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stella41b -> RE: Life in Merry Old England - a snapshot (3/2/2010 5:42:55 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Level
Any hope that things will change for you folks over there?
Yes Level they will, when people start taking responsibility both on a personal and a community level again and instead of looking round for someone to blame and moan how terrible it is, actually do something to change things for the better.
Now it might piss some people off here but I don't care, some things need to be said. The above to me is the essential crux of the problem here, the actual nitty gritty, and this is the issue which goes over and above our own unique class system - it applies just as much to many of the homeless sleeping on the streets of London as it does to the politicians and everyone in power. It applies to both the rich and the poor in our society.
This harks back to the time of Thatcher when changes in technology changed the way we live when all of a sudden we needed to be competitive for the sake of the 'economy' and 'growth' which has ended up with forcing some people out to the margins of society and a sort of social scrapheap and many others on a sort of treadmill of sleep work spend, sleep work spend, sleep work spend to drive the economy. We were led to believe this was necessary to get us through what was coming.
In reality it's the rich or the upper tier of the class system which has benefitted leaving the rest to push and shove to get their snouts to the trough, our industry was sold off for short term credit to give people more spending power through loans, credit and finance and the strategy has been to make as much as you can and spend as little, to think in terms of the short term and look for the immediate payoff because these corporate businessmen really do care for us and they were to create a service based economy with a place for everyone.
Years of tax cuts, spending cuts, cutbacks in services, tendering, privatization, where nothing was spared, not even the NHS or education.
The chickens started coming home to roost in the 1990's and I wonder how many can remember those carping about the unelected John Major? It would appear that many were taken in by Tony Blair as they were by Thatcher, so many promises, and just as many lies, scandals not to mention two wars that we can ill afford.
The chickens are coming home to roost and we have a generation of younger people who by and large have no prospects and nothing to look forward to, who are being educated and prepared for a future in dead end jobs - unless of course they come from a family with money or are prepared to get themselves very heavily into debt just to get through studies, with no guarantee of anything at the end when they graduate.
Because people have been forced to compete with one another communities have suffered, as have families, and even more the one thing that previous generations of young people needed to get through and retain their sanity - subcultures. Young people don't protest any more, they can't, there's too much at stake for it can literally cost them their future.
Yes there are some who react negatively in such circumstances - especially when they have been left with little hope, little to look forward to, and little to occupy their time or interest them. This is no different to some of those rehoused in the FEMA trailer parks after Hurricane Katrina who took the money and thought 'Oh boy, party time!'
But let us not forget that the story in the OP comes from the Daily Mail, which like almost all the other newspapers and media is biased in the picture it presents but it's important to remember that the vast majority of young people today are trying to do what best they can to make the best of their lives and we are here only talking about a sizeable minority.
But then again is it really all that different from when we were teenagers? Society might have changed but the people are just the same as they ever were and somehow, in some way we will all get through.
But before we start to go on about those 'terrible youths' maybe we can stop and think for a moment and remember that children and young adults look to those older and better established as their role models, to learn from, and from where they get their values and morality, they have parents, teachers and are influenced by the media and entertainment industry.
And what is that exactly? Well when it comes to music backed by the media we appear to have two role models in Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse who would probably be more prolific if it weren't for their personal lives. Then there's celebrity culture, the X Factor, and I won't go on about education and what's happening in families but young people are adopting the sort of values and behaviour that the rest of society are modelling to them.
And I personally feel that maybe when we start taking responsibility for this and stop accepting irresponsibility then maybe the young people of today will start to do likewise. When we provide young people with opportunities to occupy themselves and pursue their interests and when we start offering them prospects is when we start taking steps in the right direction.
And I sincerely hope that we realize this before we end up becoming a part of the Third World.
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