What does January 26 actually represent? Let's ask a country singer

January 26 is a controversial date in Australia, an occasion of great yearly celebrations as "Australia Day" marking the official start of the European invasion and subsequent genocide. 

But I simply don't care who I offend, I am going to use the occasion to lay down some hard truths whether people want to hear them or not. Mainly that Kev Carmody is a country singer and all you bloody idiots who think "country music is right-wing" or "so uncool" can get fucked.

Kev Carmody is an Aboriginal country and folk singer who is both very definitely not right wing and also very definitely very fucking cool.

Best known to wider audiences for writing and singing "From Little things Big things Grow" with Paul Kelly (about the historic Gurunji strike that opened the way for Aboriginal peoples to win some land rights), Carmody has been singing his country about Aboriginal oppression and resistance and just general struggles of life in the best country folk tradition for 30 years now.  It builds on a much longer and deeper Aboriginal country music tradition over the past few decades.

"Australia Day" is as good a day to listen to him as ever. More accurately labelled Invasion Day, there  are a lot more to the day than BBQs, beaches and flag draped bogans. There are protests on the streets -- like this one in Melbourne, which drew tens of thousands:

About 5000 marching to mark Invasion Day in Melbourne's CBD. (Photo via Nick Fredman on Facebook.

Unsurprisingly, there is growing controversy over January 26, including a push to change the date for a national celebration so it no longer marks the start of the wholesale theft of Aboriginal land and destruction of their culture.

Fremantle council's decision this year to cancel "Australia Day" fireworks, in recognition of the sorrow and anger the date causes, predictably led to right-wing meltdowns. Because more than 200 years of genocide and dispossession is one thing, but for god's sake, if you can't have a huge celebration with fireworks on the date that officially marks the start of the invasion and unprecedented catastrophe for the land's original inhabitants.then it is political correctness gone made.

What is wrong with Australia Day is captured perfectly by Kev Carmody's songs below. The first, from his 1987 debut, is on the theft and hypocrisy carried about by the invaders.

"River of Tears", a devastating true story where police murdered an innocent Black man David Gundy in his home in Sydney, shows the oppression and violence against the original inhabitants of the land have not ended. Hundreds of Black people have died in recent decades at the hands of police, and not one cop has ever been brought to justice.

"Cannot Buy My Soul" marks the ongoing resistance -- also seen in protests on the streets in m any cities today.

In 1788 down Sydney Cove
The first boat-people land
Said sorry boys our gain’s your loss
We gonna steal your land
And if you break our new British laws
For sure you’re gonna hang
Or work your life like convicts
With chains on your neck and hands

Terrorists dressed in uniformUnder the protection of their lawTerrorise blacks in dawns of fear
They come smashin’ through your doorYou’re not safe out there on freedom street
You’re not safe inside the "can"For their shotguns and their stunt gasThey’re licenced to drop you where you stand

For 200 years us blacks are beaten down here too long on the doleMy dignity I’m losing here and mentally I’m oldThere’s a system here that nails us ain’t we left out in the coldThey took our life and liberty friend but they couldn’t buy our soul

The fucking bastards! Being ‘noticeably drunk’ is not a crime! It is a legitimate lifestyle choice!

Anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I am, to say the least, slow to anger.

Generally speaking, I am pretty laid back. Little bothers me.

Carlo “Serenity” Sands — that’s me to a tea. It sure takes a hell of a lot to get me worked up.

I have always taken as my touchstone the advice offered by my good friend V. I. Lenin of how to proceed when faced with people who disagree with your historically correct analysis and prescription: “Patiently explain.”

But even “Carlo the Calm” (as I am popularly known) has his limits.

Sometimes, something occurs so blatantly outrageous and unjust, such a violation of what any decent person holds dear to their heart as the very essence of humanity, that, I, yes even I, get really fucking angry.

What could possibly upset the equilibrium of such a profoundly balanced human being as Carlo Sands?

I can barely bring myself to type these words. Tears of anger and sorrow roll down my cheeks.

The NSW government has launched yet another crack down on drinkers.

In it's latest assault on our fundamental rights, NSW police (famous the world over for their sobriety) have been given increased powers to tackle the scourge of alcohol consumption.

The law has been changed so that the point at which police can arrest you has been lowered from being “seriously drunk” to “noticeably drunk”.

Now, the original law was bad enough.

I mean, who the fuck wastes their time drinking if they are not aiming to get seriously drunk?

What the fuck is the point? If you are not going to take your drinking seriously, get out of the fucking way at the bar!

But noticeably drunk???

For christ sake, do these lunatics think people consume alcohol because they have run out of Bushall teabags?

Why the fuck would anyone waste their time and hard-earned cash drinking booze if the effects were not even noticeable?

If you can't notice the effects after a drinking session, you haven't been doing it right. You need to get back there and fucking drink some more!

Let's just look at the potential consequences of implementing a law that makes it a crime to be “noticeably drunk” in Australia:

Parliament would be emptied by the constabulary. All journalists would be rounded up and interned. English backpackers would face mass arrest. Footballers of all codes would be pre-emptively detained.

Now, I know what you are thinking: sounds pretty fucking good.

Yes! But because they are all noticeably arseholes!

Booze has nothing to do with it.

You want to pass a law declaring it a crime to be seriously, or even noticeably, an arsehole in public, then you've got my vote. The above mentioned groups would all be rounded up and hauled away, for the undoubted betterment of humanity.

But leave the great mass of us honest drinkers alone.

Let's just think about some of the consequences of this new law a bit more. If it was applied consistently, across the board, there could be disastrous consequences.

For one, The Shannon would never be open — what with bar manager Paddy's endless cycle of arrests and court appearances.

Every 15-year-old in a park on a Friday night with a bag of goon would end up in jail — just for taking it upon themselves to go out and learn some of life's important lessons.

In short, as my protest placard intends to read, Australia is noticeably drunk.

Apply this law across the board, and all of civilised life in this god-forsaken island would ground to a halt.

And surely our benighted rulers are not that stupid?

That is, could it be that actually this outrageous law is not intended to be applied to all, or even the overwhelming majority, of NSW citizens?

Well, some cynics have suggested such an interpretation.

Yes, it seems that this law is, in fact, just yet another way for the upholders of law and order to kick the most downtrodden even harder.

Thalia Anthony, a law lecturer at Sydney University, pointed out: “New laws giving police the power to move on people who are slurring their words will cement a long tradition of criminalising Aboriginal people for public order offences.”

Anthony explained: “History shows indigenous people are most likely to be caught by this type of legislation and incarcerated for the mere appearance of intoxication.

“The move-on laws have the peculiar flavour of targeting people who are not committing a crime or even suspected of committing a crime. They are activated where people are deemed drunk.”

Such outrageous laws are not unprecedented, and neither is their consequences, Anthony said. ”The discriminatory policing of drunk Aboriginal people is blatant. Indigenous people are 42 times more likely than other Australians to be in custody for public drunkenness.

“In 2005 the Australian Institute of Criminology identified public drunkenness as a key issue relating to police custody. In October 2002 it found that of those detained by police there were 17 times more Aborigines than all other groups.”

Anthony concluded: “Through its move-on slurring powers, the NSW Government has provided another back-door means for incarcerating drunk Aboriginal people ... It is another sad attempt to criminalise indigenous behaviour rather than criminal activity.”

So that is the story, eh?

What a bunch of racist scum. And to think, they would use booze as their weapon to attack a people already largely destroyed by ongoing colonisation. Such an innocent thing used to such evil ends.

But I say, we don't have to accept this.

The Indigenous people have never stopped resisting. They have never ceded sovereignty over this land, and they continue to raise their demands for justice.

I say we follow their example.

I hearby call for a campaign of mass resistance to these patently ridiculous, outrageous, absurd and outright racist law.

I call for a mass civil disobedience in a Day of Drunken Disorder throughout the state — bring it to its knees.

Personally, I hearby pledge, as an act of protest, to be noticeably drunk at all times until this law is repealed.

Being noticeable drunk is not a crime, it is a legitimate lifestyle choice.




In the worlds of Chicago-based band Bondo : “Fuck you I'm drunk, fuck you I'm drunk! And I'm gonna be drunk till the next time I'm drunk!”

Rudd's honeymoon over? Let's ask Tex Perkins

There is a certain amount of media commentary these days speculating that Labor PM Kevin Rudd's "honeymoon" with the "electorate" (that is media-speak for us) is over.

When Kevin Rudd was elected, he had a key quality that won us/"the electorate" over.

He wasn't John Howard.

And for that, we loved him.

But you know what it is like. We were on the rebound from a bad relationship. We needed to get away from John and Kevin was there.

But would it last? Do we/"the electorate" even have much in common with Kevin?

After all, polls suggested we want troops out of Iraq, he wants to keep hundreds of them there. We are not big fans of the Afghanistan occupation, Kevin is increasing our involvement.

We just *cannot stand* climate change, and, while he swears he hates it to and even signed Kyoto to prove his love to us, it is becoming increasingly obvious he isn't really actually, you know, doing much about it.

He *says* he is serious about climate change, but he just *wont commit*. It is clear he has strong feelings for the coal industry. He should just admit he loves them.

It isn't as though we are saying he can never see the coal CEOs again. If he wants to meet up every now and then for coffee, that's cool, we wont get jealous.

But, if our marriage is to work, he really has to stop sleeping with them.

Then there is the mixed messages he has been sending us about Indigenous rights.

First, he seduced us with the apology, and then the two-timing, no good scumbag went and kept up the racist, apartheid-imposing NT intervention!

Then there is how he swore to us that he was totally dumping Work Choices and it was all over, while he has actually been quietly keeping most of it anyway!

Men!

So — is the honeymoon over? Let's hear what Comrade Tex has to say, put to the cool slide guitar of The Cruel Sea.





All I can say is I always said this marriage was never going to work.

The only reason the marriage survives at all is the lack of any decent alternative. Maybe it's we built one.