I live in an echo chamber
The people I choose to be around me
Are the ones who reflect my opinions
Ideas, judgments, have my set of values
Of a world that is better
This little blue and green planet
Stays blue and green
To stop it turning brown and grey
Where people in it are judged on their kindness
To people who are less fortunate than them
Where opportunity rests on ability and drive
Success is measured by contentment
And contentment is based on fine things
Friends, relationships, beauty, caring
Kindness.
I step outside the echo chamber
And listen to the people around me
Those who benefited from policy
That burdened other tribes
That took the souls and crushed the hands
Of people with different skin pigment
Or culture
Or weapons
Or gods
These people are the ignorant
They are your family
You work with them, travel with them
You went to school with them
They are the holiday cousins
They’re really very nice people
They’d help you out in a pinch
They are not racist- they eat Chinese food
(They don’t mind the Jews
Or the Greeks)
And they work with a bloke from New Delhi
(He’s really very nice you know)
Their grandparents were migrants
But it was ok back then
After all their skin is pink and freckled
And they knew whats what
King and country and empire
Meat and three veg
Everyone else is a bloody idiot
Or a bit, you know
A bit not quite like us
(I reckon they should learn English
Before we let them in here)
They sleep and sleep as they wake
Eyes closed to the shifts and flows
And the ebbs and tides of what is going on
As society rips and strains around them
Technology is all new and hard
Nothing is as good as it was
Kids don’t listen to their parents any more
Don’t go out at night it’s dangerous
(There are gangs you know
Not like in my day)
But it is your day
You’re just older and you don’t get you’re still here
Relevance passed you by but you’re still here
Jobs are changing
People are changing
Society is changing
Media is changing
Where you cannot afford to deny much longer
The evils of the world
Of money, and the greedy few
Who dance us like puppets
But they live in an echo chamber
Hands over ears
It’s comfortable in there
Unchallengeable and the same as it was
Chanting out the sounds of change
Surrounded by their friends
Also chanting
Unwilling and unable
To see anything a bit deeper than the surface
Below the surface it’s dark and scarey
(Here be dragons)
Which may show up their ignorance
That’s all they have
They hold it up to you as a prize
(See? See? everyone agrees with me!)
The echo chamber applauds
There be no dragons here!
Just people who are unaustralian!
(Harden up! Time to man up.)
Ignore the laws and the rules
And general decency
Denying ingrained racism
Condoned by the ignorant leaders
Enforced by law and ignorant policies
Being fought by the enlightened
Those in my echo chamber
Who watch in horror and consternation
At people we like being moronic
At people we liked being moronic
And we fight but the issues are so big
We sometimes just walk away
From individual fights
And join the collective echo chamber
To try and make good
What glue will repair this
Broken society?