Fri, 28/10/2005 - 3:59pm
Four days ago, a sad Victorian, in whose symbolic shadow we all stand arrived at work on Monday. This downcast soul arrived the same as millions of other Victorians, stewed in the juices of their Monday morning hangover. It came as a grief-stricken daybreak to end the weekend. But four days later, we must face the tragic fact that the Victorian is still at work.
Four days later, the life of the Victorian is still sadly crippled by the manacles of business and the chains of employment. Four days later, the Victorian lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of responsibility. Four days later, the Victorian is still languishing in the corners of Victorian workplaces and finds himself a slave in his own job.
So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our Friday to cash a check. When the architects of our state wrote the magnificent words of the Workplace relations act and John Howard finished his Workchoices handbook, they were signing a promissory note to which every Victorian was to fall heir.
These documents were a promise that all workers would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of weekends, public holidays, and the occasional sickie. Whilst it may seem that today Victoria has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of labour are concerned, and that instead of honouring this sacred obligation, Victoria has given the workers a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." We must refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We must refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this state.
So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of the weekend and the security of public holidays. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind Victoria of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of the five-day week to the sunlit path of the long weekend. Now is the time to open the doors of your local pub. Now is the time to drink ourselves into a state of fermentation and lose all sense of duty to the solid rock of employment.
It would be fatal for our state to overlook the urgency of the weekend and to underestimate the determination of the worker to relax. This sweltering summer of the Victorians legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating weekend of drinking and barbecues. Two thousand and five is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Victorian needed to blow off steam and will now be content to go back to work on Monday will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquillity in Victoria until the worker is granted his long weekend.
The cocktails on Friday afternoon will continue to shake the foundations of our bellies until the bright day of Saturday emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold, which leads into the long weekend. In the process of gaining our rightful break we must not get too silly tonight. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking too much on Friday afternoon and spoiling the rest of the weekend with a hangover.
We must not conduct our weekends on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our senses to prevent us from degenerating into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of alcoholism.
The wave of alcoholism which will engulf the Victorian community must not lead us to distrust of all sober people, for many of our sober brothers, as evidenced by their presence in bars and nightclubs, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with serving our drinks and our need for beer, and their purpose is inextricably bound to our weekend.
Fri, 28/10/2005 - 4:04pm
#2
Re: I have a dream!
Anyone got a chapter summary?
Fri, 28/10/2005 - 4:06pm
#3
Re: I have a dream!
again, im telling ya the easybeats - "friday on my mind".
and much easier on the brain than attempting to read all that.
Fri, 28/10/2005 - 4:06pm
#4
Re: I have a dream!
Yeah man, that's nearly as long as Scotto's joke posts...
:
Fri, 28/10/2005 - 4:07pm
#5
Re: I have a dream!
A victorian went to work - that's as far as i got.
Scroll
Thank God Almighty it's friday.
Fri, 28/10/2005 - 4:07pm
#6
Re: I have a dream!
:lol: :lol:
Fri, 28/10/2005 - 4:09pm
#7
Re: I have a dream!
so what happened four days ago rookie?
Fri, 28/10/2005 - 4:32pm
#8
Re: I have a dream!
Monday
cont...
We cannot drink alone. And as we drink, we must make the pledge that we shall drink all night. We cannot sober up. There are those who are asking the devotees of sobriety, "When will you be wasted?" we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of work, cannot gain lodging in the hotels of the suburbs and the bars of the city. ?We cannot be satisfied as long as our basic mobility is un-impaired. ?We can never be satisfied as long as an accountant in Melbourne is abstaining and a hairdresser in Narre Warren believes she has nothing for which to drink. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until lager flows like a mighty stream from the tap at the local.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from shift work. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for the weekend has left you battered by the storms of ten-hour days and staggered by the perils of overtime. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. ?Continue to work with the faith that unearned alcohol is redemptive.
Go back to Mitcham, go back to Altona, go back to Greensborough, go back to Lilydale, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern suburbs, knowing that somehow this afternoon you will get sloshed. ?Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the week, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Victorian dream.
I have a dream that this weekend all workers will rise up and live out the true meaning of the weekend creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people should get tanked." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Glenhuntly the sons of reformed alcoholics and the sons of former teetotallers will be able to sit down together at a table of beer. ?I have a dream that one day even the city of Box-hill, a dry city, will be transformed into an oasis of pie-eyed persons. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a city where they will not be refused a drink because they are stewed nor because of the content of their stomachs. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Victoria, whose premier's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where long weekends will extend into holidays, holidays will evolve into long service leave. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every day shall be a holiday, every Monday and Tuesday shall be given in lieu of another holiday, the Wednesdays will be R.D.O.s, and the Thursdays will finish before they began, and the glory of Friday shall be revealed once again, and all the workers shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the weekend. ?With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of employment a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our state into a beautiful symphony of ?skol?. ?With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free on Friday.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "Well the last train out of Sydney?s almost gone." ?And if Victoria is to be a great state, this must become true. So let Friday ring from the prodigious hilltops of Hampton Park. Let Friday ring from the scenic railroad in St. Kilda. ?Let Friday ring from the doll office in Dandenong! Let Friday ring from the Fish and chip shop in Frankston! Let Friday ring from the Koalas in Kangaroo ground! Let Friday ring from the Drive-in at Dromana! But not only that; let Friday ring from every beer-garden around our state and any other place that will serve us a brew when we knock off. From every single bar, let Friday ring.
When we let Friday ring, when we let it ring from every suburb and every town, from every shire and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old drunkard spiritual, "Friday at last! Friday at last! Thank God Almighty, it is Friday at last!"