British Tea - We're Out Of Time

Earlier this week, David over at Witterings from Witney wrote an article entitled We the People.As I often do, I took the opportunity to read and it particularly resonated with me, because it chimed with what has been taking place in my mind around the need for the UK to have its own Tea Party movement, similar to the Americans. I was travelling somewhere when I read it and was originally writing a comment on the site, but computer stuff happened which wouldn't post my comment.

I went back to it today and noticed that there were still no comments on the article.  People have a right to enter or not enter a comment but it got me thinking.  Many blogs such as WfW have a combination of articles.  Some are observation and some like the article in question have an action aspect to them.  Those with the action aspect call on people to take what they read further and to the next step.  I often find what I call the observation blogs generate a plethora of comment and debate.  Those that call for action however seem to be short on many responses and certainly short on responses that suggest some action will come from the reader.  The problem isn't just combined to blogs however - the same issue rears its head on mainstream media sites.  As I've commented before, there's a popular cry of "someone should do something"   without actually considering themselves.  Unfortunately shattering the wall of silence and political inertia is a numbers game.  They won't change until someone exerts some pressure on them in sufficient numbers.

I often wonder why the lack of action and why people seem to be content to sit on their hands.  I wonder if in part that somehow everything will be okay and that it will all iron itself out.  If not that then maybe they think there will be plenty of time in the future to sort this out.  The latter part is something often said of the British people - that they'll leave it till the last minute when the signs are obvious and only then will they act.

 I happen to think differently at present.   I think we need a Tea Party style movement in this country and personally I think we're out of time to sit on our hands any longer.  Something needs to happen very soon.

To get a feel for why I feel this way, we need to take a look at the situation in Greece and by that I mean wandering a little bit off the path the mainstream media leads us along in its coverage.  One area is the recent Greek elections.  The result was typically billed by our press as a vote for the austerity measures.

I don't think it was that.  That was not what the people were thinking when they strolled off to the voting booth on election day.  The reality of what they voted for was that of putting off the inevitable.  They wanted the bailout money.  Anything to avoid cutting to the chase and pushing through their problem.

It is understandable because their nation is in a dark place at the moment. Somewhere that we only brush the surface of in our nightly news reports.  Whilst we often see snippets of the need to tighten belts, we're not hearing much about the hospitals which are running out of medicines to care for the sick.  Nor are we hearing much of the parents, so broke, they are giving up their children to orphanages.  They are in truly desperate times and so any notion that it could get worse by being cut from the Euro bailout packages is more likely to trigger a vote to continue with the status quo

Whichever way they go I feel they will end up in the same place - broke with disastrous consequences.  They are damned either way.  The bailouts are in reality nothing more than politicians kicking the can down the road.  The problem is that although they end up in the same place, the scale of the problem increases exponentially.  That's because the politicians don't have an answer.  Well they do but none of them have the courage to tell the people the scale of the problem.  One that politicians have contributed to year after year, election after election.  Their principal motivation of keeping themselves in positions of power has seen them spend money like it would never end and every time it went wrong they just extended the overdraft, passing the bill onto someone else.

Greece isn't alone.  It's the same in many places. In the US, it's widely acknowledged on their current spending levels, the US economy will cease to exist after 2027.  Worse still is that they know this yet their treasury has no plan to deal with it.  Senator Paul Ryan has offered an a plan to address this, but those politicians who like to spend, don't like it Ryan's plan and conclude they want to continue down the road they're currently going on.  It's also the same here in the UK as we too continue to borrow to supplement our government spending addiction.

If we keep on as we have in an economy borrowing more each year to perpetuate the myth of Government largesse we will go the way of Greece.  When I think of this, my mind goes to a dark place indeed.  We only have to look back at the riots of 2011 to see how fragile the veil of civility is.  We've grown to believe over the last few decades that somehow we're entitled to everything we need for a happy life.  We've grown over the last few decades to believe that everything that was here yesterday will be here today and tomorrow and the day after.  We're no longer in a position where we can easily accommodate an interruption to our lives.  Look at how we reacted to the non existent petrol crisis of 2011.

I worry when we have small or perceived problems how quickly things break down because of what would happen if we had a significant level of shortage brought about by a lockup in the system, brought about by an inability to pay for the fabric of everyday life.

We're borrowing money left right and centre as a country to pay for things we think we're entitled to, just like many other countries.  Our politicians are fuelling that.  Because their prime concern is their own place at the seat of power, they're breeding a nation of dependents and repeating what they've always done.  What makes this unforgivable is they know where this spending is heading and yet continue to bring it closer at an ever increasing speed.  When it goes bang (as it will have to at some point if unchecked) those voters who they have dependence on the state into will have nothing to call on in terms of self reliance.  Faced with the need to feed and shelter their loved ones - the madness and the darkness will ensue.

So it has to stop and an alternate plan implemented.  There is no more time for the sitting on of hands.  There is no more time for vain hope that the current plan will work.  There is no more time for politicians to continue with their myth that they have a handle on this.  Momentum is picking up along with the speed.  If we are to avoid or minimise the problems we need a change of direction.  Only our politicians can put us on that track, but they will not whilst they think they can delude us.  We need to act.  We need our movement.

Our house is already on fire - we're out of time.

Do you still want to write "someone should do something"?