My search for change - 2 year review

When I started this blog in 2006 I had just spent 6 weeks travelling around Central Europe and was about to go to Mexico to begin my trip to Chile. At the time I was mad at the world for our destruction of the environment that maintains us, for the excesses that I have always thought normal while so many struggle just for survival and for the war that stains our past, present and unfortunately our foreseable future with it's horrific consequences.

Two years later those things haven't changed. I have seen more of the world and heard first hand stories about political disappearances, I worked with children who are innocent victims of the violence which comes with inequality and indignity and seen unnecesary suffering for people who need medical attention but can't afford it. The closer I have gotten to the reality I had begun to read about 2006 the more I have looked for reasons why. I still reject that it's innate human frailties that have created the current situation. While surely we must take responsibility for the current state of the world (particulary those of us in the western world) given our almost infinate capacity to manipulate it's conditions, I don't believe it has to be this way. I have also come across many sources of hope. I have met hundreds of people who are dedicating there lives to creating a world where everyone can live in dignity and thousands who have developped thoughts about the way things are and know that we must change our ways. For some it's our ways of war, for others it's the environment, others working conditions. For me it's the economic system which must be changed for any of the above goals to be achieved.

Wars for resources and to boost the economy will only increase in intensity and frequency as business pushes government to get control of more comodities (water, oil, land etc). The planet is having everything it has to offer acquired then sold, our economic system of growth requires more and more of everything which the planet cannot provide and whos attempts to extract it create it's own trail of mass extinction and pollution. Workers will continue to be squeezed as labour costs gradually become less and less of the overall production costs as executive wages and shareholders become gluttenously fat both literally and figuratively on the backs of the majority.

Over the 2 years I have gone from politcally illiterate and ignorant of history to knowing at least a little of most topics worth discussing. I have all but given up drinking. I gave up my exercise obsession for a time only to take it up again with more rigour than ever. It's been a good way for me to maintain some routine in my life and is part of my quest to become continually better as a being. I learnt Spanish, a little German, a little Portuguese, a little Tzotzil (in the mountains of Mexico) and have begun learning French.

As far as actions according to what I believe. Maybe the most significant was to turn away from the most obvious path I was set to follow and start searching. I gave away a potential career in physical performance coaching to see what the world is really about. I still have a passion for this area but I'm glad that I took that decision. I put myself in situations very foreign from those I had grown up in, walking the streets, meeting people and living in some of the poorest palces in Latin America. I openned my heart and mind in an attempt to understand things from a human point of view which meant rearranging some of my fears and prejudices. I now fear those with power and impunity much more than those who have had theirs taken away from them.

I have seen all kinds of political problems and various attempts at solutions and debated their merits with people from all over the world.

But to be honest despite all this I still feel like I haven't done anything yet. I feel like I have put myself in a better position to do something about the way things are and that I have taken some small actions of consequence to create the change the world needs but still the personal change I need to start doing things that I really believe in hasn't come.

At the moment I'm wandering Australia sharing experiences and saving some money continuing my preperation.

To use a sports analogy from my former life. I have spent the last 2 years in offseason steeling my mind and body gathering skills and having a few mock games but still game day seems distant. When will I arrive, this is the change I'm searching for most.

Recruitment agencies stealing from Australia's poorest workers - legally!

I gave up my last 7 weeks to working on a cattle station. I ended up in the job after calling the Harvest Hotline, a government line which connects people with work, or so I thought. It seems that for fruit picking work the line gives genuine referrals however most of the times I called the line on my search I was given the number of a recruitment agency. I found this to be almost exclusively true when I went to the governments jobsearch agency. In theory there is no problem with companies outsourcing there interviewing/screening process to another company, t can be a difficult task. But all is not as it seems.

In my case I was given a number to call about a job on a pig farm in northern NSW. When I called the number I was told that I was actually speaking to an office in Toowoomba and that they have many jobs going which for me was great because although I was down to my last dollars I didn't particularly want to work on a pig farm. I had an interview in which the recruiter initially attempted to make me feel good about myself, "you're just the kind of person we are looking for" then later tried to make me feel useless "so you haven't actually got any experience in feedlot work or fencing." He went on and on about how he looks after workers finding the right job for the right person and how he should have been a union representative before putting me into the first job that he was able to secure for me.



I knew I was dealing with a "used car salesman" type as I listened to him take a call while I was in the office where he went on and on about how tractor drivers are being overpaid and lamented their desire for a decent working environment. But I only had just enough money for petrol to get to the job he gave me, on a feedlot. Having seen Fast Food Nation and being an advocate of organic food it wasn't really up my ally but it was new challenges that I had set out to find and I was sure that this would be one.

When I arrived most workers who had been there for a while weren't interested in meeting me, I actually had more interesting conversations with some of the cattle. Fortunately there were some other young workers and backpackers who's company I enjoyed. I lived in a demountable structure, a "donga", the second class of accommodation. We were fed mostly beef and overcooked vegetables apart from 1 week when a replacement cook who had some pride in her work came along.

I was paid $16.50 an hour for the first month despite being promised that I would be paid $17.50 after 2 weeks. There were a number of lies and excuses for that. I then went on to $17.50. The company I worked for had to pay $23.50 an hour while I was on $16.50 and more when I eventually went onto $17.50. Those who weren't employed through a recruitment agency working as casuals were payed just under $20/hr. Over the time I was there I payed about $1330 to this agency. Many other workers who did 3-4 month stints would have payed much more. My friends had only met the recruiter for 10 mins before packing 3 of them off on a bus for 3 months work. He would have made $7 an hour on about 2700hrs for that 10 mins work. Not bad work if you can get it! He has at least 50 workers on his books in the small office.

He is now on 2 month holidays while all his workers are paid only for the hours they put in with no benefits despite most working 50-70 hr weeks. If you get injured that is the end of your employment period, casual workers.

I had other friends there tell me about being contracted out on $15/hr when the employer was charging $100 an hour! This is not an isolated case but what happens when governments open loop holes and less and less workers are in unions or organised in any fashion. The place I worked at was ruled with an iron fist. Everybody had stories of disgruntled workers who were sacked for asking questions.

This is the current direction of the western world. Milton Friedman's doctrine of leaving it all to the market; no minimum wage or conditions, privatized everything - schools, health, electricity, water, resources, military forces, aid and emergency response etc. taking away wage controls is a pillar of this reform which results in massive wealth creation for a small few and scraps for the rest to choose which essentials they want to pay for. In Australia we are not too far down this path but it was most certainly Howard's direction and is certainly the direction of the US and all it's client states.

We must be aware of what is being taken away from society. For me it was about $2500 for 7 weeks work, over the whole economy it's a fortune being taken from those that need it most being given to those who don't!

For me it was a few hundred hour given up to be able to get my freedom back and be able to help some people who's causes I believe in. I know I have it better than most of the world workers, because of Australian workers struggles last century.

Lets not all end up in these conditions.

Grain fed beef

I worked on a cattle station for the last 6 weeks. As someone who went a year without eating meat it reaffirmed why we should be thinking twice before putting this feces ridden stuff in our mouths! To start with the food they are fed is designed to make them fat, some even have heart attacks and strokes because of their artery clogging diets high in sugar and grain such as sorghum and wheat rather than grass and the chemicals they are injected with to stimulate growth (steroids) and fight off disease (anti-biotic) in an unnatural environment.

These gender modified animals can become so heavy that they can't get to their feet and can suffer broken limbs. Their immune systems also suffer in this environment with many coming down with infections of the respiratory tract and penis! It wasn't pretty to see them treated! Injections are given around the neck because it's the cheapest cut of beef (think twice before choosing based on cost).

The animals live in small pens and spend all day breathing manure dust which smells nothing like a grass fed cows feces (the food cows have evolved to live off!). When it rains they wallow around all day ankle deep in shit and become cover in it. Some cattle are given shade, others aren't. The reason is that only the ones that become sick in the desert sun are given shade, everything is determined by profitability. Even though I was there during winter those that have shade choose to use it.



The graph at the top of the page shows that Omega-3 fats which have hundreds of health benefits disappear from these artificially fat cows! Another reason to think twice. If you still want to eat beef/meat you're better off doing it half as often and eating organically grown produce which is twice as expensive but will actually improve your health rather than take it away...

Animals denied the life of an animal will damage your health!
More about the job above..