ANOTHER ROYAL WEDDING, sprayed at us from every possible angle. Jammed down our throats. Average citizens blindly applauding and eating it up are, in my opinion, pretty much like a cult. Why? Because generally only in a cult do people readily accept being slaves, and actually applaud and revere the leaders who've persuaded them their being held hostage and/or committing ritual suicide is a desirable state of affairs. At very least, it's arguably a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
The same could be said of Tory voters who lack a property portfolio, a six figure salary, and/or an offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands: they're turkeys applauding Christmas.
I swear the biggest success (and arguable genius) of neo-liberal capitalism, the heir of colonialism, is that in countries like the UK and US, average struggling people actively vote for and support the individuals/groups who've actively taken all the resources from them. If you look at it objectively, it's sheer madness. But quite a feat on their part, no doubt.
Somehow the upper echelons have successfully propagated the idea that only the super-rich and established political classes can, and should, govern. That huge portions of society's wealth should belong to them alone, cordoned off. That 'order' and colonial notions of 'propriety' are a worthy pursuit over and above the common good, decency, or even basic humanity.
Millionaires-in-waiting
Indeed, financially disadvantaged Brits and Americans don't see themselves as 'poor': they see themselves as millionaires-in-waiting: just a promotion, a reality show or lottery win away from being part of the club themselves. It's as if the very existence of super-rich elites who exploit society are a beacon of inspiration for them. That is what they want for themselves and their families: the big mansion house with gates to keep all the little people out. They care far less for the happiness and concerns of wider society, only the aspirations of their OWN elevation. It's every man and woman for himself: that was Thatcher's 'gift' to us.
Millions of people live and die dreaming of wealth and comfort just around the corner, never realising they deserved a bigger piece of the pie any way: just by merit of being born into free societies and wealthy economies. They live and die never realising, if they'd actually stood alongside the 'little people' they were so desperate to avoid identifying with, due to a warped sense of egotism, they may very well have led a happier and more comfortable existence. Instead, they lived as fodder for their 'betters'. In the interim, while millions continue voting for these bastards and continue the dog-eat-dog mentality, demonising socialism and 'freeloader' types (thinking themselves so much 'better'), our society and welfare state is being firebombed. The rights of average people, are being firebombed. Our jobs and industries are disappearing one by one, going online and becoming automated, and soon, certainly in decades ahead, unemployment will spiral out of control. Little people will have nothing left.
A society in which everyone is better off, with more disposable income - especially those at the more vulnerable end of the scale - would make for a much happier nation. A far less angry, hostile, bitter and resentful nation. It would be a better residence for every last one of us. There will always be rich and poor, that is the way of things, but the gap between the two, and the disproportion in volume, has become far too wide. That simply has to be addressed, before it explodes like the ticking time bomb it is. Either society will have to eventually move to a model of Universal Basic Income (UBI) for all, or those of means will have to adopt increasingly hostile and totalitarian methods to keep an ever increasing starving majority at bay. You don't need to be Nostradamus to look down the road and see that isn't going to end well, or that extreme measures will eventually be resorted to. It's an equation that simply has to balance out, one way or another, sooner or later.
Harry Windsor seems a decent enough bloke, and Meghan Markle seems alright too. But I for one cannot celebrate the vaunted wealth/superiority of princes and TV stars; certainly not while growing numbers of homeless people in the UK are veritably rounded up in skips, just to make way for their idyllic day. Not while we sit beneath the boot of a government corrupt to the core, isolating our country and forcing our economy down the toilet. (I almost got through a whole article without mentioning Brexit!) And not while our society and amenities crumble to dust, and Nationalism rises before our very eyes.
Sort all that out: then I'll cheer the bloody royal wedding. Otherwise, I'll view it as the paltry and rather insulting distraction it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment