The Art of Democracy

Citizen or consumer?

Winner or loser?

Participation or process?

The process worker participates,

Earning the right to consume.

For ownership gives you rights,

Poverty has no right to exchange,

Or seek a refund,

For life has been short changed,

The trade barriers are high walls,

For you cannot see why –

you cannot make quota.

‘We are free’ sings the chorus,

All can see ‘we are free to choose’ say the lawyers,

We have purchasing power,

You can do what you want any hour,

This is the lucky country.

You can line up for social security,

You can buy securities and no longer line up,

You can take a menial job,

For which you are truly grateful.

The protestant work ethic,

Is the ethic we most value,

For to work is to belong,

And this is the song,

To work is to participate,

To participate is the vote,

For this is the carrot that plants the seed,

To work is to feed the hunger of consumption,

For decoupling consumption from responsibility,

Trade from human rights,

Is the greatest freedom from economic blights.

Economic rationalism,

Fuels the consumption function,

The multiple propensity to consume,

Generates economic growth,

Degenerates environmental wealth,

For supply and demand are not equal,

Outputs exceed inputs,

Externalities are not internalized,

Crop rotation is fertilized to bear flowers not fruit,

Genetic engineering is realized to bear yields and

reduced hours without variety,

For time is money,

For there is no time for anything but work.

The manipulation of nature is the double helix,

The two edge sword,

The twist in the rope,

For protein bonds will become chains,

Bonds are broken in the food chain,

Blueprints become ecological footprints,

Sinking under drifting sands,

For climate change is the shifting season,

The drought of pure reason.

The blueprint of the citizen,

Lives within natural rights,

Where nature limits exceed through shared power,

For participation is not reduced to a vote,

For freedom of speech is inherent, inalienable  an insight,

A covenant is a sacred bond,

That yields universal values,

Where all will share from the pond,

Not a carbon sink,

For reflections reveal what is real,

The interest is in what is right,

Not the right interest,

For to rate interests on the stock exchange,

Is to exchange interests on the basis of yield,

For economy is not a community of shared interests,

It is a strategic play,

That has gone astray,

And lost its reason for the game.

The true democracy is a visible listening post,

A real democracy is heard,

For respect can hear the differences

and learn to trust diversity,

For democracy is not just a vote winner,

It is not just writing a note to the sinner,

It is learning about the community,

Learning to develop unity within diversity,

It is through reaching out and being involved,

It is in conversation that we hear the other side,

For it is in lecturing that only one is heard,

As different opinions are threads that weave the carpet of real understanding.

The question is in the pattern not the carpet,

The magic is in the carpet of meaning,

Is it the same pattern?

Or is it evolving with different colours,

For new information is a colour,

Blending to create a new design,

Seeking truth sees no colour only threads,

To follow the thread unravels the mystery,

And the mystery leads to a single source.

For we create the tapestry of our life,

Our beliefs are interwoven and shared,

For ancient carpets were cultural air looms,

Modern day carpets are functional lounge rooms,

For when we sit down and meet,

The carpet becomes magic,

For we feel at home in such hospitality.

This is the possibility for democracy,

To share time and space,

For there are many stories in the carpet,

From the floor to the wall,

What was functional becomes a work of art,

For art is the freedom of speech,

The surreal defies reason,

In search of expanding possibilities,

For justice and peace is the silk within the pattern,

That creates the masterpeace

of freedom.