"That it's nothing personal, only politics"
So, sometimes it is important to remember that for all the sound and fury, the majority of those who hold political positions can also be considered and decent people - apparently George W Bush is entirely personable despite the beliefs he holds. However these are rarefied positions, and I feel it is important that we must put some political ideas and situations in the appropriate context.
So, some people we can shake hands and share a drink with, others are sociopaths or aggressively incompetent. Which applies to all aspects of the political spectrum, in my experience.
However, as I see it, there are considerations that should matter, regardless. Certain untruths and positions that even reasonable people would see as unfair and even perverse. Now my bias is apparent, and it comes from my place of deep compassion and concern, not envy nor am I working through any psychological displacement or neuroses.
Sir Phillip Green is a fundamental example of the concept that businessmen somehow possess the necessary skills to be effective as part of government, ignoring the fact that he is unaccountable to the people. He has been appointed to a position where he will be overseeing governmental spending, an 'Austerity Czar', a non-title that gives him power and influence over our money.
He managed to avoid paying some £285 million by transferring dividends from the sale of his business to his wife, a resident of Monaco, a tax haven and yet somehow David Cameron believes that this, combined with his business experience makes him more qualified than you or I, to oversee governmental spending - mainly he says to oversee IT contracts, but his remit will include health care and such, all the things that we have(or had) an expectation that government will provide for us, that we pay taxes for.
So, essentially the government has put someone in charge that you did not vote for, who does not pay in the same way you do, and he will now decide where your money gets spent. How does that make you feel?
Now, normally you would get complex arguments from left-leaning commentators, politicians et al and as angry as we would all feel, these would be limited to the places we already frequent, both physically and intellectually. It is not enough that we engage our fellow travellers emotionally, we have to get more people onside, we have to make our message simpler and more effective.
We need to start pointing out, without being patronising or elitist, why people should not tolerate these situations, get them to ask questions about why this country, and this world is the way it is. You do not have to dumb down, we have spent far too long seeing our media and our politicians spoon feed us insubstantial gruel whilst outside our window, we see things fall apart and this is not reflected anywhere. Conversely, the messages need to reflect what is good about us, as people, reflecting that we love and live and find joy in things and events that we cannot, or should not put on the credit card.
We went to war on a lie, which arose not from conspiracy, but from the combination of economic forces, human decisions, political ideas and events that no one in charge could have foreseen but the truth is, we go to work on similar lies, the ones we tell ourselves about why and what we work for, and the ones we choose to believe to get us through the day. The world works for a small percentage of people, and for the rest of us, we have to labour beneath the delusion that we can join that small percentage if we can build a better life for ourselves or if we give up notions of love, freedom or charity.
Stop tolerating all the horror and start considering what we can do about it.
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