The big board game

People are speaking out! A host of women in the entertainment industry have come out with a range of complaints about male colleagues, complaints which hark back many years. It has been a cascade of allegations and the sense one gets of the emotions of these women is as a type of catharsis They demand to be treated with respect in the workplace. The "Me Too" campaign has managed to organise and galvanise women in protest against named powerful figures in Hollywood and elsewhere in the entertainment industry in countries like Australia. Impassioned speeches were made at the Golden Globe Awards, notably by television identity Oprah Winfrey. (The media infers from Oprah's short speech that she may now run for President of the United States!) The issue of sexual harassment in the workplace in the entertainment industry has erupted since accusations in 2017 against movie mogul, Harvey Weinstein, and now his name appears to be mud. Craig McLoughlin in Australia, who played Dr. Blake in a dreary TV series called, The Dr. Blake Mysteries has been suspended in the latest series in the making. He will no longer be playing the main role in the current production of Godspell due to complaints by his female colleagues. There is a righteous indignation and outpouring of emotion from women affected. It's out in the open. The men named all deny wrongdoing. Presumably efforts will be made to get to the truth.

On January 9th the first same sex marriages in Australia not requiring a waiver took place. The LGBTQI community has been victorious in having their relationships given the same status as traditional marriages. They have triumphed over prejudice and the celebrations and the volume of apparently pent up demand for marriage gives a sense of societal progress occurring in quantum leaps, or so it would appear from media reporting.

The space given in the media to members of special designated ethinic communities also creates a sense that the more that complaints and achievements are aired, the more progress is occurring. A recent example is of representatives of the Sudanese community speaking on episodes of crime and the needs of that community, all gives me a sort of illusion of progress, but towards what?

All the while, as we view our cities, our country, our communities on the screen in our living rooms, and see the women, the LGBTQI communities, the members of various immigrant groups, the message to us is of progress, as though there was no tolerance or even any experience of these differences before. We feel we are making every effort towards a better, more vibrant, more diverse, society. We are having some successes and some failures but all the while making progress as people speak out.

But how are we viewed by those in control? Probably we are seen as mere pawns, possibly knights and bishops, in their big board game. The large unseen hands of the power elite remove the autonomy of all groups, even those who feel in control of their lives. These hands don't differentiate between LGBTQI members, women, seniors, the Lithuanian, or the Sudanese communities, except in terms of getting their attention.

Toll road builders are not concerned with community specific values, they just want them to own a car and pass under their gantries on the toll roads. Furniture warehouses will hope that newly marrieds from any group will buy all the paraphernalia that furnishes a house, whether it be in a newly built apartment or a hastily flung together suburban dream, rammed up next to its neighbour, in the outer west of Melbourne. The housing construction lobby does not care whose money pays for the overpriced floor space in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth or any other growing town, that purchasers hope will bring them within striking distance of the source of income to make the mortgage repayments. The banks don't care who makes those repayments. It's all the same to their bottom line.

Their aim is to put all of us to use, get us working, consuming, driving, borrowing, building. They want an increasing income stream from all of us, no matter who we are, and in increasing numbers.

We are being sorted and sold off by a ubiquitous but invisible oppressor that knows and dictates what we want and where we have to go.