Homeless, Unemployed, Addicted, Lonely & Hungry
In Bath (and no doubt elsewhere) people gather every evening beside a bleak car-park. They receive hot soup and coffee, sandwiches, cakes and fruit from the hands of willing volunteers. The churches of the city and district give this free service to their neighbours on a rota.
Elsewhere, Julian House provides shelter, move-on housing and rehabilitation. In Bath, and now in Somer Valley, voluntary organizations, the churches, and the Ammerdown Centre have organized Food Banks. These arrange, with the help of supermarkets and individuals, basic food supplies for people who have qualified for welfare benefits, but who face a penniless gap before their giro cheque arrives.
Are we, I wonder, going back to days like those of the depression in the 1930s, the time of the Jarrow Work March? The voluntary response to real needs on our doorstep is wholly admirable. But is this social justice? We live in a rich and technologically advanced age. In the City of London, and even in public services, huge bonuses are still paid. The few receive golden hellos, hand-shakes, and pension pots. The top sports players and entertainers get rewards beyond the imagination of the ordinary worker. Some can afford yachts and private jets, while at humbler levels many are over-fed and over-weight.
Is it not high time that we discussed these issues with our elected councillors and Members of Parliament? We are offered a combination of financial cuts and welfare reform. Will these be sufficient to restore fairness in society, to reduce envy and to give again a sense that everyone can contribute to the common good of all?
Are we, I wonder, going back to days like those of the depression in the 1930s, the time of the Jarrow Work March?
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Pretty soon.
The problem is that you aren’t asking why.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_263808.pdf
4.7 trillion in off the book debts. There are other debts too such as the borrowing and losses on insurance contracts.
That’s the problem. The fiddling of the books has meant that you’ve run up a legacy of debt that can never be paid.
That means those that are owed the money, pensions are going to be defrauded even more than they are now. Currently they get 20p back for each pound of value contributed, and you can’t even pay that.
The welfare system has defrauded people left right and center.
The problem is people like you try and justify it, by denying that the debts exist.
@Lord Blagger:
Here is a little bit of fun for you to dwell on. It tells you how Capitalism works and why it doesn’t work in our favour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFC18pFvo1g&feature=endscreen&NR=1
@Lord Hylton:
The situation is far worse than you think. Our people have taken on the lunacy of the Victoran age under the pretence of a welfare state, paid for by the working class, which no longer has a duty to provide the benefits they signed up for.
Who, as Blagger writes, have been duped into handing over their money. Whilst the top earners suck up millions in bonuses and avoid tax, thereby creatong a destabilised society as they do. All of them too stupid to realise it will backfire on them. They feel they will be insulated from pain as they have it all.
Oh, yes, now I will tell you why I say that greed creates greed.
When I lived in a very posh part of LA called Bel-Air, the person who owned the mansion of my residence had a mother who was elderly and very ill. She was the one who made him a multi millionaire or should I say billionaire, by marrying rich four times.
She didnt live in that big beautiful house, even though it was hers, she lived down on the Parkway in Beverly Hills. Another great old 1920’s property. Well, her house was shut down, covered in dust sheets, except for one ground floor room, admittedly huge, with pocket doors leading into a second space. It was the old study and library when the place was jumping.
She’d had a stroke, but, was functioning mentally and knew everyone when she saw them, which was rare. The son, who was waiting impatiently for her to meet her maker, as he couldn’t freely use the cash until she did, would come there once a week but not looking at her.
He visited so that he could get a free vitamin injection from her, once a week, visiting doctor. Who, of course got an enormous fee for his bother. All the bills went through the accountants who regulated the expenditure.
The room she lived in was filthy. Although she had twenty four hour care, none of them cleaned. It was beneath them. They were male nurses who barely spoke English, which was her language. They simply sat and watched TV. They never spoke to her unless it was savagely and they barely changed her sleeping clothes unless they had to. It stunk in there. They swabbed her down once a week when her doctor was on the way. And changed the bed if they were unable to get her into a chair for him to see. As they would not get paid otherwise. A bit like our care homes of the worst kind here.
Now this son was so insecure and full of greed that when a woman befriended his mother, just for the occasional chat, he put a stop to it. So the woman lay there day and night without access to watch TV, as it was too far away for her to see and with nothing but the once a day TV dinner put in the microwave and shoved down her throat. She lived for some years. The staff kept her alive because it was cushy and they needed permanent work.
And my point in writing this is, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, neglect will still pervade your life if you live for nothing but greed. If you have no loving family or friends because money was all that mattered, then you will suffer horridly. Those who kiss your hand in the good days fail to show when the going gets rough. You are no longer a fountain of pay offs.
Those who feed off the poor will one day suffer the society their greed creates and that will bring this horror to them. A world which has lost the human necessity of compassion is no world to be dying in.
Riches reside with the human spirit.
I often wonder why the protestant causes are not monastic. The Welsh dynasty sacked them, and founded the CofE, and yet it was the Welsh Cistercians who suffered most, a scientific and technologially advanced religious order many of whose Abbots were married men with families, rather like the Monaco orders today.
If more people were prepared to live in community with others, the idea of huge pay
would be rather more in perspective. There would be far more who accept none, and are humble about it,and proud of it.
I recommend familiarisation with
“Let’s Do Theology” (Laurie Green; much respected C of E thinker and do-er)
for both Spiritual and Temporal Lords;
and especially for any ordinary reader still feeling free enough to see what should and could be “in the pipe-line” for our serious general public participation and democratic-empowerment.