let us rally - A Poem that might be a a song by Bill Hannan

Bill Hannan was my English and French teacher at Moreland High School in the early sixties, He has remained an engaged and engaging figure with active interests across local and Australian history, literature, politics and the arts. He recently sent me this verse and I'm reproducing it with his permission.

in the wonderland of free markets

the best stuff is the cheapest

if our steel costs too much

we should sack a few steelworkers

if they’re still not the world’s best

we should throw the lot of them out

into the jobs and growth economy

where the shifters beat the shirkers

let us rally to deplore 

the rise of global capital

and gather for a party 

to celebrate its fall

stand a while beside the grave

of our ancestral radicals

and muse a while on what is

to become of us all

Thomas Picketty points out 

that the inbuilt inequality

of capitalism was restrained 

by depression and two wars

that the trickledown ideas 

of global peace and prosperity

would in the end enrich the rich

and impoverish the poor

let us rally to deplore 

the rise of global capital

and gather for a party 

to celebrate its fall

stand a while beside the grave

of our ancestral  radicals

and muse a while on wha is

 to become of us all

jobs and growth the PM mantraed

in his campaign for re-election

he didn’t bother to explain 

whether there was a connection

the voters thought like me

that there was no explanation

they gave it the big raspberry 

so he had a limp election

let us rally to deplore 

the rise of global capital

and gather for a party 

to celebrate its fall

stand a while beside the grave

of our ancestral  radicals

and muse a while on what is 

to become of us all

we had a golden age 

called post-war reconstruction

new schools free health and benefits

way better than the dole

but then we settled down

forgot about protection

and watched as the free markets 

tipped our jobs down the plughole

let us rally to deplore 

the rise of global capital

and gather for a party 

to celebrate its fall

stand a while beside the grave

of our ancestral  radicals

and muse a while on what is 

to become of us all

the least we can do for steelworkers

is buy some of their steel

it wouldn’t have cost much to save

the workshops at Ford and Holden 

what’s the problem with forcing crooks

to give milk farmers a fair price 

why not give the drover a scrap

of meat from the squatter’s table

let us rally to deplore 

the rise of global capital

and gather for a party 

to celebrate its fall

stand a while beside the grave

of our ancestral  radicals

and muse a while on what is 

to become of us all.

Bill Hannan