Back playing hide and seek in the Library of Alexandria

The Blog That Never Sleeps is returning from a cogitating hiatus. This blog has been pondering the meaning of the sub-prime lending crisis, the US Presidential primaries, rain, Electricity Privatisation, Kevin Rudd, the Job Network and how and why Liberal Democracy died. That Liberal Democracy is dead is certain. It's just that nobody has told it yet. Those eponymous images of planes flying into the twin-towers will be as much an exclamation mark in history as Archduke Ferdinand getting his face blown off in Sarajevo or William the Bastard taking to the field at Hastings in 1066. Of this we can be certain. But even at those times I doubt most people understood the significance until the dust had fully settled, usually decades, or a generation, after. But Liberal Democracy is as dead as my grandfathers dog, leaving us swimming in a septic tank full of hubris that borrows the words and clichés of the democratic process, and liberalism, but leaves us a reality more akin to soviet Russia, medieval Europe or Pinochet's Chile. Luckily The Blog That Never Sleeps can make sense of all this, and maybe even name this new world order that looks like Hollywood, smells like a dead man and sounds like fingernails down a blackboard. Here's luck!

Back In Business

I received the following missive from a friend at the Police Association this (yesterday) evening:

Unions NSW and power industry delegates today launched their campaign to 'Stop the Sell Off' of the state's electricity industry proposed by the NSW Government. The plan is bad for NSW and will lead to: - higher power prices - jobs being sent offshore - and foreign companies taking control of NSW power. As part of this campaign we have developed a website which allows the public to 'shock' the Premier, see his hair stand on end and send a direct message to Morris Iemma asking him to pull the plug on the sell off. All members of the community can have their say by logging onto http://www.stoptheselloff.org.au and hitting the 'Shock a Pollie' button. Matt Thistlethwaite Power Industry Campaign Director

Electricity privatisation has been a disaster for workers, consumers and power generation in every jurisdiction it has been implemented. From Adelaide to Los Angeles it has delivered poorer services, higher bills, less jobs and has solely operated to make merchant bankers richer. We know from the Your Rights At Work campaign that communities, working together, can move mountains. And that's exactly what we are going to do. Electricity privatisation can and will be stopped. 'PeoplePower, worth campaigning for' This slogan can unite people around a positive campaign, that steals from Michael Costa's only plus - that he is doing something positive about protecting power generation capability. This slogan reminds us of who actually owns the power now, the people, and is a reminder of the message from a successful and effective campaign, hinting at the idea - Worth fighting and voting for. I think it would be interesting to road test it with 'PeoplePower, worth fighting for'

Core Business

More foaming at the mouth from our Tool Of The Week Michael Costa, who has suggested that unions should get out of the way of his plan to sell us all down the river regarding power privatisation. In a unique take on logic and consistency Costa has suggested that unions should concentrate on their 'core business', which he describes as looking after wages and conditions. Well, if protecting the livelihoods and working standards of everyone who uses 240 volts in their day-to-day lives isn't core union business then I give up. And this advice is a bit rich coming from the bloke who decided that, when he ran the union movement, it's core businesses should include property development, financial management, think tanks, hiring useless spin-doctors like the North Shore carpetbagger Peter Lewis* or selling out public sector workers and even the public transport industry itself. Costa is worse than a clown, he's an incompetent clown, whose legacy to this state is abysmal. And if Curly thinks that putting everyone in the state's sensitive nether regions in a G Clamp is either smart or of economic use to anyone then the man is more deranged than we first thought. When will the state of New South Wales stop having to pay for the fact that poor little Michaerl Coista was picked on in the playground in Newcastle all those years ago. * - Another stunning contribution from that impotent carpetbagger, Peter Lewis, who has managed to shake down working people across NSW through his McCampoign vehicle Essential Research, who have found out what visually impaired Freddy could have told them for free - people think electricity privatisation stinks like five day old fish. Nice one Pete. What's your next trick? You gonna find out what direction the sun comes up in morning?

Power To The People

Posts have been a bit awry this week as the wave of blackouts continues apace. In this context the idea that we should privatise the electricity service in NSW is one of the more loony suggestions doing the rounds. Does anyone with their pants on the right way around really think that we'd be getting services restored in the time frame we have if this service was run by, say, Sol Trujillo? At the moment my electricity provider, Integral Energy, is focussed towards the customer. If it was focussed towards shareholders I can't see them ensuring that we have the maintenance crews on stand-by to deal with emergencies like the wave of storms we've experienced this week. Needless to say, the parasites from the Merchant Banks are circling like Vikings outside a monastery. I just don't get it - if we lynched these bludgers somehow we'd be the bad guys. That can't be right, after all, it's our oxygen they're stealing.