Overboard -25/07/2013 ( + ASRC donation appeal)

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"there is a colony of bad fathers who built this place
still alive in the way I was lead to think"

-Buddy Wakefield, Horsehead



OVERBOARD


when I grow up
I wanna be a free country
unafraid of my neighbors
nor of my own potential
to live up to all those laps dashed
trying to win some human race

I will not be peering anxious
through a cyclone fence
at the wrong side of history
to protect a manicured lawn

when I grow up
my children will have heroes
who never held a weapon
but fled from violence
who bravely made it
heroes never hiding behind
what they had
as an excuse
to deny the same to others

When I grow up
I will be an Australian

trading my human wrongs
with human rights
by an exchange once known
to other generations
as


a fair go




____________________________




Well if you live in Australia, and not under a rock therein, you probably don't need to be told what this post is in aid of. It's been a horrible week punctuating a horrible year in Australian politics. What you may not know is that last year I worked directly with Asylum Seekers as a community support worker, through Australian Red Cross.

While I've held/maintained a certain amount of detachment from the issue (which I found necessary to undertake the job), it's surprising now how much this has effected me, how suddenly angry and betrayed I feel by our government. I think about all the people I met and worked with trying to repair their lives and eek out some sort of life in Australia, and the thousands more still incarcerated by Australia, only to have K-Rudd come out of nowhere and trample all that work, and I feel very ashamed of us a nation.

Well, I plan to do something, in my own small way to help the cause. I know from my time working inside the system at ARC that the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre are doing good work advocating for, and directly assisting with material aid, we would often liaise with them for extra assistance outside our basic health/well-being mandate.

http://www.asrc.org.au/

So, with the upcoming full-blown re-release of my album, I've decided to donate a third of the money from each album sold ($5.00 out of the $15.00) to ASRC, for any album bought through to the end of 2013. 

Truth is, I has been seriously thinking about something like this anyway, and Labour's massive right turn this week really just galvanized me. I still have gestating plans to write a poetry-narrative chapbook about my experiences at Australian Red Cross, later this year, this gesture is a forerunner to that.

However, as that launch is still at least a month off, in the meantime if anyone is so inclined please make a direct donation to ASRC through the link below.

http://www.givenow.com.au/asrcgeneralappeal

and check out their Facebook page: 

https://www.facebook.com/Asylum.Seeker.Resource.Centre.ASRC


I don't like trying to take the moral high ground. My footing isn't great and my balance is worse, but there are times you have to get over yourself and do -something- for the sake of your spirit. This, for me at least, is one of those times.






-Peace







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