Welcome to the Third World, or The Dark Ages, or Hell(?)

Knoxfield, Vic, Australia                                                                               

Saturday, 2^nd Feb 2019

There are no non-Murdoch owned dailies in the newsagent.

The Age “wasn’t delivered for the second Saturday in two weeks” – evidence of the new owner’s – the Nine Network, downsizing, and solely financially-interested acquisition.

And so, rightly, I conclude, the descent of Oz into Third World status.

30 years ago, we had free universities for all and a vibrant print media. Now 20 years after the internet’s adoption, what...?

In the suburbs...?

The place where the voters live...?

Where a house will cost you a million dollars...?

In supposedly, the most progressive state of the nation…? –

God help us!

And so it is here I find myself with nothing to read and respond to – no dialogue;

And a writer in a Third World Country, or the New Dark Ages, if you prefer, can ONLY respond to what he or she sees, hears, feels, experiences – an ILLITERATE land,

A TRULY PRIMATIVE culture,

Where the only currency in ideas…

Is the dollar.

“God”, the Modernists said, was “…in the SHOUT OF THE STREET!”

What is that shout now? –

The streets are empty.

People HOME-ANAESTHETIZE (they call it “entertain”),

And when they shout it is mainly incoherent swearing

With the $dollar signs blocking out the ‘rude’ letters;

The mind/soul in a Hell on Earth.

One must argue that the only defense that The People

In Third World Countries have on their side has been COMMUNITIES;

But what do you call this automated/automaton Third World Country,

Where community is mostly absent?

And why I call it HELL, rather than Purgatory,

In that Purgatory at least has a WAY OUT – as long as SOULS UNITE…

To lift one out of its dominion…

No, when there is no JOINT CAUSE,

Because we are so IDEAS-POOR,

THERE IS Hell! –

The land from which there is NO WAY out.

©Mel From Melbourne 2019.