It seems like I have been waiting half of my life for something to happen; and like countless others I imagine, from my early teen years onward, I always felt there was something really wrong with the world; but could never really put my finger on it. Too young and too stupid.
The writings of John Pilger gave me my first glimpse into the wrongs of the world and from there on in it’s been like waking up in the middle of a bad nightmare; only to realise that it’s not a bad dream after all, its real, its tangible, it’s a roller coaster of injustice, greed, corruption, death and destruction and the ride never stops. Or so I thought.
In 1873 Mark Twain wrote the Gilded Age; This book deals with a supposed entirely ideal state of society where the poor are all simple-minded and contented; and the rich are honest and generous.
The author’s preface especially, is profoundly relevant today.
Anyone in the US who may still cling to the belief that all is well within the present era of political corruption, gaudy excess and manifest destiny should read the author’s preface, even if you have no wish to read the book itself.
Twain said “In America nearly every man has his dream, whereby he is to advance himself socially, or pecuniarily, it is a characteristic which is both good and bad for both the individual and the nation. Good because it allows neither to stand still, but drives both for ever on toward some point; and bad because the chosen point is often badly chosen and then the individual is wrecked; the aggregation of such cases affect the nation; and is bad for the nation”
Twain goes on to touch upon another feature; “the shameful corruption which lately (then) crept into our politics; and in a handful of years has spread until the pollution has affected some portion of every state and every territory in the union”. This is not only relevent in the US today, it can be applied to countries throughout the Western hemisphere and beyond.
The author goes on “But I have a great strong faith in a noble future for my country; a vast majority of the people are straightforward and honest; and this late state of things is stirring them to action. If it would only keep on stirring them until it became a habit of their lives to attend to the politics of the country personally, and put only their very best men into positions of trust and authority! That day will come”.
I think ‘that day‘ may have finally come for the USA.
The Occupy Wall St protestors are the modern equivalent of the men (and women) Mark Twain refers to; the only aspect within the author’s preface yet to be addressed is “the improvement has already begun” as the US has a long battle ahead before they can hope to sentence those who continue their “vile, shameless careers season after season, sneering, defying the legislature and brought low”.
But I don’t hold out any hope that the monsters running the US for the last few decades will gracefully “break their hearts and die in the palaces built with their robberies, even when they see the same blow preparing for their own head and sure to fall upon it” as Mark Twain so adroitly put it.
I like so many others want to see justice done and a fair share of the wealth of nations for all hard-working people; but if we think this can be achieved by removing the 1% from the equation we are wrong. If we think we can carry on with the present Capitalist economic system, minus the psychopaths presently in charge of the asylum, intact, we are also wrong.
Don’t start screaming ‘commie‘ please, I’m not one, but I like to think that maybe I am a realist.
Back in the 50′s and 60′s when the first PC’s were invented, the brightest and best of the time talked of a future where machines would do most of the work of men; and that we humans would have to change not only our whole way of thinking, but our whole way of working too. The trouble is they were right and unfortunately we didn’t listen, nor prepare. In fact we successfully avoided this truth by creating an abundance of state funded employment, manifesting a false appearance intended to deceive.
Even if we rid the world of greed, corruption, death and destruction, even if we take back our countries and are governed by honest patriotic men and women, we can’t go back to the old economic system, we can no longer sustain it.
Modern technology has transformed our world and our means of production. Even if we can turn the clock back and recover our manufacturing bases and are able to compete again, we now need very few men to produce the things we need, rather than the many in bygone eras. By definition we can’t ever reach the pinnacle of full employment for all. In a better world our present economic system is untenable, we have to understand that in removing all that is wrong and unfair within our societies, we also remove many of the work categories that have evolved through such inequities.
Really we already know this; and so do they, this is why the present system consists of a perpetual series of economic bubbles that can never create real wealth for the majority, or nations as a whole; and why we can only buy products that are deliberately poorly constructed that fall apart within months,or even days. The world doesn’t have the capacity to enable the level of production, or services required to guarantee everyone full employment.
So, not only do we need to remove those who have used and continue to use the present systems to consume every last morsel of wealth populace’s have ever accrued, we also need to change our own essential nature and somehow adapt.
This is possible; but it will mean that the present generation have to make initial sacrifices; some of us will also have to let go of any determination to continue with our inherently selfish mindset. We have to comprehend that the nine to five, six days a week employment has to be a thing of the past. if we are not willing to come to terms with this and actually embrace it, we can move no further forward. If we all try to give a little rather than just take, we all gain.
