Mr Cameron, be careful what you wish for; you may get it. The Big Society is here and it is coming to get you.
According to Wikipedia, the big society was a flagship policy of the David Cameron manifesto to ...’create a climate that empowers local people and communities, building a "big society" that will take power away from politicians and give it to people’.
Well, that is precisely what many protesters and activists are determined to do in November 2013 and I somehow doubt that Mr Cameron is going to be so keen to let go of the power the big society demands.
Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne nudged the British community closer together when they announced that we all needed to pay the debts created by banks. The Conservative party mantra “We’re all in this together” shouted from every available media outlet, as if by saying it repeatedly and often would make us believe it was true.
Contrary to Conservative propaganda, the Labour party did not leave us in a mess, the global greediness of corporate banks did that. But the Labour party did introduce capability assessments for people who were sick and disabled via the incompetent ATOS company who hired unsuitable people, i.e the cheapest people with some claimable links to the medical profession, with a mandate to exclude as many people as possible from receiving benefit, thus making ATOS a profit. And the Conservative party turned the screw again, bringing together communities from all over the country where sick and disabled people have been abused.
Then Mr Duncan Smith capped housing benefit because there was no threshold for private rents. People on low incomes started to discover that the minimum wage was no longer a living wage. Huge areas of affluent housing areas were no longer affordable, pushing people into moving elsewhere, irrespective of the inconvenience for present work. And to make matters worse, he introduced a ‘room subsidy’ that the common people dubbed the ‘bedroom tax’. Once again the disabled were hit, where the need for an additional bedroom was required due to a health condition. Insufficient funds were released to cover these needs. Not only that but investigations reveal that people who would move to smaller accommodation to avoid paying the bedroom tax cannot because there are no smaller places to move to.
Then came the ‘workfare’ programme, pushing unemployed people into inappropriate work experience for no pay; not because, as they say, it helps them to find work. The simple reason for workfare is that is pushes unemployed people on long term (six months) benefit off the unemployment register to make the unemployment count less than it really is. It is a lie, a sham and a shame. So the big community among the unemployed was galvanised.
Then the emergence of ‘zero hours contracts’ spread like a disease throughout the world of work. Thousands of low paid workers managed to find some hours but nothing secure. The government loved the idea because they could claim that all these people had found work and their policies were working. But more importantly the people were not on the unemployment register but they were hardly employed either.
Then they tried closing down hospital accident and emergency units, illegally as it turns out. The local community in Lewisham (London) came out in full protest mode; The Big Society in action. In any event the government also opened up the National Health Service to forms of privatisation that threatens its very existence, trying to finish off what Labour's Private Finance Initiative started (The private construction of public buildings with extortionate financially crippling rent and maintenance contracts).
Don’t forget the Conservatives pushed up University fees and scrapped a subsidy to help young college goers to stay in education, bringing the young people together in full support against the government.
Then they cut all public sector jobs, ousting thousands of people from government and local government posts, whilst at the same time demanding severe cuts from local councils, which reduced funding for services such as social care. Once again the disabled and vulnerable were hit and communities fought to keep public libraries open.
When they said they would curtail bankers bonuses they didn’t. Then the independent body they created to assess MPs salaries decided to award them an 11% pay rise when the government had restricted other government workers to just 1%
And while the banks, taking full advantage of the reduction of the tax rate from 50p to 45p by delaying the payment of bonuses, wallowed in money, the rich, including the government (most of whom are public school educated and millionaires) continued to enjoy tax avoidance - perfectly legal - while appearing aggrieved that some big companies did not appear to paying much UK tax (apparently also perfectly legal).
There are sufficient grounds for any society to up and revolt at this egregious treatment, in the case of the UK by the Conservative Party. On the other hand, one must acknowledge that this is a coalition government.Yet the Liberal Democrats, who may be complicit in allowing so much penury to wash liberally over the populace are minor players - as any Conservative member or supporter will insist on telling you. Perhaps more execrable is the opprobrium of their continued synergy, and thereby a tacit agreement from the Lib Dems to all that has befallen the most vulnerable of our society.
But what is most startling is that all of the above stems from one really big item that has yet to make the news. The real economy is 8% of the ‘economy’ George Osborne speaks of. The debt crisis that started circa 2008 did not originate from the real economy. The debts we are paying for the money we have borrowed did not originate from the real economy. Which means that for the most part we can do without the 92% of George Osborne’s economy that started all this in the first place; none of which 99% of the people benefit from.
And it will be this stock market, casino bank money - created out of thin air by the banks - that will plunge the world into a money crisis far greater than the sub prime mortgage collapse. Every single indebted country will not be able to pay. The stock market knows it. The economists know it. The government knows it - but they don’t want to tell you.
Instead they make trouble by nipping at the masses here and there, trying to cause division and disgruntlement. But it hasn’t worked because the opposite has happened. The big society are coming together in a big way.
But some bits of news they might have distracted you from are quite important (and the main stream media have been terribly silent on what we might consider to be headline news). The biggest one, for example, is that the EU passed a law to enable governments to raid our personal bank accounts in the event of a banking collapse; something they would not do unless they were pretty certain it was going to happen. http://beforeitsnews.com/eu/2013/08/the-great-4th-reich-bank-heist-2531402.html As everyone may now be aware, the markets are already jittery over the possible tapering of Quantitative Easing by the US Federal Reserve who, at the time of writing this (22 August 2013) have debated whether to begin tapering by September or December 2013. The subsequent interest rise may tip Japan into meltdown, like the Nuclear power plant in Fukushima - now designated a level 3 incident and a worse situation than Chernobyl. This financial concern is aside from the stock market derivative bubble collapse that is pending.
On 2nd November there is a mass march in London against corruption and austerity. And on 5th November there is a mass march in London against all of the above. This is something else government has been aware of and to assist in trying to keep things as quiet as possible, they have made into law all manner of restrictions for protesting around Parliament Square. But I feel sure that the big society can still make their presence felt without the need for a megaphone.
But this is only the beginning. The people of the UK cannot forgive the damage caused to the country by David Cameron and his party, punishing the poor for the transgressions of the rich. It is such an iniquitous act of perfidy, that if anyone had the slightest inclination to vote in the 2015 election (not that it would matter in the slightest to the economy and indeed it is important to emphasise that there are incredibly few candidates in Parliament today who would not quite happily continue the same old corrupt practices if elected) there would have to be a better reason than the constant petty detritus they have offered since the 1970s.
The Big Society is awake and it is very angry. Government as it runs today is as much in need of reform as is the economy. The political parties and how they are affiliated should be destroyed. The link between government and big business has all but assassinated the real economy: the small businesses, manufacturing, trades and commercial enterprise. The UK is run by powerful oligarchies who do not give a toss about us or how we could evolve unless they can make money out of it. That is why they have to be separated from government and the real economy.
In my humble opinion, I believe it is time that the people decide the manifesto of the government they want to represent them. And if the parties cannot deliver them, they should not be voted for. I know it sounds terribly trite but a ‘people’s party’ may be the only way to push aside those who would stand in the way of the kind of reform that would be meaningful to the ordinary person: the living wage, renewable energy, taxes paid without excuses, an economy for real business and a complete segregation of casino banking, an end to usury... the list goes on. All of this is achievable once you remove the rich, the powerful and the greedy who are happy to block all of it.
Yes, the Big Society is very angry. But it is not driven by emotion alone. There is great thought and consideration into how we can repair the damage the oligarchs have inflicted on us (and by our apathy we have let them). Positive Money is one such organisation with good ideas http://www.positivemoney.org/?utm_expid=36573608-0.MdexnV7FRZyIcRONPQPzVg.0 Small groups of activists are coming together under 'The People’s Assembly'the to coordinate their efforts, like the planned mass protest at the Tory party conference in Manchester on 29 September 2013 http://thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/
So welcome to the Big Society Mr Cameron. You have succeeded in uniting the country under one determination - to stop you and the coalition from doing any more harm... ...and then to make sure that you or any other would-be-leader can never hurt us like this again.
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