Being lied about, don't deal in lies

 

Subject: Being lied about, don't deal in lies

It's not the pain of being poor that hurts but the pain of knowing there are so many undeserving people who are rich. This conundrum in life is what makes consumerism so hateful. The value judgement tied up with being able to consume as much as you can, set against those who can hardly consume enough to stay alive is the crime of all time. This disproportionate ability to consume is thrust in our faces each night on what ever media platform you support, it's in your face with 24/7 advertising, from cars to selective hotels, from mansions and holiday destinations to the gleeful publication of the grotesque wealth of Jeff Bazos or Elon Musk, who's earnings surpass half of the worlds earnings based of national income.

How did we get here, how did the few vacuum up such a high proportion of the riches, often transferring  that wealth to offshore tax havens. It didn't happen without the complicity of the governments of those countries, their deregulatory rules regarding business, particularly tax evasion which all government revenue collectors seem complicit. How can 1% of the worlds population now hold over 50% of the world financial assets. How has the ratio of earnings between the executive and their workforce increased  in 40 years from 25% to neatly 300%. Who the hell has oversight of these gross anomalies, why is no one reining in the gulf between the rich and poor and the most important question, why have the poor been contaminated by the idea that they the wealthy are worth it.

Where are those politicians we voted in to make things more equitable, once their feet were under the table, where were the laws to limit this inequity. How quickly we forget those pledges made on our doorstep and on the the television in our living rooms.

The pledges made to secure our vote were as chaff in the wind but we are also complicit for never complaining, never rebelling, happy, (if the pub ever opens), to drown our sorrows.

People often say to me why do I criticise so much of the political fabric of this country when, as they say, we could be so much worse. Yes, but we could be so much better. The famous Kipling refrain "being lied about, don't deal in lies" was written when the assumption was that lies are bad and reflect on the character of the liar but today a liar is accepted as if his or her lies don't matter, particularly when lies are used to secure political power and when that power is used to disadvantage even your own kith and kin, surely it's time to call them out.  But no, calling them a liar to their face only produces a banal grin, a sneer of contempt from the liar indicating that it's about winning and not how you win.

‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley, prophesied all this in his 1931 novel but then, as now, we prefer to be indifferent. His dystopian state where everything is engineered by the state, where overt consumerism reins and happiness is a drug taken to stimulate the mind. In this picture of the future, the 'World Controllers' have created the ideal society, through genetic manipulation, brain washing, recreational sex and drugs and all its members are but happy consumers. In today's western world, large swathes of society already behave in this way and with globalisation and as our hedonism is spread by the existing world wide communication platforms the ingredients are already here to destroy what ever individualism we may thought we had.