Government By And For The One Percent

One of the less accounted for effects
of billionaire public speakers who project
that their wealth is what gives them the right to speak
on behalf of the great mass of much poorer people,
is that they fail to realise that their wealth is also
what gives them a tin ear for how ordinary folks think.

Still, when their wealth is what buys them
their place in the present day high-gloss media
then where better to go to have their tin ears appeased
and tickled with deferential soft-ball questions?

That is when to ration our exposure to modern media,
ordinary people that we are, and save our attention spans
for something with grit and intelligence about it,
never mind that it might make us unpopular.   

The Sense of Being Entitled Is Different From Being Deserving

Because when the spur to further wealth comes from
a sense of inferiority, whilst growing up wealthy,
then those poorer than the millionaires have one thing
that those richer than them have not got-their sanity.
Which, whilst it is pressed on, and fragile, is less oppressive
of those who live on less, far less, than any edict
from the super wealthy, emitted from media they have bought,
could ever be.
For a half hour radio programme/podcast about  how
detached the life of the super-rich is, please left click here. 
  

 

Memo To Authoritarian 'Democracies' Everywhere

By which I mean kleptocracies that renew
their profit base be debasing the vote, 
where government money is channelled
into the bank accounts of the elites
who make their money on the backs
of those with far, far, less than them.

But to make such profiteering as pointless,
as well as disproportionate, as making the path
to prison easier than that of education is folly indeed.    

 

Two Cheers For (Engineered) Democracy

Should we be wary or weary when,
even discounting the mighty power of A.I.,
and the mutability of the digital expression
of human character, the leaders of empires
lead us through manicured Public Relations
exercises designed to eliminate any doubt citizens
might have about their democratic credentials,
by raising the voters' levels of credulity and fear
to where they simply cannot think the obvious;
that when the system of change of government
allows only one serious candidate then the vote,
is more the coronation of the leader than anything else,
whilst the electorate lose their sense of choice and direction.

 

Division By Opinion

One of the less recognised temptations
for citizens of the Wealthy West
is to be so at ease with their rights
to their opinions,
their own choice media processing,
they fail to recognise it when what they think
becomes a cynicism hardened beyond all irony,
where with everything they say about others
they shrink from thinking through
that others might think the same about them.

They can no longer pause and think
what the journey might be like
when we walk in another person's shoes,
and feel fear that comes with such worn heels
that they are tenderised to silence
as they examine themselves for callouses,
the way that others have no choice but to do.  

'The Trickle Down Effect' Updated ?

The first version of the trickle down effect
was 'The government is giving more money
to the wealthy so they can spend more
on the poor, rather than on themselves,
to make those with less more healthy.'.

Private charity was the way ahead.

The rich did not know what to do
with the money they already had,
not that this embarrassed them,
but the gov't bet that giving to the wealthy
made the wealthy to be trusted more,
in spite of their ignorance, than were the poor
who were to be trusted less
in their thrift and humbleness.

That the money did not trickle down
from rich to poor was not the point;
the money was never meant to,
it was the gov't way of proving
that 'poverty is unfixable' in the long run.

The new trickle down effect
is that the leaders of a given
civic-minded organisation
are to be accepted as bullies
who expect to be fawned upon,
by those they see as beneath them
who in their turn expect to be fawned upon,
in their turn, until the lowest know how low
their status is by how much they are lied about,
and have nobody of lower rank to make look up to them.     

Diversity Based On Privilege

is one of the many oxymoronic,
and conflicted, figures of speech
that since it exists in public life
has to be embodied in Politics.

As Politics amplifies this paradox
with 'culturally diverse' cabinets
packed with people who all went
to the sort of school where the fees
are investments in future elites, 
and the women who are picked to lead
are chosen and voted for by as few people
as seems it seems decent to admit,
the better to benefit as few as possible,
all the public can ask is how long it takes
before their organised estrangement
shows up in the leader's poll ratings. 

By then it will be too late for reform.
or reversing the slide towards decline
that benefiting just the few engenders.

Mind The Gap

It has long been known
that high levels of poverty
and inequality are quite sustainable,
in wealthy westernised economies.
Particularly when the leaders of a country
have mastered the art of using statistics
which are compiled to mislead the public
into the belief that wealth is spreading
whilst the reverse is nearer the truth.

When the poverty gap stretches far enough
and over long enough period of time, 
the only question left
is by how much will the gap
between rich and poor extend
before it becomes so hardened
that it is permanent,
and no amount of change
will make government
more honest or likeable, ever again.       

The Best Target Is One That Does Not Recognise That It Is A Target

I remember very well
where I was when I first heard
the deadly phrase, 'government target'.

I was in my local job centre,
a misnamed place if ever there was one.
It had just replaced The Labour Exchange
which of late had exchanged very little labour,

The target the government had in mind
was the statistics for the gainfully employed
and for those who's time was so unimportant
that they were left to make small amounts
of dole money work hard in their favour.

If the new statistics looked good
then how they looked proved
to anyone who asked about them
that the government was working hard
at keeping people in work
and work should keep employees
and all their dependants
in their place and out of poverty. 

Would that their theory worked, but it didn't,
no new employers offered lots of employees
miracle jobs, exhumed from nowhere, 
to take up the slack in a sagging economy.

The actual target the government wanted to hit
was what people believed about work.
The government wanted work to not pay,
and yet for it to appear to be seen to.

The government wanted people
to read the word 'target' as a noun
-where a target is something with an aim-
whilst among themselves they used it a verb
-where its purpose is to attack-
and what the government wanted to attack
hardest was any idea people had
that what they believed might be
in their government sights, for replacement. 

The Middle Men

have always been the people
who run any given society,
however rich or poor
that society might be.

The richer the society,
 the greater the wealth
that the middle men
(the wealthiest usually are men) will collect,
and the more of society's wealth
they expect to absorb in future.

Whether they are lawyers, surgeons,
financiers, accountants, or property tycoons.
their peak ownership comes
when they register their works
as 'charitable', or otherwise avoid all tax
by sending their money into exile.

Then after managing their own wealth
they can help others manage themselves into debt
by going into politics on a ticket of 'Wanting More'
-regardless of which party who adopts them.