DOES AUSTERITY BREED TERRORISM?

 

The only reason for austerity is the protection of the super rich. If they paid their taxes fairly, austerity could be wiped out overnight.  We are in a double dip depression, at least those trying to live on a minimum wage and minimum benefits are.  The £100million yacht business is going swimmingly.  There is no need for greed or hunger, this is manmade, there is plenty for everyone. 

The keepers of the Treasury who cause all this misery are now building walls around their castles and having their super cars reinforced with bullet proof glass.  They kind of know they may fall prey to marauding mobs, so an eventual move to a gated community is a given.  And the more you starve and piss people off the more likely it becomes. 

A government's duty should not only be to maintain a country just enough so that things keep ticking over, a government should be laying down foundations for that country's future.  It should be creating industry and it should be creating employment.  Fundamentally, it should be offering every generation hope for a better life. 

As a mature student I learned that countries can and do use war to boost their economies.  Who'd have thunk it (sic) - it was a reading of George Orwell's 1984 that switched those lightbulbs on.  For me, it has always begged the question, why can't the 'industry' created to destroy life, be used to improve life?  New industry creates new jobs, that creates wages (and spare cash) that revitalises the manufacturing and service industries.  It's the economy stupid.  And hey, it's the 21st century, where are the flying cars and the hover boards? Why are large sections of society still hungry and homeless? Why are the elderly and the sick being neglected?  Why are families queuing at food banks?  More now, than the last century.  We have the means and the manpower, but not the money, it seems.

We are stuck in a timewarp, because consecutive governments are failing to acknowledge that traditional working class, and now middle class, jobs are being wiped out by the new technology that already exists. Other options are available!  What country would not benefit from investing in science, technology, art and the health and education of it's growing population?  Philanthropic industries that will grow and expand naturally because the supply and the demand will never go away.   

Unfortunately, we are still driven by the Methodist work ethic that tells us we should be breaking rocks for the hell (or should that be heaven?) of it, or polishing our front door step, rather than dossing on the sofa watching the Peep Show. At some point, someone is going to have to say out loud, we have a lot more leisure time than we used to and we are living longer.  That is not a bad thing!  It wasn't God who said we should work our fingers to the bone, it was probably Abraham who needed an extra wing to his prefab pretty sharpish due to his fondness for all that begetting.  Not surprisingly, it has been used by every employer ever since, along with 'you'll get your rewards in the next life' in lieu of pay. Maybe we should be putting a lot more effort into appreciating this life, rather than pinning all our hopes on the next one. 

If people have hope and reasons to live, they have no need to become suicide bombers.  And this new breed of terrorism is coming from within our own societies, it is bred amid the discontented young people who have no future to look forward to.  Young people need a reason to believe, most if they are lucky will find their paths in life through education and will get the opportunity to discover ways in which to improve mankind rather than destroy it. 

ISIS are succeeding where other terrorist groups have failed, because through the internet they have as much access to the disaffected youth of the West as they do to those in their surrounding countries. Whilst they are using ancient scripture to re-educate the lost young, they are using modern technology to find them. 

But let's look at the big picture.  This government could, if it wanted, create millions of jobs.  The NHS was founded and set up in the aftermath of WWII.  A time of austerity if ever there was one.  Clement Attlee's Labour Party fought the 1945 election campaign promising the electorate full employment and a universal National Health Service.  They needed drastic measures for drastic times and the horror of war and man's inhumanity to man was fresh in their minds. They needed to focus on rebuilding society based on the altruistic aims the population had fought and died for.  They needed to restore the Nation's health, they needed Homes for Heroes, and they needed to make Great Britain strong again. 

If a present day government came out with a 'crazy' scheme like doubling the NHS and preparing for the massive influx heading its' way as the population continues to age, it would win an election in an instant.  It would boost the economy, it would create millions of jobs and it would make life a lot more comfortable for all of us.  And if it wanted to wipe out the National debt, it would legalise cannabis and get those growing it and distributing it into a legal, safer industry with all the tax revenue that entails. Cannabis clearly offers natural health benefits the pharmaceutical companies cannot manufacture in a laboratory, maybe therein lies the problem.   

But I digress, doubling the NHS would boost the country's morale and it would offer a hope that we haven't seen for decades.  Tony Blair (and I'm no fan) came into office on the promise of Education, Education, Education.  He offered hope to the masses. For the last few elections, none of the politicians have offered us hope. That's why Jeremy Corbyn was always going to win the leadership of the Labour Party.  He knows it doesn't have to be this way and he listens to the voters.  New Labour, the Tories and the Libdems had merged into one big deaf, mass of grey, who fight every election campaign on who can keep their head above water the longest.  No-one is saying they are working for a better future for all of us, they are telling us to shut up and paddle, or we will all drown. 

What hope is there for young people who have watched their parents struggle to keep a roof over their heads and food on their tables, and they are struggling still.  The internet teaches them enough to know that life can offer so much more (not for them) and their fears for the future are reinforced by the cycle of poverty that surrounds them.  They are easy prey to people who know how to reach their inner fears and desires, people who understand their need for goals and aspirations and people who know how to manipulate them for their own ends. 

At the moment they have little or no competition, because we as a society are failing to offer them anything better.  Their only hope of breaking the desolate future that awaits them is to join the queues to be auditioned by Simon Cowell. This brave new world is a simpering coward run by sour faced prophets of doom guarding all the treasure they have accumulated from the masses.  It's theirs now and they are hanging onto it.  

What they fail to understand is that we are not a group of individuals struggling to pay off a mortgage.  We are a nation and most of us have only got 3 score years and 10 (deduct several decades if you are poor, add if you are rich), and we are a nation who want better for our children. We should not be aiming to get by until retirement age when, if we are lucky, we can buy a small condo by the sea, we should be finding ways to speed up the process. 

Instead of teaching kids to work for change, we are teaching them to accept things as they are and shut up about it.  Because if we taught them they could have anything they wanted, we would have anarchy.  Parents don't tell their kids to follow their dreams, they tell them to set realistic goals because they think they can protect them from bitter disappointment.  And teachers daren't - I had one dim witted A2 student report me for teaching Marxism, though strictly speaking I was teaching the rise of fascism, we were studying Leni Riefenstahl at the time.

Sadly, it is not a joke, too many kids are falling through the net because they have no-one to talk to.  How many terrorist atrocities could be prevented if those angry, suicidal kids had counselling and mentoring services available to them?  ISIS are telling these kids they care.  We are telling them that we do not.  Sometimes, a kind word from a stranger can change the entire direction of a young, or even old, person's life. 

We should be offering our kids Paradise here on earth, not an airy fairy one with fluffy clouds and glaring lights when their ravaged bodies give out.  In terms of history, we have more now than our ancestors could ever have dreamed of.  They were the movers, shakers and music makers. They set off on voyages of discovery, they invested in education, art, science and technology and society evolved and adapted to the comfortable changes they brought. Those at the forefront of evolution understood that there was no profit to be had by keeping gas, electric, communication etc. to a select few, there was no reason why they should not be available to the masses.  Problems only arise when the select few want to keep all the goodies to themselves.

Creating new industry for the good of humanity is not rocket science.  Every public frontline service needs to be improved (it's the 21st century ffs) and every area of our lives could be made better.  And again, the good life doesn't just have to be for a select few.   

Too many kids born in the nihilistic nineties have nothing to believe in. And these are the kids we all need to watch out for.  They are easy prey for manipulative extremists who offer them a lifeplan (religion) that relieves them of responsibility for their actions in this life and Paradise and 70 virgins in the next.  A way in which to pay society back for the way it has treated them and their families. For many, converts especially, religion is their 'get out' clause. They can be any kind of arsehole they want because they are doing it in the name of God, or it was because demons tempted them. 

Britain may be Great at the moment, but the lack of investment will tell a different tale in the future.  It can only rest on the achievements of it's forbears for so long, great men and women who understood the need to invest in science, art, exploration etc, to improve the quality of life for everyone.  Men and women who did not have a fraction of the money that is available to this present government, yet who built an empire. 

Unless this government faces up to the reality that this punishment of the poor is a breeding ground for radical ideas and extremism the terrorism will continue, and dare I say it, probably escalate.  You only have to watch Jeremy Kyle or any 'Benefits' program to see that we have a rapidly growing underclass who have no futures.  It is that mind set we should be reaching out to, the ones who are disillusioned because no-one is listening to them.  The ones who need something to believe in.  We need to reach those who are vulnerable and we need to give them better options for the future before they strap on that suicide belt.