Why hasn't there been a peoples protest?

[Ryoko]

Thinking about this the other day, we have the TUC, NUT etc coming out in force to moan about the treatment they get from the government, often treated with disdain from the masses as "they get paid more then us", "they have pensions I don't" etc.

Where is the protest for the people?, the general all encompassing protest at the incessant increase in taxation and drop in living standards that is keeping the economy down by ensuring we all keep our cash in our pockets (what little we have left).

Just a thought.

rosabud-

We really don't live in a democracy, except in name. The difference between the main political parties is a matter of degrees of shit. The electoral system ensures that other parties have little or no chance of having any seats in Parliament.

Once elected, political parties feel under no obligation to stick to their manifesto commitments. In fact, as we have recently seen, some parties are willing to do the exact opposite of what they campaigned on in their manifestos.

MPs are unaccountable to the electorate and there is no right of recall. The MPs expenses scandal also showed that they are above the law.

Why don't people get involved in this process? Partly it is being tired and having no time but there is also a sense that people don't know where to begin combined with a sense that this is the norm, rich people are getting richer, poor people are getting poorer and that's just how the world works, there is nothing you can do about it unless you win the lottery.

In terms of voting - they're absolutely right. Historically, the biggest and most powerful agent of change has always been public dissent in the form of protests, civil-disobedience, riots, boycotts and general refusal to co-operate.

We're not going to do anything about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer and a complete lack of democracy and accountability of the elite by voting for one of the two mainstream business parties.

I think most people are aware that cuts were necessary, and that public spending under Labour got ridiculous, plenty of people said that to me even during the boom years. "Anti-austerity" is bullshit, argue where the cuts should be made by all means but to argue that they don't have to be made is ridiculous. We are still spending billions more than we should be doing.

I tell you what. Stop MPs making claims of tens of thousands of pounds at the public expense for vacations and champagne, and claim back the tens of billions of pounds in unpaid taxes through tax avoidance or evasion, and then claim the hundreds of billions of pounds of public money spent bailing out the banks (with interest), and then we can talk about the morality of cuts to support for disabled people.

"We're not going to do anything about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer and a complete lack of democracy and accountability of the elite by voting for one of the two mainstream business parties."

I agree with you. But we do have ways to change this (becuase we live in a domcracy) through various means from voting in elections to access to forms of political protests, some of which you mention. The reason that most people do not use any of these options is because they do not know where to begin because they are not well educated enough both about what exactly is wrong with society and about the democratic avenues open to them to be able to change it.