going forward

Just read a lengthy wordy article. Inequality at a dead end. Setting out yet again the case for the damage being done by the growing economic inequality. Then, significantly moving on to assess whether or how the existing institutions could bring about the changes necessary. The conclusion was they could not, we are doomed to stalemate, there is too much invested into the status quo. However it then when on to explore the new ways that people are coming together to tackle one aspect or another of the impact of inequality. Hurrah.

Far from claiming to have any solutions, what my blogs over these years have been grappling with is, seeking out suggestions for alternate ways that we can work together. Smack on trend. Not solutions but indications of where and how. Looking back over my blogs you will see that I have been exploring different ways to raise finance, different ways to benefit and protect our resource, finding a different relationship to big corporation but most of all how we can come together to look after ourselves, locally driven, not imposed by a central authoritarian government.

This exploration in an age where we are all (largely) self-centred, seeking instant gratification and indifferent to the wider social needs. Yet despite this, I do believe, we do have to rediscover a new community connection, relevant to the 21C, where we can come together as a caring community and forge solutions meaningful to us.

To find those new solutions means having the courage to join the debate, exchanging views, sharing experiences. learning from each other and slowly working out answers together. United we can own the world. Silent or as individuals, we are at the buffers, going nowhere. So your view is............

Halting Inequality growth

At last there is now widespread discussion about the growing inequality gap and the social evils that come along in its trail. These messages are beginning to heard but what is missing are practical suggestions of what we can do tomorrow that will start to reverse the trend. This is the discussion that we now urgently need. In past blogs I have indicated several different ways in which our Economy has to change to better cope with today's pressures and social needs. Such change can be seismic, takes a while to gain critical mass, turn minds around, set aside trusted answer and face the new. What we need right now are immediate steps that work within the accepted norms. Here are my offerings. Things that could be done right away, that will make a tangible difference and whose impact will be felt within months not decades.

Housing is the new South Sea bubble, sucking in all the loose change cause that is the only market that is sure to produce dividends. Not just homegrown goldminers but gold seekers from around the world, House are bought to capitalise on it and matters not if they stand empty.

Step 1. All domestic property whose address is not recorded on an Electoral Register and cannot prove a minimum six month protected tenancy is taxed at an exorbitant  rate.

Our commercial core is being manipulated to provide instant profit to satisfy the demands of the investing institutions solely looking to todays deal. We have to break away and restore a longterm strategy back into our commercial core. Individuals are much more likely to take a long view and not the micro-second shifts in share values.

Step 2. Shareholder voting rights removed from Institutional hands. Votes only accepted from verified individuals, proxy voting disallowed.

Our economics have been distorted out of all recognition. Illusionary money made out of gambles on financial outturns is just lunacy, a fictional charade but unfortunately one that is self-perpetuating. It can never be a basis for building a countries future. We have to restore common-sense, investment in people and workplaces does matter.

Step 3. Sliding scale corporate tax introduced. Enterprises able to prove investment in building and equipment and people granted lowest rates with longterm write-off whilst those making money out of gambling on financial outturns paying a crippling high rate with no set-offs.

There are a lot of social injustices that have to rectified but as a first step we have to set a limit. How extreme, how polarised can we afford our country to be, between those that have nothing, not even hope and those who have everything plus the control that wealth brings?  

Step 4. A penalising high personal tax for any individual claiming residency in this country whose combined income or control of assets exceeds say 1:50 of that of the lowest paid.  

So here is my challenge to all you Electoral Candidates out there, come up with a better scheme to stop this iniquitous inequality.

The Political Wilderness

There are two crisis issues staring at us. First the obscenely absurd wealth ratio between the poorest and the richest standing at 1 to 300 and ever rising. Secondly an economy based on ever increasing consumerism but founded on a World now showing that it has very finite resources and capacity to regenerate those resources. The two issues are of course inter-related but necessarily linked. Both issues need to be tackled, urgently. That takes courage, vision and political muscle. Courage because any solution is going to generate upset as toys are taken away. Vision to see through the mires of preconceptions, adherence to comfortable past practice, to look beyond to how a good Society might be solidly founded. Political muscle simply because there are some big heavyweight opinions or organisations who have a vested interest to maintaining the status quo and can call on inter-global support.

We simply do not have a single political leader with the balls and charisma to sell a solution. I do not care particularly which solution, which view of outcome success. The issues are so big it may well be impossible to define one comprehensive approach. I personally doubt that a single strategy is possible, but nibbling away multi-directionally, but always consistently in the 'right' direction, is not only possible but essential if we are to ever stop this slumber walk into the abyss.

Instead all the Political Parties are pre-occupied with throwing sweeties to the voters. Hoping to come up with the 'best' colour wrapper and flavour combinations that will win voter support and give them their majority. Sweeties like 'immigration', 'EU', 'welfare', 'cost of living' in fact such an array of sweeties that are known to have mass appeal. In the absence of any vision of a just and equitable society it is no wonder the voters will hoover up the sweeties on offer, something, even a sweetie, is better than nothing.

With the Election hype escalating around us, all the Parties on offer are digging deep into their sweeties reserves hoping against hope they can differentiate themselves enough to win out. That their nuance's of colour and flavour will standout sufficient to get that crucial vote that puts them in power. The voters will no doubt be bewildered by the sameness Me To sweeties on offer. For me, there is only one possible vote, "None of the Above". I just hope enough of us can make that one sane choice so that the small voice of reason can be heard over the clamour of sweetie distribution. We all need to hear the voice that talks to these big issues facing us. Put sweeties behind you, time for the big boys to come out.

Battle Lines

The rich elite, and their aspirant hoping to join them politicians, continue to enjoy the products of the financial squeeze on all the rest of us. A squeeze that is due to tighten even further, as our government, elected to promote and protect our interests, draws up plans to combat the anticipate civil unrest! Officials are actively looking into the purchase, the deployment and how best to utilise water cannon  to be used against their own citizens. This would seem to be a perfectly okay, matter-of-fact and reasonable step to consider. Obviously if your citizens are rioting, you need to be able to control them, perfectly logical and commendable, maintaining law and order is surely a prime purpose of government.

Pause for one moment and ask why the government anticipate their own citizens might rise up and riot? The government policy of squeezing ever harder the lower income groups, slashing essential benefit, castigating all those that fail to endure their imposed restrictions as cheats, fraudster, idle and lazy, is central to this growing unrest. The government with head in the sand pursues the 'proven' past practices of avoiding recession by encouraging consumer spending, by taking out more loans which inflate house prices even further. Their only other action is to frenetically cut their own spending on the easy targets, why of course, all  those wilful people who refuse to get jobs and look to the State for support. Cut back on all those wasteful and unnecessary social support measures. If only those people got off their backsides and worked they would get along just fine. Mean while the government must encourage consumer spending, what better way then ensuring those successful people with money to spend are shielded from the economic savings being made else where, so they can get on and spend even more.

People will put up with hardship and endure intolerable conditions providing it is fair and equitable, we are all in it together, each taking their own share of the burden. Clearly this is not happening. You only have to lift you head a fraction to see all the evidence that we are in an ever growing unequal society. Never has the gap between those that have and those who cannot survive been so large. The government, instead of rushing to halt this growing gap, is intent on ensuring its increase, because, in their view, that is the only route to economic recovery. Hence a growing ground swell of intense dissatisfaction with an unequal society on one hand and the government taking steps to contain civil disorder on the other. Use Water Cannon on your own citizens to prove you are right. So Vote to support or Revolt to find a better solution.

Baffling silence

Just had our three major political parties annual conferences where they address the prevailing issues of the day. Not a mention of social inequality and the desperate need to reduce the gap. I confess I did not pay close attention, certainly did not read cover to cover all the various speeches. Yes I did pick up on one or two minor concessions that could be interpreted as paying a token lip-service to giving the underprivileged just a tad more. However the extremes between those that have and are getting more and those who do not have and are getting less, are so wide with the gap increasing at such a worrying rate.Nothing but a seismic shift in policy from any of three parties is going to even begin to change the present courses. That would have hit the headlines. Even I would have notice that. No, our political leaders attuned to the cares and worries of our Nation, are indifferent to the loss of self-respect, lack of hope and disassociation for the growing army that are having to give up more so that the few can enjoy. Those that have seek to isolate themselves from those that have not, ring fencing their privileged access to the key essentials of life, education, health and homes. A polarised society with a ghettoed rich isolated from the morass is a dangerous society, everyone is degraded by it, rich and poor alike.

The only word I hear is we must stay on course to ensure this slow recovery continues. All parties seem well content and satisfied in continuing to follow this Alice-In-Wonderland economic policy. A pyramid selling type of policy that is founded on creating money so we can spend more. That spending pays off the interest on past loans, so we must take out new loans to create the more money we need to spend to keep the wheels turning. If only we can increase our spending we can, we might, keep ahead of the spiralling debt interests that have to be paid. Just another pyramid selling scam but this one brokered by government.

Spending disproportionately of course, those with get even more while those with a little have to give up that little and those without have to do with even less. Never mind the rich spendings will trickle down as swill to feed the masses. Except that is not how it works. The rich are in a catch up race with the unseemly rich. The unseemly rich are grabbing ever more to show a gap and distance to those on their heels. Their spending is in the realm of the stratosphere, buying up banks that create money or controlling lead industries to set the prices that others must pay. You get the drift, the poor that have to give up are giving up even more to the outlets that the rich control and directly benefit from. Trickle down just does not trickle, another aspect of this crazed Alice-in-Wonderland economics. Economics based on principles where the real life consequences that fail to conform to theory are then assumed not to apply to the theory and can therefore be safely excluded. Told you Alice-in-Wonderland rules.

Smug to Judge

A scientific study has shown that the wealthy sic successful become desensitised to the real problems other 'unsuccessful' people face. They become harsher and more willing to be critical of failure to achieve without those benefits that their own success bestows on them. Quickly forgetting the past struggles they had to surmount those same problems that suddenly disappeared when they had the added clout of success. Success does indeed breed an attitude of success which then surmounts obstacles.

Vince Cable generally gives the impression of someone who has ideas and does test them before mouthing out. So I was taken aback when he took a neutral line with Zero Hour Contracts. How can you be neutral? This is abusive advantage taking of the vulnerable. It is disgraceful, how can any MP condone such practice.

The unemployed are pressurised and intimidated by the real possibility of benefit withdrawal unless they can weekly demonstrate they are seeking work and are willing to take work any offered. There are no middle grounds. They are subjected to weekly scrutiny by uncivil servants to see to just that. Uncivil servants that are no doubt themselves performance monitored to ensure they wrinkle out the target margins.

Potential Employers can hang out the bait of work and can then haul in a rich harvest of unemployed desperate to keep their benefits alive. All without cost or commitment from them, just hang this out on the line of hope and expectation. Zero hours means they contract nothing but the lure of a promise, yet require the applicant to to commit to making themselves available at a moments notice. To be plucked, at their leisure, if and when they have a passing moment off work increase. Outrageous. Totally an unfair terms contract.

The most evil act one person can play on another is to falsely raise hope and expectations. All the more so when that other person is vulnerable, threatened and in need of hope. A hope that is going to based on the shallow insubstantial offer of a possible something in the wind. Wake up Ed Balls there are no positives, this is an evil manifest.

Nothing Changes

Just watched ITV Secrets from the Workhouse. You make up your own mind about the worth of the show. What struck me so forcibly was the Victorian attitude to the sick lame and the poor. Demonised and publicly judged to be malingers, the shiftless workshy who had to be punished and humiliated back into a proper wish for work.These same Victorians that I had always assumed had such proud high moral standards and lived within such very straight-laced ethics. These Victorians from the security of their mansions, surrounded by a bevy of servants with access to all the riches from across the world felt able to judge those that failed to succeed.

Despite a brief interlude where the Welfare State put such judgemental views firmly behind us and set out to help all those that fell, back onto their feet to gave them support for another chance to make a go of it. We are back at square one.

On our behalf, our government sets out to demonise all those out of work or taking benefits of one kind or another, casting them as lazy, work-shy fraudulent abuses of the system. We have turned a full circle and are back with the Victorians attitudes condemning all those that have not yet leapt onto the gravy train was worthless. Sanctimonious hypocrisy.

If the government cannot learn and understand that we are all dragged down by the poor and deprived within our society. That all our lives are degraded by the consequences of having a sector of our society without hope, despair, loss of self-esteem. We shall have to teach them. We shall have to speak loud and clear to them and tell them that giving the rich even more access to even more riches can only be done by taking more from one sector, the least well off. This is not sustainable. You cannot blame the sick, lame or poor for failing. You have to help them, you have show compassion, not condemnation.

Entitlement

We all live with the presumption we are entitled to certain basics in life, be it shelter, food, education, employment, care, security, privacy or dignity. Should you live in a deprived part of our globe none of these can be taken for granted. That you are alive at this moment and might reasonably assume you will be alive for the next hour or perhaps the rest of the day is as far as you can presume anything. We however take our entitlements to the life we have for granted and are so casual to the point of indifference in seeking out and protecting what we have. After all it is our birthright.

We are entitled to nothing. Everything we do get comes only from the goodwill of society and that it is prepared to fund. It may well be in societies long term best interests to arrange everyone to have dry warm shelter, to have access to good nutritious food, to ensure children are educated. Without these basic steps the scale of consequential problems soar and scupper any societies attempts to hold the line. Does not turn it into a right, just a self-interest to do what is seen to be possible.

What is possible is all in the eye of the beholder, not the supplicants, not the egalitarian evangelist, not the pressure groups, just the one beholder who has the gift of deciding for that moment. Okay not entirely free choice as they too have to bow to media reactions, funding limitations,  public opinion, world expectations and their own sense of destiny. How our basic needs are catered for come down to whim and fancy. A far cry from any right and not even an entitlement.

Of course our one core entitlement is our privacy, that is sacrosanct. To have your privacy invaded is equal to being raped. Yet the State takes on itself to enter you anally, take you without notice and lock you up without any contact with the outside world, read all electronic communications, now and in the past, irrespective of subject or address, store your gene record to be read for whatever purpose its see fit and all in the name of some ill-defined Security of the State. Not just the State of course but any number of other bodies, even private commercial firms, are too granted the right to enter your property, with or without your consent, to take information or property it deems necessary. Your right to privacy is pretty shallow based. Just dont show your head above the parapet! Remember these things do happen to just ordinary people, just like you and me, not those evil twisted people, just ordinary guys caught up in some maelstrom they little know about or understand.

Never mind an englishmans home is his castle, so pull up the drawbridge. Not quite.  For example, the software you buy does not give you ownership, in many cases it just a licence to use with even restrictions on how you sell it on. Of course your music, video, DVD have restrictions on where or how you use it or make copies of it. Without touching on leases and ground rent, your house, the house that you own, may well have a charge on it. That charge might permit some other body to seize it and evict you from your own home. Extreme maybe but do not blithely assume just because you have bought something it is yours for ever and a day. It all depends on the sinuous threads of attachment other bodies have wrapped around your purchases.

We have no rights, we have no entitlements just many expectations, reasonable and wide spread expectations. The fundamental expectation that the you will be treated fairly and not significantly disadvantageously from any other person in your social milieu. Time for you to look around. In this rapidly increasing unequal society where those with take even more whilst those without, the least able to give anything, have to give up so they can have their more. Fairness and equity have gone out of the window. Your protectors of your rights, the MP's, have abandoned principle and sold out to personal betterment, financial clout or the mindless middle ground of dont rock the boat as we too might still climb aboard. Greed and self-interest abound. You are a drift at the mercy of whim and fancy without an entitlement to your name. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Time to Share.

We look at it, we know it, we are almost bored with the thought but we carry on doing nothing. We humans have replicated to such a point that our capacity to plunder exceeds our limited Earth's capacity to provide. Been like that for a long time and what do we do? We sail on stripping the Earth of its irreplaceable assets as if there is no tomorrow. At least no tomorrow for our children now born, us, oh we will be all right, be enough to see us through! But we put so much time and energy into protecting our children and giving them best start out possible why bury our heads and ignore that that we know is going to happen? 

It is too big a problem? We are many, we are the cause and we can also be the solution. 'They' will sort it out. No, too set in a rut, 'they' can only carry on the way they always have, too much at stake for them to want to change. Ignore it and it will go away? It just gets to be an even bigger problem the longer we leave it. Scaremongering, just another false crisis made up for some political agenda? No. This is for real. There are so many fronts, each are telling the same story. Many, not just oil, essential minerals have a known finite reserve. Climate is going to change and our food sources are going to suffer. We strip the Earth of its lungs, the rain forest, we trash the soils with monoculture, we poison the ground with insecticides and fertilisers, we drive species to extinction just for our greed, it goes on and on. Wherever you are on the political spectrum, you cannot deny every single aspect. We have a problem.

On another tack we in the West have expectations of what we need to surround ourselves with to cope with life. The whole gamut, homes, furniture, food, transport, leisure activities, technology, we want it, we need it, we cannot survive without our access to it, to it all. China's millions are now waking up to these self same expectations. Their government pro-actively is out there now buying up rights to resources around the world, so their people can have what you take for granted. Not just China, but India, Africa and the S.America's are all looking and their appetite's to have also are awakening. The stuff they want does not come out of thin air, is not 're-cycled', it all comes out of the Earth, in one way or another. We have a problem.

We have to change tack. Put an end to this winner takes all attitude. The biggest, the most powerful take all they want. Be it hundred times, one thousand times, one million times more than the next person. It is their sovereign birth right to take it, to have it, protect it and stop you from getting a morsel. Whether we are thinking about individuals, companies, bank bosses, governments, continents, the same attitude applies. Those with the power take, take all they have a fancy to and those without, do with that much less.

We have to stop. We have to begin to care for that person next to us. They have as much right to what we have as we have to it. Nothing, nothing at all, gives us the right to have more, more than our neighbour. We have to share to make sure that what we enjoy is not disproportionate to what everyone else has. Only when we can be satisfied that others have had the chance to take their portion are we free to go back for more. This is the heart of being human. Whether we think about person to person or country to country, this is the true spirit of humanity. The takers have usurped us, now it is time for all of us to stand up and shame them for what they are. To claim back, on behalf us all, what is rightfully ours. To say no you are not entitled to that bonus, to use those share to your own advantage, to enact that legislation which is inequitable, your title deeds do not allow you sole occupancy, call it out as it is. Stand up, together, and shout out loud, "Fair for All or None at all".

Taking Advantage

Standby I am angry across several fronts. So UKplc is spending much more than it earns. Right. To bring the economy back towards a better balance the spending has to be cutback, quite hard so it is going to be painful. Right. I get all that. One significant area of spending that has 'got out of control' is welfare support. So the most vulnerable, least able to make any lifestyle changes, the sector totally dependant on the government support to pull themselves out of their problems will become the sector of our society in the frontline to make more savings, to rescue our failing economy.

That is all perfectly alright because as we all well know people who live off benefit are liars, or if not liars, fraudster, or not that then at least workshy or at the best living an extravagant lifestyle beyond their limited means. A lifestyle that any other sane person would immediately recognise as inappropriate. Our government, our high salaried politicians living a comfortable lifestyle look down on these lower income classes, distance themselves and actively promote the demonisation of these awful hopeless people dependant on welfare. They are to blame and therefore have put themselves beyond any compassion. Their own worst enemies. You and I of course realise that, though there are bound to be the odd individual that (is allowed to) get away with abusing the system, the majority are decent people trying very hard in impossible circumstances to give their children a safe and sheltered upbringing, to ensure the best start in life possible for them. Government speak is that they are workshy, afraid to do a decent days work, preferring the easy benefits income. The lack of any work opportunities are a direct result of the double dip recession the governement has been administering these last years. Somehow the victims of their policies are to be blamed for not 'wanting to work'.


It gets worse. Over many past decades the governement has funnelled money into social housing and built predominately three bedroom houses. The 'best' return for effot put in. Suddenly, with the demographic changes and the rise of single parent families, we have all these big houses under-occupied, rooms to spare. Brilliant, we will penalise these the weak and vulnerable for the failings of the governement past choices where they cannot justify the number of rooms occupied. Outside of the cities, there are almost nill alterantive to a three bedroom social house, right payback time, they have no choice, no where else to go so a nice steady cashstream. That will teach them, depending on the fair even handedness of the state benefit system.


Meanwhile of course, our mates, those affluent members of this society that our salaried politicians now aspire to mix amongst, adopting their lifestyle choices, continue to get their winter fuel payment. Unless they have voluntarily opted out. Now is that cynical or what. In a wide variety of ways the income streams of the very rich are explicitly protected by government actions. Afraid that any negative actions will frighten them away to other shores. Forgetting of course that everyone of us in this society has had to give up some, so that they, the wealthy minority, can take ever more of their entitlements.


I urge you to watch this video, Wealth inequalities in USA, because it is relevant to UKplc and a real eye-opener. It compares what people think is a fair distribution, low to high income, then contrast that with what these same people think is the actual gap between the lowest and the highest income and finally to reveals the actual and increasing gap between the highest and lowest. We are talking twenty fold. Eye-watering difference between the majority, including all the comfortable off middle incomes groups and the tiny few percent who are taking, not just a lions share but almost all of the available income. Watch the video, it sets it all out clearly and objectively, no party tub thumping. Relevant because for the last two decades our government has set its objective to increase the income divide. The rationale goes something along the lines of, those with get even more then they will spend more and it will trickle down and we all get to benefit. I have no objection to one favoured person having a gilded lilly, an incentive. When that gilded lilly is re-gilded and then again and again because what else do you do with wealth beyond contemplation. It cross over from being an incentive to being a obscentity. Which is where we are now. There is an ever increasing gap between those that have and those do not. An increasing gap, maybe not yet to USofA proportions but we too are well headed down the same route.


So what? Envy! No, because a society with big income inequality, is a sick society. The Spirit Level has explored exhaustively the relationship beteween all those social maliase we worry about. Binge drinking, under-aged sex, single parents, aggression, crime, you name it and failings within our society are aggravated by the extent of the divide. Does not make sense, yet it does. Low self-esteem, low self value and isolation from the heart of the society does result in self-deprecating behavior. The link is irrefuteable. The breakdown of our society we all sense but cannot quite pin down arises out of this ever increasing gap between the haves and the have nots. Social cohesion is just one aspect. We have to take a new tack and start to reduce the income inequality. We cannot pull all the poor up, the gap is too great, we have to rein in by big steps the wealth of those rich minorities. We must start to medicate our sick society back to health. In doing so we might even resolve some of the governments current problems of spend exceeding income. A spend not from the poorest sector of society I guess.

We have to put UKplc into reverse. Return once more to support the desperately needy in our society, give them the lifeline to help themselves out of their predicament. If for no other reason than that their despair taints and spoils all our enjoyment of the society we live in. Support that can only come from severely reining in the extravagant indecent wealth of the top earners. Do not think for one moment you can safely sit back and your government will blunder into the right lines of thought. They show no signs of understanding or sharing the evils that our poorest are forced by their policies to endure. Their focus appears to be how quickly they can get to lap the cream they are pouring into the coffers of the well off. 

No the reverse gear will only be found through people power. It is well past time for each of us to speak out and make sure your voice is heard loud and clear. Income inequality is immoral, unchecked wealth is a cancer in our society, it is wrong and it is harming us all. A divided society is a spoilt society.

Not Alone

Just one of those chance things in life, came across The Spirit Level and it has revealed an insight into society that I have been struggling with over all these posts.It has introduced a clarity of view as to where the problems lie. Not for me to paraphrase a carefully constructed argument, see for yourselves, but clearly the message it sets out is that the underlying root of all those problem we sense, fume against, feel impotent to do anything about, is, social inequality.

A couple of key thoughts perhaps to get you thinking along the right lines. We have long ago passed the point where any increase in wealth (you decide how you want to determine it) equates to a commensurate increase in security and health. Think, by way of comparison, of a third world person where a tin of clean water or a bowl of rice has immediate and large impact on their state of well-being. Next, our own personal insecurities are directly related to where we feel we are within the social order. Top dog struts proudly, whipping boy nervously peeks here there to see where the next put down is coming from. This social insecurity has been heightened by the breakdown in communities and knowing where and who you belong to. Then, the wider the gap between the haves and the havenots the more extreme are the symptoms that manifest themselves. It is almost counter intuitive, but low self-esteem, as a result of being low down in the pecking order, directly impacts on your personal well-being, likelihood to abuse, commit crime, the list goes on. Not the sole cause, not the only reason, but social deprivation, real or imagined, is a major driver.

At this point, poised to shout eureka, there are other minds out there all looking in roughly the same direction, I get a reality check. On past performance it takes fifty years from the first wave of enthusiasm for a new political understanding to work through up the layers of conservative rebuttal until it becomes the accepted norm when finally it can enter into the mainstream to become universally accepted and adopted. Fifty years!

What we all have to do is to use our own mastery of this new interconnected world to get the word out there. Spread as widely as possible. Take what you see and like and promulgate, contruct your own vision or borrow another's, it matters not. Just spread the word that we, us as a society, want a better place, a more equal place, a place where we are treated with the same respect we wish to give to others. It is just possible, together, we can foreshorten the fifty wait before something happens.

The greener grass

Looking over the fence at the grass in the next field, it always has looked much more attractive and tastier than the grass in your own field. It was ever thus. A slight tinge of envy, even jealously, is an acceptable norm for how much better, enjoyable, less pressured, easier, more rewarding or more appreciated that boss, partner, home, housework, neighbour, colleagues life style is, compared to the drudgery, repetitiveness, pressured, under paid and definitely under appreciated of your own unique contributions. Until of course you cross the fence line only to discover that that other grass has it own special blend of demands, expectations, obligatory deadline that make your own patch, on reflection, so much more sweeter. Until we can parallel exist in multiple roles, all at the one and same time, we will never ever be in a position to fully appreciate the contra-demands and burdens of those seemingly so simple alternative roles.

So tolerance, understanding and a tight rein on the envy and jealousy are the order of the day. When it all flares up, then calm talking will sort it out, or, as a last resort, you make the determined effort to cross in to the next field. You have choices, sort out disagreements or refuse to accept and put in the extra effort to take on the coveted position for yourself. So long as the disparities are not too extreme and there is some chance, no matter how remote, that you or your child's child could cross the divide. When that becomes vanishing thin to totally improbable, then the bile of resentment diffuses. At the point when comparisons between your lot and the others lot become so extreme that manifestly, they, the other, is getting totally disproportionate return for clearly very dissimilar demands; when words can no longer bridge the gap between discrepancies and the obstacles to move across become insurmountable, then resentment is the order of the day, with dire consequences for us all.

For the last two decades the gap between the haves and the have-nots have become polarised to an extreme degree and worse still, the fence has become hugely un-scalable. Resentment abounds. In a manifestly unjust world there are no longer restraints. There is nothing to lose, so take what you want, when and how. Any consequence cannot not be worse than your face pushed up against blatant unjust inequality. Who can hold on to dreams when the odds are so stacked against you?

Those licking from the cream self-justify whichever way they choose as to why they should be special, why they should stand apart from those masses. There are no arguments which can overcome the divisive society that results from their self-centred greed and interest. If only you could bring up the drawbridge, create a ring fenced communities with only nice successfully people, like you, keeping all the unpleasant masses with their smelly poverty and problems out, there, at arm stretched length.

Society is not like, them that do the work and us that lap the cream. You need, we all need, each other. Need to coexist together, interdependent. It just cannot work when the divide becomes so extreme. How can anyone rationalise why this persons gets the cream and sets their children into the cream pot to start off their own lives but all those other persons gets all the pain, the grief, the unrelenting toil and the hopeless inability to escape the escalating debts with children doomed to follow and never lift a hope. Everyone needs luck, rightly so, our children should be in a position to benefit from the luck we have exploited. It just degrees. Playing from a clean deck. Not two disparate packs, one for the losers with no get out of jail cards and the other stacked with only court cards, chances and opportunities.

We are on a self-destruct path. The ever widening gap is immoral, beyond justification. Yet the keys to all our futures are only in the hands of these few enjoying the benefits. These same who show no desire to have any conscious let alone give up on their good life. Resentment boils. We have to get back to looking across to grass fields with a surmountable fence.