Intermission: Voting is the bare minimum we can do to affect change.

None of the evidence given in my previous blog was meant to give the impression that the current level of voting of works. 

When people refuse to engage with the world around them citizens will find themselves as serfs beneath the status quo. When the rights that previous generations fought for are seen by the current generation to be a complete waste of time then we have failed to realise how much we have lost by refusing to remain as engaged with our times as our ancestors were.

Should 90% of the population actively do something as simple as voting then perhaps we would be able to formulate an actual revolution. If you can not even get people out to vote how can we get people together for a revolution? How can we hope to gauge what the nation thinks when most of it has decided to partake in the "silent treatment"?

I ran in an election and according to the sheet I saw, less than 20% of the student population voted in the election! I received messages from concerned residents/students about the way in which things were going and how a Starbucks was now in the Guild. If so many people disliked their President and the actions of the Guild though they could have voted en masse for someone else. Or created a movement of some kind that would attempt to dispose of the people they dislike...but that goes back to my previous point and how so many refuse to use their vote in the first place.

Getting people to vote is difficult because the only ones knocking on people doors are those working or believing in a political party already. One of the reasons why I lost an election is because I refused to do that. I felt that such an invasive approach is partly why people turn away from politics however the system we have rewards people for invading the lives of others. So we find ourselves in a broken system. Politicians like to get right into our comfort zones and then they will proceed to sell us the salt of Earth in order to gain our vote...

A few years later we find that the salt they sold was us was some cheap kind from Poundland and our vote has been used to bash everything we hold dear. My nan said that she is never voting Lib Dem again after siding with them for over 50 years. I did not ask whether that meant she would ever vote again because betrayal is a sore point and that is what our political leaders have done. That betrayal has been felt across all generations. We can not cast away a right that was fought for because we feel it has lost it's shine. The vote works but the way in which politicians attempt to gain our vote has been damaging the system for years.

Instead of speaking to us honestly, they fall into hyperboles and the greatest example I have at the moment was when David Cameron referred to Ed Miliband as a "con man" in the last PMQs. 

Paxman's argument was pretty solid but the way in which he argued against Brand was like some old man belittling a child for daring to dream. When attempting to teach another human something important, Paxman's referral to Russells' ideas as "trivial" was an unsupportive act. 

If that interview was a PMQ, Paxman would have found himself being told off by the Speaker for using unparliamentary language.  Criticise the point & the policies but never attack the person's person.

The legitimate body that gets to lead our Parliament is primarily decided by the vote. If we throw that all away, there will still be people voting and the main three parties will have fewer people to see in order to gain the reins of power. As the attempt to get AV in place failed this means that in order to get people we need to lead our country away from the three party system we need nothing short of a revolution in order to get such people into power. 

However by throwing away our vote we would be declaring to those in power at the moment that we are so happy with them, we will not vote for the other guy either. We just let things stay as they are and that the MPs can keep their jobs that currently pay over £100k a year!

We would be tacitly enabling tyranny by casting away our vote because our leaders would still gain votes from a select few that would still bother too. The MPs would then have no reason to care about the masses when the masses feel they have no reason to care about voting. 

Thank you for reading.

Feel free to share this blog.

I doubt it would be shared though as the majority of people feel dirty when discussing politics but that is something we need to shake off if we have any desire to change things.

Intermission: My Personal View about Brand's View.

I would like to begin by stating that I feel that Jeremy Paxman beame the embodiment of all that is wrong with the status quo in the U.K. Paxman attempted to belittle Russell Brand and Brand ended up becoming an erratic messianic figure that expressed our contempt towards the system with such emotion, watching that interview felt empowering in parts. UPDATE: Paxman recently admitted that he chose not to vote in the last election! (7) However he also said;

""Whether you bother to vote or not, someone is going to sit on those benches and tell you what to do."

It is hard to disagree with the idea that we need change/revolution when the UN Development Report of 2013 observed that Britain is now one of the most unequal countries in the world. (1) Our political establishment have done the opposite to relieve the costs and pressures of housing . 

Abolishing the spare room subsidy, otherwise known as "The Bedroom Tax" has been one of the numerous tyrannical things our Government has done to the citizens of our country to date because suitable housing does not actually exist. House building was reported to be at it's lowest level since the 1920s.(2) 

Combine these together and throw in a UN observer and you find out that our human rights have actually been threatened by this policy as it has directly impacted our right to (3) Michelle Rolnik was referring to Article 25:

• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

I think that Brand has tapped into the public's outrage incredibly well and that journalists will never be able to pin him down because the current political establishment has become so strong because of journalism's failure to expose the tyranny of our Government. The current cuts we have been witnessing is an entirely ideological endeavour that has only been possible because of Labour's costly endeavors, the bank bail out and the general misinformation we have about the welfare system. 

The current move by the coalition to eradicate the welfare net that exists should be a cause of concern for everyone. With companies such as Remploy having the plug pulled from them (for 67 years they gave disabled people a safe & secure working environment). Now those same people that were in a safe working environment have found themselves unemployed, in one of the harshest political/employment climates ever for an unemployed person and no doubt many of those unemployed workers will be subject to an ATOS assessment within the near future.

I was put on a series of group sessions by the Job Centre whilst unemployed and each day we would be shown potential leads for employment. One lead was the Army. One of the people in the room suffers from disabilities to such an extent that even the Recruitment officer wondered why the lady had been sent to him. Any disabled worker that has been recently made redundant is going to be dealing with a lot of frustrating scenarios ¬___¬. This makes me unhappy.

I fear greatly about the direction that our leaders are taking us in and I can appreciate the reasons as to why someone might not wish to vote when our political leaders are incapable of standing against the rising inequalities that are becoming more and more apparent. 

However Brand's own point that to vote is to support a broken system is a broken idea in itself.

To throw away one's vote though is an act of silence. A refusal to let your voice be known to those that would represent you.
To throw away one's vote is to declare that universal suffrage was a waste of time.
To throw away one's vote is to take away the chances of lesser known candidates outside the main 3 parties that could potentially help us all as they are not part of big party agenda.

Instead of throwing away your vote, assemble into groups and create a political movement!
The Monster Raving Loony Party was originally called the "‘Sod em All Party" As the founder believed that the political parties of his day did not give a damn about the people of this country. Also they exist to point out the fallacies of our establishment.

There are pressure groups that exist. These groups tend to be made up of concerned citizens that are aware of the failures that our system has and they have ideas on how to to change things for the better. A friend recently suggested that I look up the Campaign for Democracy. I have attached a web link to this blog but as I am still in the process of reading it I can not really give any feedback at the moment.

What I can say however is that every generation in this country had  and will continue to have people that seek change and people that feel apathy towards the establishment. This is not new. What is new is that so many are able to express their disdain and dystopian visions of our world become common place. 

My two main major faults with Brand relate to his use of the word "revolution". I could write blogs about other ideas that have come and gone and some that still stick around thanks to the support of groups that remain engaged with the world around them but that would probably be for another day. Simply put there are many thinkers out there with some revolutionary ideas and Jaques Fresco's Venus Project will probably make you smile as it is a nice idea.

The second fault relates specifically to his view on voting and that by voting you "tacitly support" the broken system. By paying our taxes are tacitly supporting the broken system, by abiding by the law, by refusing to support workers that dare to strike and by screaming at the unemployed the citizens of UK support the broken system. Democracy was seen as one of the worst models of Government by the ancient Greeks for a reason.

Your vote is not a waste of time. Universal suffrage was not freely given but fought for us by people that understood the importance of being able to choose who represents us in our Government.

Do not let Brand's message turn you away from voting. There are many important issues happening at once and we can not afford to be silent. Talking is all well and good but your vote forces politicians to listen because they have a lot to lose if they are defeated in an election.

Instead throwing away your vote, get behind the politicians that are outside the 3 main parties and make an actual movement that could threaten everything they hold dear.
I would gladly join such a movement.

My deepest apologies for the length of this blog.

Thank you for reading and feel free to drop me a message or comment.

(1) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mps-criticise-george-osbornes-12bn-help-to-buy-plan-for-risking-housing-bubble-and-distorting-recovery-8865130.html

(2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24643093


(3) http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/regulation/un-housing-expert-tells-government-to-axe-the-bedroom-tax/6528494.article
(4) http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#atop

(5) http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/30/remploy-factories-close-disabled-workers

(6) http://campaignfordemocracy.org.uk

(7) http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/05/jeremy-paxman-russell-brand_n_4216696.html

* Safe seats. Colour coded maps showing you when seats last changed. http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/safe-seats/#1830-2010