Policywonk, in a smart coat, LIVE FROM WESTMINSTER

[policywonk]

Hello and welcome

I've got my dongle working! Woohoo!

Today is a briefing day organised by the G20 Voice peeps.

Am networking like a wild thing. Oh look, there's Michelle O. 'Scuse me.

yes, you're absolutely right re collective responsibility.

But I think - vitally - that we all need to take responsibility for demanding far greater regulation. And you might disagree?

Just to spool back - KayHarker, you've put it perfectly.

Yes Kay, I mean that regulation needs overhauling, not that it was absent before.

(Christ alone knows how though. I know more about God than I do about capitalism)

Well, I'm not the biggest fan in the world of the Catholic church, but I'm under the vague impression that religiously motivated aid work/charity is a significantly helpful thing in all of this (I might even suggest that GWB's only real worthwhile contribution, mentioned earlier ont' thread, was religiously motivated).

Religious leaders do speak out and encourage action - John Sentamu is a bloody marvel for it.

And I am essentially not very clever so forgive me too

WHY is it so rare though, Kay? Why, given the message of Jesus and his Politicalness with a cap P, are there so few religious movement with the specific and acknowledged aim of eradicating equality, and not simply with ameliorating suffering?

Why does it all have to happen in the 'next life'? (sorry quotemarks not contemptuous, just to indicate my ..erm notbelieving thing)

I suppose what I'm saying is that if the masses hadn't been drip fed the prospect of a better life in heaven for centuries they might not have put up with so much crap for so long and we wouldn't be in the state we're in now

Onebatmother - Surely eradicating suffering is more pressing than eradicating inequality?

I wish I knew. (I'm assuming you meant eradicating poverty - sadly I can think of quite a few that want to eradicate equality)

FWIW, it's not just Jesus, it's all through the Old Testament too - if you read proverbs and the books of the law, those who cheat and deal unjustly with the poor are condemned in some of the most hair-raising terms.

Religious folk get their knickers in a twist - and are reported as getting their knickers in a twist, about sexual matters all the time, - but the vast bulk of the religious text of my faith is all about justice for the widow and the orphan.

If I had any clout, I'd be raising my voice about it nationally, but I don't have any dangly bits between my legs, and some religious folk, as is the case with some secular folk, still think that means my voice doesn't quite carry the same weight.

I didn't say 'eradicating suffering' though, Swedes i said ameliorating. If they really were eradicating suffering, then I'd of course not have a leg to stand on.

Inequality causes suffering, so although the work of ameliorating suffering is very very important, it's ultimately a sticking plaster.

One consequence of inequality between nations is that it tends to concentrate economic power in the wealthier nations, so making it harder for the poorer ones.

Also, the recent crash will be increasing absolute poverty quite significantly, so it's not as if capitalism right now is scoring well on eradicatin/ameliorating that..

snice, well, I suppose it's one way of looking at it. TBH, I think humans are quite happy to be lulled into inaction by anything and everything - be it the idea of heaven eventually, or a culture made up of a steady stream of mind-numbing entertainment

Kay - that's why we need to be charged with a sense of individual and collective political responsibility. Blaming bankers is just a laugh.

Swedes, I completely agree. Blaming bankers is a politicians trick, akin to blaming 'immigrants'. Divide and rule, innit?

Spot on.

politics of distraction etc.

Bloody hell, just seen the violent protesters and the hugely self-controlled police on news.
They really are just football hooligans. You'd never quite get that truth from reading a report. You have to see them screaming in the face of the coppers, and that 'comeon then you cunt i'll ave you' body language that they do. Vile.

Re: the politics of distraction
I was just discussing this with dp who is an architectural photographer. He's been taking photos - with an assistant and some quite posh-looking kit - of a mixed-tenure development today (some 3/4 million houses, some social housing).

The 3/4 million people were inviting him in and talking about Livign Etc - the social housing ones thought he was a paedophile and telling him to fuck off.

That is pol of distraction because the whole peedo-hating thing is a way of finding a social group more hated and excluded than you, so that you feel better about yourself -- like pooor white trash racism?

But I don't think they thought he was a peedo. I think they chose the insult most likely to hurt him and completely wrongfoot him and make him mistrust himself or his appearance. V. aggressive, not self-consoling.

Like the shit of a man who told me 'fuck off lesbian' when I tried to stop him manhandling his girlfriend outside a pub.

Just as bad as feet-dragging indolence, imo. Ill-directed rage is utterly pointless.

What a radical thing to do! Broken windows have such a productive record in the history of dealing with injustice!

I shall go and brick one of my panes right now.