Capitalists - Please don’t insult and patronise me with rubbish and meaningless statements such as “We can’t trust where the money goes” or … “Capitalism means the money trickles down” … it’s just a lot of cobblers quite frankly. As I watch Comic Relief - and cry - I cannot help but think of the words of Archbishop Dom Helder Camara as follows “When I feed the poor, I am called a saint. When I ask why they are poor, I am called a communist”
I read recently that if you are on the MINIMUM WAGE in the UK you are among the top 11% wage earners in the world.
This is not about charity – it’s about justice!
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5 comments:
Hi Trevor,
Did you have a bad day? I actually agree with you, but could putting it so bluntly and harshly be seen as a bit, um, impolitic? Winning a debate requires respectful listening and then a rebuttal of the opposition's view, point by point. The view we agree on and that Archbishop Camara articulates is called social justice Christianity. If you want to learn more I recommend the website www.sojourners.com I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
Respectfully,
John
Hi John - good to hear from you.
No … on the contrary …. I’d had a fabulous day when I wrote the blog post.
I watched Comic Relief for 4 hours or so on TV on Friday evening. I watched in awe as ordinary UK Citizens donated over £74 million for good causes worldwide. I watched vivid and emotional TV pictures of suffering, starvation and abject poverty in Africa where children are dying unnecessarily for the sake of a few pounds. At the same time I hear of obscene personal bonuses paid to London bankers and City Financial managers – for instance 35 BILLION dollars paid in individual bonuses to Wall Street bankers in 2010!!
It’s sickening and yes I got angry. I actually think it should be illegal that individuals are allowed get such high pay while at the same time, fellow human beings suffer so much on our one planet.
If it means I get angry and put forward an emotive and harsh one sided argument that is because I AM emotionally engaged.
If that is ‘impolitic’ then so be it my friend - in my experience things VERY rarely get changed by everyone being very nice to each other – sometimes in life we (including me by the way) need to be shaken out of our comfort zone by hearing about scandalous unfairness and being made to feel guilty.
Sometimes cages have to be rattled.
I will visit the website John and thanks for the heads up on that and in the meantime I will keep rattling this particular cage until there is justice.
Hi Trevor
It is something to be angry about. The distribution of wealth in the world is not good. If it is not addressed we will see more local wars.
Bad signs are the global creation of wealth in the financial sector. Wealth that goes to the few not to the many. There is more concentration of wealth not less from these developments.
Vatican is still a powerful and wealthy state. Indeed religions around the world have not been the answer. Nor was communism - sure they re-distributed power and wealth but they also really struggled to create it.
Good signs. China is emerging along with India as economic powerhouses. Both will re-distribute wealth in their own regions. Africa should benefit too from this shift of economic power from the West to the East.
The Cameron experiment is a possible good step for the UK. Current budget will lower taxes for low paid. First home buyers get low interest loans. Will this help? Not sure but the Big Society notion could be innovative. Cutting government waste is imperative to any progress towards a fairer and more equitable society.
Cheers, Richard.
Hi Richard
Hope you and yours are well sir!
Good to hear from you and as always, measured, excellent comments.
Cameron talks as if we have never had anything like a Big Society. We have millions of people offering billions of hours free of charge in voluntary service. They've done it for decades. It’s a personal insult by Cameron to those people to suggest this is new. Rest assured Richard there is NOTHING NEW in Cameron’s ideas – they are just recycled and re-labelled ideas that have existed for well over a hundred years.
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