85 richest people on earth own half the world’s wealth

Money attracts money, so the saying goes. The rich get richer not only because money, influence and power are on their side, but also because our cultral aspirations are set on gaining wealth, property, goods and services. Wealth isn’t a bad thing, but sometimes we see that people who have wealth get away with doing things which those lacking in wealth can not, even to the extent that those who have the ability to increase society’s wealth (i.e. bankers) can mage huge losses which cost society, but can still be rewarded with bonuses even though they have failed to live up to the expectations society has for them. In these situations where wealth and the promise of wealh blind society to noble concepts like fairness and justice, I believe it is clear that society is corrupting itself and headed down a path to tyranny and greater injustice.

Oxfam has just published this artice and report.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Just a day after I heard about the new Nelson Madela film “Long Walk To Freedom“, news somes in that Nelson Mandela is dead.

When growing up I was often the target of racism, fear, misunderstanding, sometimes arrogance, but more often ignorance because of the colour of my skin. I thought about the much harder struggle that black people from previous generations had gone through, and for me Nelson Manedela represented the kind of dignified attitude toward suffering and injustice that I could identify with to some extend and was felt pent up inside me too, and which I often found hard to express.

Some people people view Nelson Mandela as a terrorist, others as a freedom fighter, and others as an inspirational figure who strived for human equality and an acceptance of all people regardless of skin colour. I believe Mandela’s more extremist tendencies were curbed by his time in prison, and to many black people he emerged from that experience as a tame figure in comparison to the man he was when he was jailed. However, the stature of Mandela is such that even after imprisonment and in his older years, he emerged from prison to do something remarkable for South Africa and indeed the whole African Continent, because to steer a country on the brink of civil war through a peaceful transition from the oppressive regime of Apartheid to a democracy, and to underpin that transition with sound ecomonic principle is something many leaders in countries with long-standind democracies wouyld struggle to achieve.

This isn’t to say that the situation in South Africa is perfect now, or ever has been even under Mandela’s leadership, but Nelson Mandela had true vision, he inspired people not only with words that sounded sweet to the ears, but also with a lifetime of experience that testified to the principles he wanted to make part of the society he loved. It takes leaders with vision, with grit, sometimes imperfect people, but people with passion nonetheless to inspire and engender feelings of true allegiance in followers and supporters. In the sanitized political life we are used to in this age, politicians seem to be more interested in their image and winning petty political arguments, there is little substance to them as people and their policies never really change the situation a country is in, they never change the way a country is headed, they just alter the route to the same desitnation which is inevitable. Mandela on the other hand is a leader who went through true pain to achieve the ideals he stood for and played a large part in changing the course of history, and only those people who experience the pain of suffering for what they believe in, can truly appreciate the joy that comes when in fact they do achieve their aims.

Nelson Madela’s death is a really tragic loss, not only for South African’s and the continent of Africa, but for the world. The world needs more poeple like Mandela, without vision of a good leader, nations come to nothing. Without people who have the faith and courage to change things that are wrong and stand up for what is right, the world is overcome by evil. Everyone of us needs something of the spirit Mandela had inside of us, a spirit of truth, peace and justice, to encourage us to do what is right.

BBC News Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23043987

Sanitizing Mandela: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/07/02/sanitizing-nelson-mandela/

characteristics of uk all governments

Two things you can always trust the government to do:

1: Undervalue the things which could earn the taxpayer money, things like The Royal Mail (Royal Mail Shares Undervalued)
2: Add huge amounts of tax to essential utilities, and manage to deflect the high cost of those utilities onto the companies that provide them (Energy Bill Breakdown)

So the governemnt loses us money and drives up the price of things we really need. I’m expecting to see a crew of politicians stealing food from my fridge next…

My thoughts on the whole issue with Nick Griffin, the BNP and it’s wider significance

The political landscape has deliberately been undermined by successive governments who abuse their power and allow the public to be treated with contempt, abusing our rights, and allowing the rich to get richer while we effectively pay for it.

We have a “democracy” but the things the government does, like going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, bailing out banks, and indeed for some of the most important decisions the government takes, we actually have no direct influence over whatsoever. We have a choice about who gets to make the decisions “on our behalf”, but we don’t have a choice about what decision is made. Even when the decisions are unpopular with the public, nothing is done about it, that then becomes the fault of the political establishment for being arrogant and out of touch, and our fault for accepting injustice without enough opposition.

If the BNP feels that the voices of the “indigenous white people” are being ignored, that isn’t racism, its simply blinkered self interest, maybe something we are all guilty of, but politicians are particularly so. We are ALL being ignored by the political establishment, the problem is that our democratic system is systematically and consistently failing US the people who make it work, depend on it and pay for it.

Parties like the BNP can only exist when the democratic system is failing to the point where objectivity, reason and trust have been severely undermined. The anger felt by the public is fed upon by the likes of Griffin who are only really adding wind to confusion and providing a knee-jerk reaction that a significant number of people can identify with.

It cannot be possible that the educated men and women who govern our society can have lost reason to the extent whereby, for example, some MP’s who cheated the expenses system have to pay back a few thousand pounds whereas others who cheated the system to a far greater extent (e.g. by avoiding Capital Gains Tax) are not punished. Isn’t the moral being taught there, that the more you abuse the system, the more likely you are to escape punishment? Look at the bankers too, that’s another fine example. A working class man can be sent to prison for fraud, but politicians especially and bankers seem to be above the law.

It is not correct that the media should portray Gordon Brown was the greatest Chancellor ever when he sold of the countries gold reserves for virtually nothing and totally decimated the pension system. So why do the media do this?

How can Griffin say that London has been “ethnically cleansed”? What kind of understanding or appreciation of history does a statement like that show? Weren’t people killed because of their ethnicity in places like Bosnia and Darfur? Who has died in London mostly because of their ethnicity, white people or minorities? The only reason people like Griffin can get away with statements like that which show a contempt for human life, is because we have already listened to the judgements of people like Tony Blair who are prepared to lie and distort the truth for political ends, even if that means people will lose their lives.

Politicians have to realise that although you can win a particular argument by distorting the truth, there are many more valuable things are lost, such as integrity, the value of honesty and objectivity.

It should be clear that if the only way some people in this country feel that they can adequately express their political views is through someone like Griffin, then there has to be something wrong with the political system itself. We are semi-enfranchised, we have a vote but what is its true significance? Do we have direct influence about the issues that really matter? We think democracy is working for us, but it seems clear that the view of the majority of the people in this country is often suppressed, and because the mainstream parties are not listening or offering anything intellectually viable, people are following unreasoned instincts and drifting to people like Griffin and the BNP.

The media gets hysterical about racism, but the problem is much deeper than the reactionary and inflammatory statements that people like Griffin have as their stock in trade and the media latches onto for it’s sound-bites. “Racism” is deeply entrenched in society in ideological constructs and economic structures, these are much more difficult to perceive, and the media rarely gives enough time to examine the concepts behind why racism exists, so in reality the problems that underpin the very reasons why racism can exist have never truly been tackled. Today’s politically correct establishment are only creating a greater problem for future generations.

In all this confusion and heated debate, what should arguably be the real focus of our anger escapes examination and punishment – i.e. the political system and the political establishment as a whole. We are being deliberately manipulated! We are entering an era of “barbarian politics”, devoid of intellectual integrity, justice and objectivity.