>Are you saying Australia is oppressed? Sure didn't seem that way to me,
Well, manifestations of oppression are not at their most starkly writ in Sydney's waterfront eateries or in capital city winebars (or so I would imagine, having patronised none). And the cultural and architectural legacies of the welfare state, in combination with the stupendous wealth the nineties visited upon fashionable CBDs, serve to disguise and conceal many social ills. Yeah, for most of its denizens, Australia has indeed been 'the lucky country' (meant ironically when first coined, but that's another story) - indeed we were not long ago the home of the world's richest working class - but, if Websters is any guide ('oppression': "Unjust or cruel exercise of authority of power, esp. by the imposition of burdens.") oppressed we are. And we are no longer the home of the world's richest working class.
>if you overlook the Aborigines and the folks in the immigrant
>detention centers.
'Australia' is very much the oppressor here - and due warning, too, that 'globalisation' du jour should not too readily be coupled with the notion of 'cosmopolitanism'. If anything, a large slab of Australia is less cosmopolitan than it was a few years ago. Howard's government - in concert with Labor's gutlessness - have succeeded in making xenophobia more acceptable. Things are being done in our name in those latter-day concentration camps that we would once not have tolerated.
>It was all very seductive, and now I'm feeling very guilty about
>these pleasures. What penance should I do?
Pleasure should be guiltlessly taken, Doug. Better down your neck than that of some All Ordinaries Whizkid from Double Bay, after all. 'Twas the crowing about the cross-currency rate (an artefactual medium of said oppression, btw) that stung. It wasn't all that long ago that the role of insensitive holders of a mighty currency fell to us - and we duly caroused, fornicated, brawled and vomited in all the world's ports for three decades - the poor sleepless locals left impotent in the face of the mighty Ozzie Dollar. We have since been soundly thrashed for our hubris ...
>What penance should I do?
That is for The Invisible Hand to decide, I'm afraid ...
Glad you had a good time, though. Rob.