On 14 May 2020 I posted an article, ‘Why the rush to get workers back to work – no matter what?’. One person on Facebook commented: “Absolutely spot on! If only the workers realised the power they hold…..”, which garnered this response: “Speaking personally, my only power feels like refusal to go back to work, resulting in more extreme poverty and probable homelessness. It really does not feel like power.” I posted this response: “You have just nailed the elephant in the room, which I’ve battled with all my adult life and which is seldom talked about – economic slavery and why ordinary working people don’t rise up.
We can’t afford to. Money, isn’t just the means of our survival, it is also an ideological weapon that’s been used against ordinary people for centuries. In the desert, the one who controls the water supply is king. In Britain, it’s wealth, that’s what keeps the rich in power and subjugates millions of people. No matter how loudly we shout, until we resolve the problem of access to the means of survival we’ll never be free.” I have repeated over and over that ‘poverty is violence’ to which I have never found an answer and until we do billions of people will never realise their potential. Britain is the home of the Industrial Revolution. People abandoned their farms and flocked to the cities and areas of industry looking for work, to be paid poverty wages, working in appalling conditions or found themselves in work houses or debtors prisons. Work houses were brutal places of unimaginable cruelty. Historically, as now, the poor are always blamed for their poverty by those in power.
Between 1983 and 1985 I was studying Community and Youth Work at Durham University in which we were required to do three community placements. One of my placements was in a mining town during the miners strike and my final placement was in another mining town shortly after the strike ended. For a wide eyed, naive, southern boy it was terrifying, at a level I’ve not experienced before or since. The violence and suffering was horrific whilst the bravery and courage of the miners and their families was awe inspiring. The two overriding issues were resources (survival) and unimaginable state violence courtesy of Margaret Thatcher.
Boris Johnson wants nothing more than to be seen as a modern day Churchill, but in reality he’s still pursuing the policies and brutality of Thatcher.
She has a long shadow, still. Since 2010, the Conservatives have been waging economic warfare against the people of Britain – subjugation and control. Unless and until we defeat poverty and stop the use of money as a weapon, dreams will remain shattered and lives stunted and ruined for the brief time people are alive, prevented from enjoying it by those with too much wealth and privilege and no humanity and compassion. Imagine if life was a celebration instead of a burden and a curse for far too many. Perhaps Jesus was right that the poor will always be with us, but he never said that they should be humiliated, punished and despised for it. If there is a heaven and if I’m in it, I shall enjoy chatting to the camels as the rich rage and spit, “Don’t you know who I am?” and God replying, “oh yes.” Life should be a joy, not a prison.
Keith Ordinary Guy
Excellent perceptions and sadly very true. We’re basically talking about a neoliberal ideology that is backed by the billionaires, who now own most of our democratic governments. People have bought the line that they are part of a “middle class” and can afford to make “choices.” Those that can’t are failures, losers…who only have themselves to blame.
We, the majority, must take back our governments and public services. The constant underfunding and destablization of them is part of the playbook. When they crumble, the crow that, “See, they’re ‘inefficient!'” That’s when there’s wholesasle sell-off to the private sector. Run it like a business, they say. How did long-terms care centres work for you recently?
Beware the ideology of the IDU – founded in 1983 by one Margaret Thatcher and her buddy Ronald Reagan. As with all these neoliberals, their groups are always deliberately labelled so innocently “International Democratic Union.” Really?!
The current pandemic has laid bare the abject failure of the “free market.” Corporate handouts must stop. Public Services must be invested in. The pyramid is upside down.
We are many and they are few. Join a union.