees. It is much like those who believe in Christ and are called Christians, in honor of the One whom they follow, and their religion is known as Christianity, the doctrine of Christ. If one were to say th...
Post a Comment
Read more