Are you the sort of person who thinks “I have too many things to worry about, without looking at the situation in the Middle East or the Ebola outbreak in Africa. Why should I concern myself with what the political parties are saying in their conferences in the UK at the moment? I can't be bothered to follow the news of what is happening in the energy markets, on supermarket pricing, insurance comparisons and all the rest of it. I'm not really interested in the newspapers or TV programs discussing what is happening in the world - I buy a newspaper for the gossip page and watch the soaps and Big Brother on TV! Why should I vote as all politicians are the same?”
Based on discussions with a wide circle of contacts in my own community, chat on the web, people being interviewed on TV, the radio and in the press etc.; the above paragraph is probably true of over half the population of the UK and the USA. There are still signs of wider awareness and social and political interaction in parts of Europe.
It dismays me when people espouse such thoughts as it runs contrary to the activities and sacrifice of men and women in different parts of the world striving for centuries past to achieve a decent world for us all,
Too many of us think “There is nothing that I can do about these issues!” and that makes us jointly culpable for them. George Bush and Tony Blair could not have invaded Iraq if we hadn't let them. Thousands like me marched in protest but it should have been millions.
We elect people to public office without considering their suitability and then we are astonished when they turn out to be weak, venal and disinterested in what they should be doing.
We allow big corporations to condemn us to a poisoned and polluted future and fail to examine the arguments and accept the deceiving headlines of the news media, despite the fact that a brief examination of the arguments will reveal the truth. We refer to the media
as “free” despite the fact that the subtle bonds of commercial interest ties them to those same corporations tighter than any chains.
The UK is regarded by many of us here as riddled with class divisions which are strongly denied despite the overwhelming evidence. Those divisions ensure that the “elite class” can enjoy an ever increasing portion of the nation's wealth at the expense of the vast majority. What makes me weep is the belief that the USA in particular, but other countries as well, do not suffer the same disease. It is more historically structured in the UK rather than different in nature or effect. Simple check. What proportion of the top politicians, captains of industry, senior military men, financial giants etc. in your country attended the top academic institutions in your country? Now ask what proportion of their fathers attended the same institutions? Then compare those figures with the population at large.
I am not questioning the ability of an individual American from a middle of the road family to achieve a place at Harvard or Yale etc. but how many of them will also have not only a father who also graduated there' but possibly a grandfather and even further back. The result is a national “club” of men, mainly, men who share a history of educational experience from one generation to the next. The key to this club is of course wealth but combined with an acceptance which comes from the history of your family as members of this “club” as wealth alone is not sufficient although someone extremely wealthy may be given what might be called “visitors privileges” sufficient to let them think they are full members.
Although even the richest can be denied membership of “the club” which determines the fate of all of us the future of nations, the life or death of millions, whether as a group, let alone individually, we starve or prosper; isn't it terrifying that collectively we have the power to change the world but decide it isn't worth the effort? Isn't it horrifying that we condemn millions to death because we refuse to exercise our proclaimed humanity, religious convictions or political beliefs and overcome the dead hand of “the club”
We have allowed “the club” to dominate and emasculate our political and social systems so that our media offers up a range of opinion acceptable to “the club”; our political parties are led, not by representatives of the people but representatives of the club; the very language of discussion is defined by “the club”. Any departure from the terms defined by “the club” are labelled “extreme” and those who support a different path as “extremists”.
Our economic structures, our political systems, our societies have been recaptured by those who believe in the subjugation of the many by the few. Measures intended to improve the lot of the wider population, especially for those in the lowest economic strata are under constant attack while our tax systems are distorted to allow “the club” to channel even more of the wealth of our nations into their pockets with diminishing compensation for that wealth.
One of the features of modern society that bodes ill for “the club” is the increasing concentration of the tax liability required for the maintenance of essential services on the middle classes. This, combined with the increasingly desperate state of poverty for those at the bottom of the economic pile brings back echoes of the situation in pre-revolutionary France and Russia. It should also be remembered that the French revolution was itself preceded by a revolution, initially over taxation, in what would become the USA.
It should also be remembered that the revolutions of the USA, France, Russia and China were not led by poor peasants. Lenin was from a wealthy middle class family while both Mao Zedong and Leon Trotsky were the sons of wealthy farmers. In the USA, George Washington was from a family of wealthy plantation owners and in England in an earlier century, Oliver Cromwell was also from wealthy middle class stock.
Finally we should remember Karl Marx, another revolutionary from a wealthy middle class background.
Today many dismiss Marx following the breakup of the USSR, describing it as a failure of Marxism and a failure of communism without realizing that despite the rhetoric, the USSR was never the embodiment of Marxist communism. The real relevance of Marxist economic analysis is, however, not about the success or failure of socialism in the USSR but the inherent instability of capitalism.
Capitalism (according to Marxist theory) can no longer sustain the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by driving down wages, cutting social benefits and pursuing military aggression. Marxist theory is based on his observations of capitalism in the19th Century but it cannot be denied that what he describes there bears a remarkable similarity to the situation today.
by LilMo