I would relish comments. I would particularly relish comments by anyone who thinks that the way forward for "society" is more control or legislation.
Here are my thoughts for today.
A certain B. Bragg has said that he is fed up with the Bank Bonuses and therefore, if nothing is done by Jan 31 2010, will withhold his taxes.
Well done, Billy. I don't agree with most of what you say, especially the limit of £25K, but what I do agree with is the degree of pressure you're willing to apply. I suspect when it comes to the crunch you won't be prepared to go to jail (which is the prescribed penalty for refusing to pay), but at least you're making a stand.
I heard some blithering idiot on the radio yesterday who called in to say that he disagreed with the Bank Bonuses too, but that what Billy was offering was against the law. And that would never do.
There's the rub. We live in a free country [falls about laughing] and we have the tools to put forward our views, those views to which we are entitled.
Here are the ways in which we can legitimately do this. I think this is all of them, and I would be extremely grateful if someone could point out any others which might be more effective, yet legitimate and legal.
We are controlled by them, the government machine. They were elected (some of them, anyway) to do what we require of them. Their mandate is NOT to do what they feel to be right without any reference to us, the people.
1. We can demonstrate, as long as we tell them we are going to, and where, and when, so they can muster enough of their enforcement officials to make sure we don't inconvenience them.
2. We can petition them, either by delivering a list of signatures on paper, or now by filing a petition online.
3. We can ask for information from them under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI).
They expect these things to happen. In most cases, the Great Unwashed do not even notice, for they are concerned greatly about the winner of "Strictly" whatever it is this week, "Britain's got Talent", and the six numbers which will secure their rosy future on the Lotto.
The standard responses to these tools are predictable.
1. Stay indoors until it goes away. Usually a demo will be on Saturday so they will be at the tennis club anyway.
2. Write a reply, saying nothing of importance, and post it on the petition website. If it's a really silly petition, make a YouTube video in reply.
3. Fob the enquirer off with some inane statistics, usually stating that the maximum amount of money they're allowed to spend on a reply is just under the amount it would cost to produce such a reply.
Therefore, they love us to use these tools. They are completely ineffective.
Statutes (these are the instruments that they use to control us) are put in place to ensure that any other action is "against the law", such that if we try to protest in a way which will hurt them in any way, the Great Unwashed will cry "anarchy".
The only things which bother them, so far as I can see, are money and power. They are effectively an oligarchy (a system run by the "chosen few"). They need the money to keep that power. And once someone has power, he would rather give up his right hand than relinquish the power. It's a drug.
We can affect the power by the judicious use of our votes. So the prefect becomes the head boy, and vice versa, until the next time.
We can cut off the power by cutting off the money. That is the real answer. But the oligarchs, the people who are at the top of the power tree, are not stupid - not all of them, anyway. They would be so if they didn't make the greatest effort to ensure that the flow of money, and therefore power, can't be stopped.
There are broadly four types of people in the Great Unwashed.
1. PAYE taxpayers with real jobs, ones who service customers, who provide something that somebody wants.
2. PAYE taxpayers who work for the oligarchy.
3. Beneficiaries. These are net recipients of some of the money.
4. The oligarchy themselves.
5. Self-employed types.
Type 1 people are shafted before they start. That's why PAYE is there. They plod along, some of them might have an opinion but there is nothing they can do to change things.
Type 2 people have a vested interest in the system being the way it is. And God knows, there are one heck of a lot of them. And the reason for this is that the more of them there are, the stronger the oligarchy becomes.
Type 3 and 4 people need the system as it is.
Type 5 people are the danger. These are the only ones who could, were they so inclined, to do any significant damage to the structure. And I suspect that most of the bloggers I read are of type 5.
There are so few of these type 5's, comparatively, that I now despair of anything ever being done about the way things are.
I hope someone can put me right.
9 comments:
I think there are one or two things Type 1's can do (I'm still mostly a Type 1, even though I do a fair amount of freelance work as well). The problem is convincing people that for now, they still have a small amount of freedom to choose. Nobody really needs a TV, we can brew our own booze (currently in conversation with an Army pal, learning how to do it without an expensive kit) and hopefully, in parts of the country at least, sneakily growing some tobacco. Plus ducking out of other types of consumerism, growing whatever food possible in the garden, spending more time outdoors, using less of everything (nobody in power really wants us to cut gas and electricity usage after all!).
These are the moves I'm making. I may even get rid of the internet at home too and just blog from work. My quality of life is better than this time last year, that's for sure! It's just a question of getting the word out there - and believe me - I'm telling everyone I know.
Bollogs
There's something else you can do - you can deliberately make yourself so destitute that you have nothing wrth their while to take off you. If everything I possess (including the stuff which by law they can't take) was taken off me, they might get £50 on a good day.
Harden your lifestle such that if you get sent to prison, your lifestyle will improve - what would I get? A heated cell. Wonderful. Three meals a day. Heaven (I currently only eat once a day - and not every day at that)... and cooked by someone else and the dishes washed up by someone else too. Beginning to sound like paradise to me.
Get free use of a gym, pool table etc.
All you can legally use as a weapon is yourself. I do that. Hurts sometimes, but what doesn't?
Living the way I live makes me FREE! Free to say what I want; do what I want (I don't count harming others, which is why I use myself as a weapon). Live alone so no one else picks up any flak from what they might choose to do to you with their muscle in blue.
Don't open your mail. Ever. I don't. I let it build up into a big stack then a mate takes it away in a sack and incinerates it.
But wait - that's all when I'm co-operating with them. My plans are actually a bit heavier than that.
If they jail you, it costs them about 50K a year to keep you there. I have absolutely no plans to be so cheap - I wont speak to their personnel from the moment they put me in the back of the Maria. Wont speak in court, or with the intake personnel at the jail, wint sign their documents, wont wear their clothes, wont eat their food or drink their liquids. Sure - that's about a week to death.
But what does the system value very highly? It values it's self-proclaimed "decency" "humaneness" - it's "Moral High Ground" around the world. Hahahahaha - what moral high ground when they're starving someone to death in prison who's never actually hurt anyone? (well, not recently, or traceable in this country).
It's the only legal weapon you (I) have - USE IT. Did you want to live forever or something? Sure, starvation hurts (went 32 days once ... I won that one). But it wont last that long - lack of air - dead in 6 minutes. Lack of food - dead anytime after 60 days. Lack of liquid - 6 days.
None of it will look good in the press worldwide for POLITICAL offences.
Another advantage of living the shite life I described (and I do) is that life becomes very cheap. Doctor told me once that if I stopped smoking I'd live a longer life. "Why would I want to do a stupid thing like that?" I asked. "I don't understand" she said. So I explained "When you're living a shite life, more life just means more shite. Don't you think there comes a point where anyone has had enough shite?" She's never bothered me about lifestyle choices again.
You do what you can with what you've got. What have you got? USE IT - regardless of personal effects.
For Chrissake - it's WAR! Gotta develop a war psychology.
Am I mad? Probably - but no more than anyone else.
Anyway - Bollogs ... Reading your blog leads me to kinda like the cut of your jib - think I'll shortcut you.
You think nationalists are obedient nazi robots? They say that leading the Libertarian party is like herding cats. Griffin probably thinks he wishes he had it that easy. We are the bolshiest most independent-minded people you ever encountered.
Unfortunately, a government simply wouldn't be able to function if it tried to represent the public opinion at all times. 'Representation', therefore, practically means making laws in the name of the people, but not with their specific consent for each item.
Because 'representative democracy' is neither representative nor democratic in its action, but only in its elections, that is a strong reason for the least possible interventions by the State.
You seem to believe that some of the legislation that exists is intrinsically unjust (apologies if I misunderstand you), but if you believe so, where is the logic in your specifying that change should be 'legitimate'?
As for the action by Billy Bragg, I find it far from laudable. He is withholding his tax because he believes bankers should not be paid big bonuses. As a true socialist, he acts by attacking the elite, rather than defending the oppressed. Does Billy Bragg withhold his taxes until toilet cleaners get a raise in pay? The bankers are a sideshow, a diversion to take our eyes off the real ball, which is the systematic enslavement of an entire nation, and Billy Bragg is playing his Socialist part in support of that.
Good luck with the blogging!
What you all said. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I don't know the answers, but I do know that when you say what you think, at least you get feedback.
Interference by the state (is this a Fabian thing?) is abhorrent to me. But then so is anarchy, rioting, looting ...
In an ideal world where people look after themselves, then their neighbours, we wouldn't need all this shit. But they don't. And we get the shit.
I'm merely trying to say what I think, largely for my own benefit more than anyone elses. Blogging is harder than it seemed to be - I tend to bail out about halfway through, when I realise I've sussed the problem but don't have the answers.
But I'll carry on. Please keep reading.
... and writing.
Edgar
"You seem to believe that some of the legislation that exists is intrinsically unjust (apologies if I misunderstand you), but if you believe so, where is the logic in your specifying that change should be 'legitimate'?"
Yes, I do believe that. We have got by quite well for many years with the ten commandments, and at least five of them are a bit iffy.
In the Bliar Years the equivalent of a statute a day has been introduced. Many, if not most, of these are unnecessary.
Most of the "bans" are just plain stupid and, to my mind, sabre-rattling. Most of the really unpopular ones snuck in under cover of a bigger news story or were buried by the BBC (which accounts for nearly everything sheeple get their news from between Strictly and Britain's Got Talent).
The most stupid (IMHO) was the banning of any political party containing the words "None Of The Above".
It would appear to me, cynic that I am, that the idea is to see they far you can push before the reaction. There has been no discernible reaction, apart from a handful of "us" who have no teeth, for reasons that I tried (not very well, I admit) to outline.
Where do I say "change should be legitimate"? I definitely say change is mostly unnecessary. Many, if not most, of the actions of Nu Lab have been experiments in social engineering. I have been a victim of some of these experiments and I didn't ask to be, and they have no right to experiment on me. No right at all. I would love someone who is qualified to do so argue with that statement.
I don't see the bankers as a sideshow. I see them as the main attraction. They need the government, the government needs them. Big business needs them too, and vice-versa. That's why they couldn't be allowed to go down.
I still think they should have been let go.
Thanks for commenting!
Unc
Apologies UM: you wrote "Here are the ways in which we can legitimately do this." I hastily assumed that legitimacy was your condition, rather than perhaps your preference.
Edgar - I DID say that, didn't I?
I meant that these are the ways in which we are *allowed* to protest. I think it is true that there are only those ways - they have managed to restrict the ways to only those which will cause them no inconvenience at all.
I may be wrong. If there is a way (apart from blogging) in which we can inconvenience them greatly, without the black helicopters turning up, I should love to know.
Write to your MP [falls about laughing]
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