richest families in Britain are worth more than the poorest 20 percent and one third of the population lives in poverty.
Almost 18 million people cannot afford adequate housing conditions, 12 million are too poor to engage in common social activities, one in three cannot afford to heat their homes adequately in winter and four million children and adults are not properly fed (see this). Welfare cuts have pushed hundreds of thousands below the poverty line since 2012, including more than 300,000 children.
If there ever was a time for revolution, surely it is now. While a heavily weakened labour and trade union movement is seeking to resist the austerity agenda and with many other groups in Britain protesting, the distinct impression is that an effective widespread revolt against capitalism itself remains a distant hope.
For a large section of the population, the ‘Wills and Kate’ royal reality show, retail therapy, bogus terror threats and blood-drenched imperialism under the lie of ‘our soldier heroes’ killing to ‘save life’ in far-away lands continue to distract and divert attention from the failing system itself.
Thanks to this, the revolution is on hold. Take a Sunday morning stroll through England’s green and pleasant land to appreciate this. Stale pools of last night’s beer-vomit clog the gutters. Sunday morning booze-soaked hangovers fuzz memories of the previous night’s deeds done and actions best forgotten. Every Saturday night is a full-fledged grim reality show on the streets of downtown Britain.
A million wannabe young women wishing they were not themselves, wishing they were Jenny Lopez or Victoria Beckham. From minimum wage beautician to footballer’s wife in an X-Factor instant. Vodka fuelled dreams in this, England’s not so green and pleasant land.
It is a damning indictment of society, where people accept the faith that this is how life should be lived, as they pray before the never ending conveyor belt of disposable commodities and heroes to be fetishised, consumed then spat out when they pass their very short sell by dates. It’s the secular theology of the age, built on flotsam and jetsam products, celebrities and fads that ebb and flow with the vagaries of mass titillation and the machinations of corporate greed.
Excerpted from: ‘Revolting acts in an age of crisis’.
Courtesy: Counterpunch.org