This is my first attempt at a blog, and a great deal has been said already on the subject…However I think there is an important point to make here. There are many reasons to be angry at the moment with politicians, but its vital that this current mood of dissent and anger is galvanised into a cohesive strategy.
Its not just about Tuition Fees, Housing Benefit or any of the other cuts alone, or about who pays tax and who doesnt, these are the symptoms of the disease and not the cause. Its more about the lack of democracy that politicians display time and time again. Labour are little better than this coalition, they took us into Wars that were perpetrated on the basis of lies, Blair campaigned on a ‘no sleaze ticket’, and we all know what happened. Add to this the MPs expenses scandal and the U turns in policy and you have the beginning of a big crisis in trust. Fact is, the political classes have always ruled us and hidden the truth, taken us to war and always told us that they know best. I dont think that they do though…
What needs to happen now is that we need solidarity of purpose, we need firm goals. An opportunity to force meaningful change doesnt come often. Direct action is a powerful tool and it works. We need to press on and bring this government to its knees. The Unions, and all action groups need to find a way to unite behind this and in my view the goal should be to make politicians more accountable for their promises. AV wont do this, even if it becomes a reality and lets not forget the weasel words of Clegg on reform. We need the debate to be turned around to how we can change the system to reflect what we, the electorate want. Basically a more direct democracy. I dont want to be represented by people that we cannot trust we need leaders that we elect and can get rid of when they break our trust and not in five years time…. John Pilger, Noam Chomsky and many others have for years talked about how governments and states serve international corporations rather than the people, this is true.
We now have access to more information and more opportunity to organise ourselves and change things for the better. This is a very big opportunity that we have here. Please, lets not blow it. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to fight back. Its not about Clegg, the Tories or Labour…its about truth, freedom and democracy. Right now what we have is an illusion, we do have a lot of freedom in relation to some countries thats true, but lets not allow relative freedom to make us complacent in our aims.
bethemediauk 