mardi 14 octobre 2008

Legitimacy crisis


For us ordinary people, there can only be one response to this theft of our money by the wretched bastards who run the banks. That response is absolute fury. The money involved, just the interim figure, is around ten grand 10000 for every man woman and child. Going on for twice what the country spends on social things like education, health and public sector wages. Don't not get sucked into thinking that this was the only solution possible because if the government hadn't stepped in the entire system would have collapsed.


That's just guff. The only way the system will collapse will be on our terms. The people will decide when the system will be collapsed. This tawdry deal has been just about securing short term profits for a few wrinkly old men and their lizardy protegé in their silk suits in the city. They have always had the government at their mercy and are just collecting some overde earnings. Also, it isn't credible to think that the whole system of exchange and the holy circuits of money flow could just tumble like that - all for a few peanuts that is five hundred billion pounds of government handout. For on the scale of things, where the derivatives market totals five times the entire World's GDP, that's just a bit more than a little. Essentially, profits have been falling for some time and something drastic had to be cooked up. All that pay restraint and cut backs meant that the government had amassed a healthy enough pot of savings. Once the returns on their fraudulent bets fell away, the bank insects knew what to do and how much they could get away with. For surely, they thought, the people aren't going to do anything about it.


Further, the stockmarket bounce, as alluded to in the Tomb today, will for a time, reduce media concentration on this topic. This is one reason why the deal needed to be stitched up so quickly. Any further prolonged examination of the theft, would have meant that the enormity of the crime would sink in, people might have started asking pertinent questions and even start doing things. And now, the past tense can be started to be used. "Last week the banking system was on the brink of collapse" "The Prime Minister didn't think this was going to work". etc. All presented in the past tense so as to say, now, now today, phew, the danger has passed. It's all history now. You can all just forget about how the system is run and who benefits and why you lose all the time, the danger has gone, the big bad wolf has gone away, confidence has returned.


Well, no it hasn't. The consequences of this crime of the century will be paid for by its victims. It is here that the government has lost all that was left of its deomcratic legitimacy. Really, there are thousands of lessons to be learned from this crisis. The main one is that your vote is meaningless. Whoever gets in, they will act in favour of the unaccountable accountants and mountebank bankers who will always gouge out the public purse when they feel in the slightest bit threatened by the excesses that their uncontrollable system brings about.


The danger for us, is that the aliens have landed. They are now in control. The NEC is not some talking shop advising Gordon Brown about what to do. It is the government now. The danger is, that these putrid scumbags will now dictate further cutbacks and pay freezes so that the cost of their madness is spread onto the working people and those who, scandalously, do not earn over 75000pa. The ulimate danger is that we do not respond. The danger to our well being is that we switch off and try to 'get back to normal'. The danger is that the government will try to shore up its lack of credibility by appeals to "National Unity", like Turdsarkozy is feebly trying to do in France. That could lull just enough people to quell the outrage. Obviously, don't even listen to that type of horseshit.


But the real danger should be the danger that they are thinking about. What is 'danger' from their little shitheap point of view. From behind their smoked bullet proof carwindows, from the balcony as they look down on scenes of depravity, rape and murder, from the office blocks were mass starvation is organised - what is it they fear? For they do fear. Their universes are not permanent and invulnerable. They know things can change very quickly if they aren't careful. They do fear. Like animals they can sense the danger. And that danger is you. You, or rather the you that decides not to put up with it anymore and ceases to have confidence in their system. You who would be organised and united with others like you the 'yous' who have nothing very much to lose.


So pay no heed to the numbers from the stockrooms. Let their badly suited goons shout and cream themselves. The government's share price has collapsed and the confidence of its shareholders will never really recover. Do not, as the awful Will Hutton scrawls in the Guardian today, let your heart be warmed by the recent bounce. It's just the noise of robbers getting back to their den after a heist they thought they'd never get away with, came off.


You should be livid. You are livid. Let your heart be warmed by the fact that thousands, hundreds of thousands feel exactly the same way. Don't lie back and take it. Act. Even if it is just to talk about it, to stir things up. Use graffiti, go on a go slow, (remember inflation is now 5.2% and your pay rise was half of that...), deface bank facades, sabotage ATM's, and computer systems. Even futile gestures can lead to bigger things.


Don't let the danger pass. The government has just lost its legitimacy. You are the danger. Act on it.