Bothered by the masses

While I condone sibling rivalry, violence should only be resorted to if the person is in striking distance!!! So to end the controversy, I am getting dual citizenship, so I'll have 2 passports!! One Australian for if I go to the US for whatever reason, as Australia seems to do whatever the US hints that it might think is good, and one Canadian to maintain my dignity. Don't really know why the guy asked if my parents were living in Canada, I think he was just asking out of curiosity...

But another issue has caught my eye...In Australia, we are getting (or already have) new workplace relations laws which are pretty much destroying unions. By this, I mean (my understanding) that employers and employees can discuss their working terms ($$, time, etc). This follows on to an employer being able to fire you, and then hire you on lower wages, which has already occured at least once (all staff were fired and asked to resign crappy contracts). In my department, we had this secretary who was utterly useless.

Eg: I was sick at home or something, and someone called her office looking for me. She knew I was home, but ran down the hall to my office, told my co-workers that someone was on the phone for me and that she knew I was at home, and what should she do. As a secretary, shouldn't your second nature be to say something like, "I'm sorry he's not here today, can I take a message and have him call you tomorrow?" Now I know I'm not a secretary, but isn't that part of your job? My lovely co-workers told her to take a message and she did... Good on you.... My boss, as a result of her complete incompetance, fired her. Gave her the two weeks or whatever notice... And said good bye. She fought this. And it ended up that we couldn't fire her. She then went on stress leave for a while. And when she came back to work, she couldn't work in our dept because how awkward would that be after we tried to fire her? So she worked in the human resources dept, while we paid her. We couldn't hire a new secretary because technically, she was our secretary so we didn't need one. So to run the PATIENT Clinics, we had researcher do the secretary job, untrained, and she did a great job.

Point is, the new laws would have enabled us to fire her due to her repeatedely demonstrated idiocy, and quickly hire a new person.

But my friend, (you ask), what is your point?

As you might have guessed, there has been a lot of public protest. Today for eg, there was a call out for all school children to strike today, ie not go to school. I also heard one of the head organizers say on nationwide radio, that kids should get their parents permission to strike today in opposition of these new workplace agreement legislation, but she then added that even if your parents don't give you permission, strike anyway because it's for a good cause. What's the deal with that?

Still not the issue I'm questioning, my issue is much more far reaching....

Protests have been lodged against troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, conscription, taxes, blah, blah, and blah, but when have they actually worked? The only protest I can remember that was effective was the Tiananmen Square student who while protesting initially for one thing, successfully protested against a tank's desire to run him down.

But that is the only one I know that worked, and that was a one-on-one protest, not against an institution.

Did the Viet Nam protest work? Or did the US pull out due to it taking too long and them not being able to really move forward? (Not rhetoric, I really don't know). I am convinced that they don't, and that's why people is power who want things changed, form societies etc like Green Peace, Unicef, the 30hr famine people etc. Adults who have gone through the idealism of youth protests and realized that that avenue has a voice that is only caught by popular media, but has no real power to effect change...

It's like the lead singer from Midnight Oil (Beds are Burning song of the 80s or early 90s). He started as a young person in a band proclaiming the need for reconciliation between white Australia and the Aboriginal community. While steps have been made in this direction, they're not a result of his efforts. So now, this guy is in politics trying to effect change from within the system... And we all know my views on that (if you don't read my previous posts ... the longer ones). Besides that, haven't we all heard that the only way to change it is from the inside... I'd like to know when that's actually happened. Please tell me if it has as I would really like to know.

So that's it... When has public protests actually effected change? Is public protesting the only voice that society en masse can come up with. Insanity can be defined as doing the exact same thing over and over again expecting different results. Where does this leave the masses then....Because I don't believe in pointing out a problem and simply crying wolf without being prepared to at least suggest something, follow some of my links...

Cheers good people of the world!!!