The town of Wilcannia, in New South Wales, is twice distinguished. It is a winner of a national Tidy Town award and its indigenous people have one of the lowest recorded life expectancies. They are usually dead by the age of 35. The Cuban government runs a literacy programme for them, as they do among the poorest of Africa. According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth report, Australia is the richest place on earth.
Russell Brand’s recent political essay, viral BBC interview, and ongoing comedy tour – The Messiah Complex – raise important political and philosophical questions concerning, among other issues, the nature of justice, the importance of voting, and the need for radical, revolutionary change. These deserve serious consideration.
An apathetic mainstream media, an ambivalent political class and a broad populace who have become spectators rather than actors in their daily lives, have created the mistaken impression that Britain is taking its austerity hammering lying down. This could not be further from the truth. Many of the most disenfranchised groups in UK society are rising, rebellion is fomenting, and flames of dissidence are licking the powder keg of mainstream mood. So why doesn’t it feel like it?
With virtually none of those responsible for the 2008 financial crash and other major transgressions ever having faced criminal charges, it is now clear that big business and major banks can act above the law and with impunity, can literally do almost anything they want. This immunity from the law is kept fresh with a steady stream of pet elected officials, themselves amply rewarded with large financial ‘donations’ and all the other attractions and rewards of power.
“…India now has higher child mortality rates than Bangladesh or Nepal, in spite of Bangladesh and Nepal having barely one half and one third of India’s per-capita income, respectively. There are similar failures in the field of elementary education.”
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. In Russell Brand’s case, of course, they paid to laugh. But the fighting has now begun in earnest.
Note that it hasn’t come primarily from the direction one might have expected. The ever-dignified Tory MP Michael Fabricant labels him a ‘twat’ (a badge of honour, surely?), but apart from that, politicians have been pretty quiet. It is mostly journalists, commentators and assorted pundits who really have the knives out for Brand.
The study of 2,000 10-17-year-olds by the Children’s Society charity revealed that 76 percent of British children are “often worried” about how much money the family had.
More than 53 percent said their home was too cold last winter and 24 percent said it was “much colder” than they would have liked.
Indonesia is not just any developing country. It’s the fourth most populous country in the world (after China, India, and the U.S.), and it’s now a big sweatshop for global corporations. The country’s minimum wage is about $200 a month, leaving vast swaths of Indonesia’s workforce in poverty.
The only advice I can give is that when you hear the presstitute media smear a concern or explanation as “conspiracy theory,” have a closer look. The divergence between what is happening and what you are told is so vast that it pays to be suspicious, cynical even, of what “your” government and “your” presstitute media tell you. The chances are high that it is a lie.
Any doubts about who really controls Britain should have now been dispelled. Any thought that the financial crisis might have broken the neoliberal spell, rebalanced the economy or chastened the deregulators and privatisers can be safely dismissed. October has been the month when the monopolies, City hedge funds and foreign-owned cartels put the record straight. It’s they who are calling the shots.
All class societies have generated extremes of inequality in wealth and income. That is the point of a rich elite (whether feudal landlords, Asiatic warlords, Incan and Egyptian religious castes, Roman slave owners etc) usurping control of the surplus produced by labour. But past class societies considered that normal and ‘god-given’. Capitalism on the other hand talks about free markets, equal exchange and equality of opportunity. But the reality is no different from previous class societies.
Revolution usually erupts over events that would, in normal circumstances, be considered meaningless or minor acts of injustice by the state. But once the tinder of revolt has piled up, as it has in the United States, an insignificant spark easily ignites popular rebellion. No person or movement can ignite this tinder. No one knows where or when the eruption will take place. No one knows the form it will take. But it is certain now that a popular revolt is coming.
