I am sure others will say it, but it's worth reiterating it: the decision to go to war today (and it will be nothing less than that) proves that all government spending is a matter of choice. To put it another way, it is about deciding what is important or ranking priorities.
We can apparently afford war over Iraq and Syria.
We cannot afford to make adequate provision for many disabled people.
Nor can we properly care for many elderly people.
And we cannot properly fund the NHS.
And yet we can load Tornados with weapons knowing that there will be innocent victims and uncertain and undefined military and political gains, if any.
We can afford to main and kill.
Why can't we afford to care?
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“We can afford to main and kill.
Why can’t we afford to care?”
I assume this is a rhetorical question.
I do sometimes wonder: you often seem to assume the State is run by nice people like you and me who have the interests of ordinary people at heart.
This post (and the one earlier in the week where you clearly accused HMRC senior management of deliberate dishonesty, as well as other recent ones criticising both major parties of being too close to corporate cronies) suggest the penny is starting to drop.
The state is run by b**tards. Big business is run by b**tards. Unions are run by b**tards. The professions are run by b**tards. Being a b**tard is what gets them there. It has been thus since ancient times.
The question is: whether you want one b**tard to have a monopoly of power.
The main reason I prefer limits on the size of the state is because I fear a monopoly of this kind. Ask anyone who has lived in a totalitarian regime – the fear is justified.
I do not agree
I think that there are a lot of rather frightened people who need to be liberated to do the good that they want
There are exceptions of course: I am not naive. But I think your analysis is completely wrong.
I don’t know whether my memory is defective or the media’s memory in short, but wasn’t there a vote in Parliament quite recently where the Government was suggesting we take military action, not against ISIS but against forces that ISIS are fighting against?
My newspaper says there is going to be a “war against war”. I’d rather like to see a diagram on how that works.
Should our fire brigade consider fighting fire with fire?
The logic of all of this is totally confused
“I think that there are a lot of rather frightened people who need to be liberated to do the good that they want”
Sure. I agree.
But good luck with the liberation thing.
Adrain -your level of cynicism goes too far, I think. I agree that the present power structures and hierarchy favours the rise of ‘b*stards’ as you call them. So we clearly need to change these power structures and fear-ridden hierarchies of grotesque bullying. WE need a greater degree of democracy in workplaces and less absurd pay differentials so psychopathic monsters will not be encouraged. See Richard Wolff’s work on these issues.
I agree with Richard: the vast majority of people do care it is just that they have been hijacked by power mechanisms the decent people don’t know how to manipulate, or are too honest to do so.
Falling back on some notion of ‘human nature’ being ‘red in tooth and claw’ is to foreclose the argument for real change and is thus a cop out of the worst sort.
Simon, I wish it was as easy as you suggest. I really do.
And I agree with Richard that ordinary people are frightened of the people in power.
But my point is this: the people in these positions (e.g. who prefer spending on war to looking after the needy, who run our HMRC, who cuddle up to their mates in big business, to use Richard’s recent examples with which I do not disagree) don’t go quietly, simply because we ask them nicely to step aside to ‘change power structures’ as you neatly put it.
Heck, you don’t need too look far across the world or too far back into history to see that these problems often could not be resolved without violence! Hopefully it doesn’t come to that here.
Am I saying everyone in these positions is a monster? No, but it attracts a certain type to have the ambition to get there and stay there.
What puzzles me is the wish to give these people more concentrated power of monopoly.
It’s like the old joke about the couple in a restaurant. The husband says to the wife ‘the food here is terrible’. The wife says ‘I agree – and such small portions’.
Adrian -you caricature my position if you think I’m naive enough to think the power freaks will step aside if asked nicely.
But does this mean we have to give up? As Nick Hanauer has said: it may come to pitchforks if the 1% don’t offer change.
The majority of us are not power crazed and personality disordered beings and WE are in the majority. Since the financial crash people are beginning to ask questions about who controls money and for whom it is controlled. A rat is being smelled.
As Anatole Kaletsky points out in his book Capitalism 4, it can take years for the vested interests of the system and institutional lethargy to give way to something better – we need to believe it is possible -to be honest, even if it turns out not to be possible it is still worth the fight!
Another cynical assessment might be that Cameron is an ice cream salesman for the City of London. and that he is charged with handing out all the kick backs to keep all the various areas of Corporate Finance greased with Real Economy theft.
Pay off the Bankers with Mark Carney & Quantitative easing.
Keep the USA corps happy with TTIP Surrender Agreement all over Europe.
Keep The Corporations happy with the transfer & sale of all public land, parks, woodland & roads to a quango ,later to be privatised.
Give the Warmonger Corps complete control of our defence budget.
Give Goldman Sachs & the Stock Exchange the Royal Mail at a knock down price.
Pay USA arms manufacturers £10Bn for missiles.
Privatise atomic research & hand to the USA.
Privatise GCHQ, MI5,MI6 & hand to the USA.
Make sure that the PetroDollar keeps running through the US treasury to keep the debts paid.
Give The Corporations complete control of HMRC to destroy corporate fraud investigations, redirect taxes to themselves , screw down the masses with high taxes & have direct access to steal from all bank accounts.
Asset stripping is the only game in town, everything else is just a media fantasy to cover it up.
I have to go back to Yod now.