Look Who the Enemy Is Now!

The New Enemy Within




The victory of the Parliamentarian New Model Army over the Royalist Army at the Battle of Naseby on 14 June 1645 marked the decisive turning point in the English Civil War.

Here we are in 21st Century Britain, with all the people's money stashed away in Bank vaults and accruing more money on computer accounts for the Banker's and their Corporate clients. And yet, more and more of the "hard working people" are getting poorer and poorer, set to get even more so down the road. When I say the "hard working people" I quote the Tory government's mantra during their term in office since the austerity policy has come into force and continues to be implemented.

We all know that "hard working people" are hard pressed to earn a crust in this country. They seem to work all the hours God sends and have very little to show for it. All the stress and worry, all the years working for the company that doesn't really appreciate them and almost exploits them for all their worth. Yet, the British Tory government wants to glorify these workers on the one hand, and make their position even more precarious and stressful on the other. Zero hours contracts, unfavourable working conditions, pay freezes, redundancy threats, union constrictions etc, etc. need I go on!

The mantra of the "hard working people" of Britain is heard practically every day in the media. Every opportunity to voice this piece of rhetoric by the parliamentarians is seized upon in an effort to drive the point home to us all. The rhetoric that states that the "hard working people" won't stand for any other people who don't work any more. The hard working people are almost heard thinking, "No, I work hard for the money. Why should the people who don't work get paid when I have to work my guts out for very little!" After all they conclude, they pay their hard earned taxes for all these Welfare "scroungers" to do nothing for their money.

The term "scroungers" has gained more of a high profile since the recession. But interestingly not before, presumably because the "hard working people" didn't give them a second thought and possibly could afford a little compassion. But not no more they can't! Not since the rhetoric seems to be in the very ether they breath that they are being hard done by this new "enemy".

Apparently, the new "enemy"is made up of the Welfare "scroungers"who have chosen it as a lifestyle. Who are these so called "scroungers"? It seems they are the half dozen or so examples that the right wing press have unearthed and "outed" in screaming headlines drawing our attention to just where our hard earned taxes are going. The 21st century equivalent of the ducking stool, stocks or pillory, and we think we are so civilized today. We even want to watch programmes on the TV which showcase such people who live in the community such as "Benefits Street" on Channel 4.

The other enemy on Benefits are the "scroungers" who are on Disability allowances who are being targeted as "swinging the lead" and are being persecuted as such. If you are thinking that "persecuted" might be too strong then you might be wrong. Taking Benefits from these disabled people while they are being investigated for months on end is cruel and is a form of persecution. The government calls them "sanctions" in order soften the blow. Disabled people are either ill or suffering from mental health issues of all kinds. They are not on the whole people who are glad to be in that position.

I think that the majority of "the hard working people" would know this if they had time to really think about this issue. But then, they don't have much time to think what with all the work they have to do and all the stress of losing their jobs taking it's toll on them. Ironic really since, if they did think about it beyond the rhetoric, they might just realise that they might end up being these "scroungers" that they are being encouraged to scorn and vilify. Is half the voting public of this country so scared that they voted in the Tory government in order to implement further cuts in Benefits? It seems to me like shooting yourself in the foot.

For all the Tory voters out there, how about we go after the Bankers who are the real villains and not the most vulnerable and poor. I despair to think about the level of intelligence of the average Tory voter. This is a very rich country which is the envy of the world because of the hard earned Welfare state and the hard earned National Health Service. Once these are dismantled, they are gone for good. They will have to be hard earned again by the next generation, if they can. It seems we only know what we have when it's gone and it's too late.

It seems the powers that be always need an enemy to point the finger at and divert the "hard working people's" attention away from the real enemy. All the people need to think more clearly about just who is to blame for the recession and who the enemy really is. Before we all lose.               

Dirty, Sexy Money...and Power

Statue of Alfred the Great in Winchester

Dirty, Sexy Money...and Power

Ever since man stumbled out of the cave and started to run things for their own benefit and not for the collective good, man has sought to gain power. Power means other people do the hunting and gathering for you. Not only that, they look up to you and make more wealth for you at the same time - what's not to like? The only thing that you have to do when you gain the power is to keep it. But how do you gain it in the first place?

Well, let us go back in time to just after man had left his cave and started to slice the cake up. First let's imagine that the cake is the world land mass and the man chasing power was a big hairy cave dweller. Then let's imagine this man had enough wits to think up of just how could he do that successfully, then we get the idea. Well, I suppose he had to gain the upper hand first, possibly he had to push his weight about. Perhaps he would be like the alpha male beast of the fields who have strive to be the king of the pride of lions in order to reign over all. So when this is achieved he would gain the pick of the lady lions to mate with. He would systematically do so just to prove himself to the others in the pack and then be able to start making some rules.

Over time, the alpha male must show his strength by gathering an army and showing his strength and mastery over any given situation. Thus, he slowly gains the respect of his fellow tribesmen and women and at the same time gathers wealth for himself. He then eventually becomes King in this patriarchal society; where muscle and power is all. As the time rolls by; folk lore and history is manipulated to such a degree that he has now been elevated to a divine being who is the embodiment of God on earth and ruler of all he surveys.

Thus hierarchical structures are slowly but surely put into place down the centuries. The earth is cut up and divided into section areas and countries owned and run by rulers. Rules turn into strategic methods in which folk lore is turned into history. Thus, belief and behaviour is insidiously manipulated so that the ruler and the ruled are entrenched in subliminal behaviours and role play. Each man and woman play out their appointed roles and each must know their place and stick to it, or else.

And so it goes, down the centuries just by an accident of birth. If you think of all the stupid and in-bred examples in Royal families around the world throughout history, then it is quite obvious that the first bright sparks of Royalty did not necessarily pass that on to their offspring. It would then follow that even if you were the alpha male back in time, it does not mean that your offspring are deserving of all the inherited wealth and position you have "won" because of your talents.

Now, you may wonder why the saying goes, "dirty, sexy, money". Let me put forth some thoughts here for you dear reader to ponder. Firstly, let me take the word "dirty" which for most people will have connotations of immorality; in that sins are usually connected to religion. Therefore,  if sinning is construed as "dirty" then the love of money is definitely seen as one of the deadly sins. Indeed, in the Bible it is usually referred to as the "root of all evil". Why "sexy" (as above) power equals sexy usually because men have proved themselves to be alpha and can have their pick of the women. In a patriarchal society where women frequently (until very recently) have bartered themselves for such men, money and power go hand in hand.

Power is the key to this. All the structures within all the so called "civilised" societies around the world are run by hierarchies of men. We usually  refer to the class structure as from the "bottom to the top" with all the connotations that that implies. The top being the most powerful and the bottom being the least. These structures have been put in place down the centuries and held together with the help of Religion. Sometimes religions have been very violent in keeping their power in place; using violent means in showing their strength lest any free thinkers ask too many questions.

Fast forward to today. Over the last century or so, mainly because of the radical revolutionary changes in the industrial and technological world, society is much harder to control. Religion has been questioned and does not hold as much of its power for the Western world. The Eastern religions have not lost their power but (arguably) have been tinkered with it in order to keep a tighter hold on their followers. Consequently, the world is divided as never before.

In the West, we have been kept in our place using various methods in the modern world. We no longer see the sins of religion as having any power over us. Therefore, the powerful who seek to keep that for themselves at any cost, must use modern methods. For one, they use the modern worlds goods and chattels to entice us all. By using very powerful advertising methods which utilise subliminal and psychological methods in order to persuade us that we can attain them. We just have to climb the greasy pole to the top and gain some of the power and the cake for ourselves and our offspring.

Whilst this is clearly true for some, it is only attainable for the few. It is increasingly being made much more difficult to do so because the strictures of every country's monitory system is actually set up to keep this under control. It is slowly dawning on a lot of very intelligent people that this is actually the case.  It is the way the wealthy elite of the world have put measures into place to help them keep their wealth and prevent it trickling down to the rest of us. In fact statistics prove that only one per cent of the population owns all the power in the world. Everyone else has very little of that wealth and power. In fact, it is believed that a lot of the world's population is deliberately kept in poverty.

As for the West, many ambitious people quite understandably aspire to "better themselves" by paying for a good education and eventually buying a house. By acquiring a little piece of the cake for themselves and their family. However, it is somewhat an illusion that they can be middle class if they remain hard working and tow the line. It increasingly seems that in the future generations, the middle class home owner will not find it so easy to fulfil their ambitions. Indeed it is questionable just how much their ambitions are actually their own? Could they actually be more ideas that have been subliminally induced in us through the powerful methods mentioned above? It is difficult sometimes to know where our own ideas spring from.

I hope that all the people of the world, regardless of their religion become free thinking and see that a belief can survive no matter what religion a person is born into by accident an of birth. I hope that slowly but surely everybody will be set free to think for themselves and not blindly follow what they have been indoctrinated with. You only have to look how history has been manipulated down the centuries to see that we have all been unwittingly brainwashed in order to keep the few in power and keep most of us in our place. It's up to us to change things, or else they just stay the same and we remain in chains.