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2010-03-02

British people told by opposition politician to start arming themselves for a class war

Source:    http://www.eutimes.net/2010/02/british-people-told-by-opposition-politician-to-start-arming-themselves-for-a-class-war/print/
Title:   British people told by opposition politician to start arming themselves for a class war

By:   Edmund Conway
Date:  02/28/2010

The recession has increased the wealth gap to dangerous levels, and George Osborne does not seem serious about tackling it, says Edmund Conway.

If you don’t work in the City or in economics, you may not have heard of the annual Mais lecture, which was delivered last night by George Osborne. But it’s a big deal, arguably the most important set-piece speech in the Square Mile calendar. And only once before has City University, the host, deigned to invite an opposition politician primed for election to deliver it.



On that occasion, the young thrusting pup at the lectern derided a government in crisis, its finances in a state, its economic reputation in tatters. He promised to cut the deficit, to intervene in markets where necessary, and laid out a “new framework” for running the economy. That man was Tony Blair.

Last night, George Osborne became the second opposition politician to deliver the lecture. His title? “A New Economic Framework”. That aside, the difference could hardly be more stark. In 1995, the economy was in recovery. With the deficit past its peak, the great transformation in macro-economic management had already taken place, when the collapse of the Exchange Rate Mechanism forced Britain to start targeting inflation rather than exchange rates.

Today, the economy is in a far more damaging spiral. The first leg of the financial and economic crisis, which stemmed from excessive private borrowing and the subsequent collapse of the banking industry, is over. The second leg, characterised by a crisis of sovereign debt in even the richest economies, is only just beginning. The Bank of England’s inflation-targeting approach is under question from sources as authoritative as the International Monetary Fund. The world economy looks increasingly vulnerable to a “double-dip”, tipping back into recession or stagnation rather than bouncing back to health.

More important, both political parties are committed to spending cuts of a scale never before experienced by the public. Ignore the fuss about economists’ letters: based even on Labour’s plans for public spending, the next half-decade will be the first time in modern history that a government has imposed five successive years of real spending cuts. The question is not about timing (the Tories would cut earlier and slightly more) but over who will push the cuts through. Labour perennially disappoints and misses its fiscal targets. What most recommends the Tories is the pedigree that suggests they will at least approach the task with some relish.

All the same, Osborne is terrified of imposing such deep and painful cuts. He privately despairs that he will end up as the most unpopular politician in modern history. Which helps explain his plan, spelt out last night, to set up a three-man Office for Budget Responsibility to advise him on how far to cut spending. The hope is that the OBR will attract the opprobrium when state-sector workers are laid off or given pay cuts, when VAT is raised, when the retirement age is increased, and when public-sector pensions are finally tackled.

However, as good a start as the lecture made, it failed to address the scale of the social task facing the Tories. Osborne mentioned the Conservatives’ plans to tackle inequality, but only as an afterthought. And that is precisely what the divide between rich and poor has been for decades: a worthy economic topic that is too big, nebulous and intractable to tackle. I suspect that this is about to change. We have known for some time that income disparities have climbed to the highest level since the Thirties. What is new, and worrying, is that whereas this gap narrowed as a consequence of the Great Depression – as the wealthiest lost money and the poorest benefited from the newly created social safety nets – this time the crisis has served to widen the chasm, not least because the plutocratic bankers were bailed out with taxpayers’ cash.

In part, inequality is a natural consequence of globalisation. When a company shifts factories overseas, the shareholders make more money, but the workers lose their jobs. Optimists claim that this wealth should trickle down to those unemployed workers as the shareholders go out and spend more, but reality has proved otherwise. According to Albert Edwards of Société Générale, homeowners have been distracted from noticing this disparity by housing bubbles that convinced them they were becoming wealthier. But that fantasy has been obliterated by the crisis.

The poorest today are, in absolute terms, less destitute than before, able to afford food, shelter, even satellite TV. But the disparity between them and the richest has risen. It is not merely, as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out in their book The Spirit Level, that this damages health and encourages crime; in times of austerity, inequality can tear apart the social fabric. Take Greece, where the most frequent chant in this week’s riots was: “Make the plutocrats pay!”

So Ed Balls’s plan to pitch this election as a class war is, I’m afraid, on the button. Class, money and privilege will be unavoidable issues during the next parliamentary term. Rather than ignoring them, the Tories must take action. Better to start thinking about free-market reforms that share the wealth more equitably than to leave it to the Left to suggest that taxes on the wealthy are the only solution.



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8 comments:

  1. "why" are the powers that be more afraid of our initiative than they are of violence???

    Probably because the ptb think (or hope!) that they have face to face violence all wrapped-up. Argue with a cop, he'll spray you with nerve gas; fight back and they'll attack you mob-handed and beat you to a pulp; if other citizen s take your part they'll mobilize re-enforcements; throw a stone and they'll use water canon, nerve gases; armoured vehicles; armoured troops, baton charges...; use a pistol, they'll use assault rifles; use an assault rifle, they'll use helicopter gunships, bomb you and your families with white phosphorous, torture innocent people for information, use collective punishments on entire peoples, collapse economies to starve and impoverish the opposition etc etc etc. up to and including, no doubt, laying waste to the planet with nuclear bombs or depopulating it with manufactured diseases

    but aren't many of these things happening anyway?

    And don't they just laugh at navel-gazing, time-wasting, misdirecting, energy-sapping, demoralizing, emotion-capping "initiatives"

    Name one that worked

    Is it really true that they have it all wrapped up?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Show me one link to an initiative like this one with the objects and goals of this one?

    Think about it. They call for war, and no one shows up, right? What are they going to do about it? What can they do about it? If our willing to die for what you believe in, then this is the way to do it because they will have no way to counter this action.

    Nothing will work as we hit them from all sides, blogging with facts and documentation of the real issues and culprits, then their propoganda begins to look tinny, that won't work, then we refuse to do any of the things they NEED DONE SINCE THEY ARE SO FEW. We are working on that now in putting a plan together for this initiative on what areas, how, who, and recruitment.

    The more people, the bigger it grows the more scared they will get because they are so few. Those they would depend on to defend them if we rebel, WILL NOT DEFEND THEM IF WE ARE RESISTING THROUGH THESE MEANS SINCE WE WILL BE UNARMED.

    Its worked before with mahatma Ghandi.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Vatic,

    The real story.

    The reason that Gandhi was not murdered by the British initially was because Sub Sandra Bose was the head of the military arm of the India
    resistance. So when the British found out that Boss went to the Japanese in Burma and was assured weapons for fighting the British, Churchill had no other choice but to meet with Gandhi. Churchill knew that Japan could supply enough weapons to tie up the whole British Army in India. Therefore, the British made a peaceful agreement to keep India out of the war.

    Churchill hated Gandhi. Bose would have seriously brought the Jewel of the Empire to its knees. At the end of W.W.II both Gandhi and Bose were assassinated.

    If Gandhi didn’t have Bose he would have been murdered right at the beginning of the war along with many other Indian nationalist.

    Bose is actually the Nationalist Hero of India. His image is more present in most cities and states throughout India than is Gandhi's.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Now that is a very very interesting piece of information and it would be seriously nice if you had a link to that so others could share it and straighten out history.

    But, it is pure insanity to go up against the microwave weapon with handguns or Ak's or AR's. We were stupid enough as a people not to have better oversight on our government which allowed them to get to the point where they took our taxes to fund research in weapons that would be used against us, so we still have no one to blame for that and we still have only one real choice.

    If we absolutely refuse to cooperate at all, they will be dealing with 6.5 billion people giving them the finger and that is no small thing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Vatic,

    I'm the author of the above Bose history. I'm ex military. Your comment above is border line panic mode. If anything, now is the time to remain calm and centered.

    Yes, the news is bad, but cool heads have to prevail and focus on events with analytical critical thinking as they develop.

    Things will unfurl as time passes and weaknesses
    in their intentions will become obvious.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Just curious. What part of it was borderline panic mode? I guess you don't know me, but I was not panicing over any of that at all. I could never have started the people-to-people initiative if I was in a panic mode.

    So, how did you determine that based on what I said??? Just curious because this initiative is going to be done mostly through this type of communciation and I do not want to miscommunicate or give the wrong impression, so your feedback would be appreciated in where you obtained that feeling of panic in me. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Vatic,

    First of all I think your overall opinion is spot on...



    "...But, it is pure insanity to go up against the microwave weapon with handguns or Ak's or AR's. We were stupid enough as a people not to have better oversight on our government which allowed them to get to the point where they took our taxes to fund research in weapons that would be used against us, so we still have no one to blame for that and we still have only one real choice..." ...Vatic, we never have "only one real choice." There are many other possibilities (which I really don't want to offer in this reply. Such matters should not be offered on the internet), But please don't misunderstand my opinion as to concerning "other possibilities" they will arise as things evolve and develop.

    Keep up the good fight but avoid revealing any of the cards we are holding in our hands. This is serious business, my friend, be angry but cautious.

    But I will say this, never confront the enemy straight on. Attrition is the best and most valuable weapon. The prolong harassment and gradual diminution in number or strength because of constant stress is one. Read "stress" as casualties.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I am aware there are options, I just meant that the direct approach is suicide and wasteful of good people. I wish that guy at the pentagon had contacted us or the one who flew his plan into that building because they were brave and if "unknown" could have been valuable in any fight we chose to engage in.

    Having said that, I believe, at least for a while we are at the point were we can do what our program recommends and have an affect, however, at one time my favorite phrase was about the bankers "Target specific, and one at a time".

    I realized when you choose to do that early on, all that happens is someone steps in to take his place and that is why I believe this works better for the very fact you CAN do this out in the open since your breaking no laws. Thus you can discuss it and do it.

    I also realize the time is coming when we are finally down to the last resort, so I am not shutting the door on that possibility. WE do not know a lot of things right now to be able to judge if there is a better way. We all don't know who is doing what underground already.

    Who is attacking assets that we don't know about. Who took out those 16 bankers internationally??? Are there more gone that they are burying in the press? So,I am not unaware of potentials, leaderless resistance or how the truly bad guys are. I am also at a place where I realized I lived at a time when this country was truly free and I will never accept less.

    So that tells you where I come from.

    ReplyDelete

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